Massachusetts 2035 · 10 / 10

Culture

You will live in the best place on Earth to build a life

The moonshot

Build a Winning Culture in Every Community

We will make curiosity, individual initiative, teamwork, and excellence part of everyday life. Open more places to create, compete, gather, eat, and celebrate. Back the arts, local businesses, public spaces, and community traditions that make Massachusetts the #1 place to live on Earth.

The opportunity

A picture of 2035

A downtown that once emptied at five is full of restaurants, music, families, students, and local builders. People celebrate a teacher, a championship team, a scientist, and a new manufacturer with the same pride. Young people can afford to stay.

What we can build on

Massachusetts has neighborhoods, towns, universities, cultural institutions, sports traditions, coastlines, mountains, and four distinct seasons. It has the raw material for an extraordinary daily life, far beyond any one industry or city.

The gap to close

A state can be excellent on paper and still lose people who cannot afford a home or find the life they want. A winning culture has to show up in belonging, opportunity, public spaces, and things to do across the whole Commonwealth.

The work starts here.

Top three key initiatives

Build a culture of curiosity and innovation

Make it normal to ask a better question, start something, and try a new approach. Open labs, workshops, museums, studios, and local companies to students and neighbors. Let the education and jobs missions become part of everyday civic life.

Support creative spaces, small experiments, and public demonstrations across the state. Tell the stories of people building medicines, robots, energy systems, art, and local businesses. We do hard things here because we are curious about what could be better.

Back the individual and the team

Build places where people can pursue an ambition and find others to help: libraries, recreation, youth organizations, maker spaces, neighborhood groups, and local arts. Welcome people from different backgrounds and beliefs who want to contribute.

Make the basics of belonging practical. Support community events, independent restaurants, accessible public spaces, and safe travel home. The 1/3-price home, a living at 18, and meaningful local jobs give more residents the freedom to participate.

Build a champion mindset and a winning culture

Celebrate excellence in sports, teaching, healthcare, science, manufacturing, public service, and entrepreneurship. Create a Commonwealth Champions Board and an annual celebration of people whose work makes life here better.

Invest in a lively food, arts, and nighttime economy. Pursue locally chosen later hours where appropriate, paired with safe rides and neighborhood standards. Compete openly on quality of life, and measure whether residents want to stay and newcomers want to join them.

The supporting work

Let willing communities stay open later

Develop a local-option proposal for later closing hours and carefully designed hospitality reforms. Evaluate noise, worker needs, alcohol-related harm, and public safety through pilots before wider adoption.

Make a safe ride home part of a night out

Coordinate dependable late-night transportation, including existing services and qualified autonomous fleets as they become available. Use predictable fares, accessible vehicles, and clear coverage rather than assuming everyone can drive.

Celebrate the builders, not just the balance sheets

Keep the Champions Board and an annual Innovation Rally, with sponsor support and published costs. Honor durable jobs, useful inventions, community contribution, and excellence alongside company milestones.

Back independent food, arts, and local culture

Support first-time chefs, vacant-storefront reuse, live performance, and community arts. Propose a $50 million cultural-funding budget, and show participation and local economic results.

Make quality of life a statewide competition

Coordinate culture and nighttime-economy work across willing municipalities. Publish a resident-centered quality-of-life scorecard covering affordability, belonging, amenities, safety, and opportunity. Celebrate progress in smaller cities and towns as visibly as Boston.

The path to 2035

Proposed milestones. Expand against evidence, delivery, and public value.

2027
Put the three values to work
Launch the Champions Board proposal, local culture pilots, and a baseline resident survey. Invite communities to design later-hours experiments with safe transportation. Tie public storytelling to jobs, practical education, and the cancer and fusion missions.
2029
Make more places feel alive
Expand successful arts nights, food businesses, workshops, and public events beyond Boston. Hold an Innovation Rally and publish costs and participation. Report whether young adults can afford to stay and feel welcome.
2031
Win on everyday quality of life
Improve resident satisfaction and retention alongside housing affordability and real wages. Grow cultural support within an approved budget. Make safe late-night travel and accessible public spaces ordinary in participating communities.
2035
Be the place people choose
Aim to be the #1 place to live on Earth, judged by the life residents can actually lead. People come for opportunity, stay for their communities, and raise children who can see a future here. Excellence and welcome reinforce one another.

Questions & answers

Is a culture initiative a distraction from affordability?

Affordability and culture belong together. A great neighborhood that working people cannot live in fails the vision. Pair every cultural ambition with the housing, jobs, education, and mobility work that lets people enjoy it.

Will later hours create more harm?

Let communities choose their participation and define measurable conditions. Provide safe rides, enforce appropriate standards, and monitor noise, injuries, and resident experience. Change or stop a pilot when its results do not justify continuation.

How do we measure the #1 place to live on Earth?

Use a transparent set of resident outcomes and credible external comparisons, rather than inventing a single global ranking. Track affordability, safety, health, opportunity, belonging, and satisfaction. The moonshot gives direction; the evidence shows whether life is getting better.

Show the results.

The public scorecard

These are the measures we would publish to judge progress.

Resident satisfaction and belonging
Young-adult retention
Net migration
Affordability
Cultural participation
Local business activity
Safe access to public life