Dorchester frightens Emily Rooney

Don't let diversity scare you. Get out and talk to your neighbors... you might learn that you have more in common with them than you think.

Not really, she sounds like she's unwilling to try something new and thinks the Beacon Hill/Back Bay are a model for the rest of Boston. We need people in Dot who are willing to accept the current flaws it has and are willing to work to make the area better. Emily doesn't sound like such a person.

Never got the impression from watching Greater Boston that Emily Rooney was stupid... I guess that must make me an idiot; and certainly out of the loop since I never have had the 'privilege' of uttering the remark that I dread running into her in the neighborhood. Oh my, how snooty!

Yes, you may wonder why she's still on the air. But she is typical of so many celebrities and business people in the Boston area. I've lived here quite a while (28 years) after having lived in NYC, the Wash., D.C. area, Miami, FL, the Twin Cities, (St. Paul, MN) and elsewhere. And I must say that, compared w/those other areas, there's an almost unique tendency in Boston to be reciprocally loyal to those around one, irrespective of competence or lack thereof.

Emily is constantly showing her ignorance, limited intelligence and lack of preparation in nearly every episode of her shows. And she often gets tangled up in her sentences and thoughts, and just ends up muttering nearly incoherently before quickly moving on to her next thought. But she has probably been super loyal to her bosses and nice to those around her, qualities that in this town carry a whole lot more weight than intelligence or competence, the latter qualities often seeming to make many folks around here insecure, defensive and resentful.

I don't know what makes Boston that way. Perhaps it's the tendency of many folks never to leave the area, generation after generation, thus becoming overly socially dependent on one another for support and reaffirmation. It tends to foster a "get along, go along" mentality of not rocking the boat. And Emily is a prime example of where that leads us in terms of quality. I'm sure she'll be on the air until she croaks or becomes totally incompetent.

Thanks for your response. Hope you get invited back to Greater Boston -- thought you represented well.

I'd imagine Rooney tries to stir the pot a bit to keep people watching or maybe that's what the produces would like her to do... who knows for sure. I'm just thrilled to have even 30 minutes of some local coverage alternative to the awful local Fox 25 news, especially now that NECN seems to have gone downhill so dramatically.

That's because there's far less actual mayhem per block in Central Square (the police station being right there is a factor) or anywhere else in Cambridge, really. The overall crime rate is lower, too. People don't avoid areas because there's one crime there; the avoid them if there are lots. And before anyone jumps in and accuses me of not knowing what I talk about, I am well aware that there are more safe and less safe parts of Dorchester, the bottom line is that to get to many of the good parts you need to travel through, and then back through, some less-good ones, not to mention the fact that a lot of road-based routes (93, Dot. Ave., etc.) have their own unique horrors that have nothing to do with crime. Not really the case in Cambridge, where most of the things that people go there "for" can be accessed any number of ways without dealing with things that people would rather avoid.