Why they stayed

The path along the Charles River on the Esplanade, in Boston.

—Photo by Ingfbruno

—Photo by Milos Milosevic

“On the river path in Boston beauty was most expressed as youth and intelligence. That made sense; sixty degree-giving institutions, some three hundred thousand students; that meant at least one hundred fifty thousand more nubile young women than demographics would ordinarily suggest. Maybe that was why young men stayed in Boston when their college years were over, maybe that explained why they were so intellectually hyperactive, so frustrated, so alcoholic, such terrible drivers.’’

Kim Stanley Robinson (born 1952), American writer