Thanks everyone! I do think Framingham is quite the interesting community. For a "suburb," it's extremely diverse in incomes, housing stock, ethnic groups and neighborhoods. (And yes, we do have a state college here, I'll have to check to see if they have a planning dept, good idea!)
Rte. 9 is an aesthetic nightmare, with its jumble of malls and strip malls. Most of the planning discussion you hear about it talks of things like better signage and building architecture -- which would certainly be welcome; but the real issue to me is making things human-scale and pedestrian friendly. Adding some landscaping to a sea of asphalt doesn't help the core problem. It's outrageous that you literally can't walk from one place to another less than half a mile away because it's so dangerous or unappealing. It's not just Rte. 9 -- all the other major roadways in that shopping area are pedestrian hostile. I wanted to walk with my parents from a hotel to a restaurant ACROSS THE STREET and it was so intimidating that we had to take the car. Sigh.
There is a downtown, apart from Rte. 9, and I went to a community planning meeting a few months ago that was talking about some revitalization issues. It was discouraging to hear everyone talk about getting the traffic moving better, and almost nobody talking about making an appealing streetscape and pedestrian environment. Who do they think is going to want to stop and get out of their cars if it's not an attractive destination?
OK, rant off now
Thanks for the warm welcome!
