Due to my fixation on sidewalks, I drove discussion in this thread away from my main point, which was whether suburbs are in state leadership's view of the future, or only Boston (and maybe Worcester, etc).

However, I just came back from my walk, and I don't see your point. I lived in Mukilteo, WA which has perfect sidewalks everywhere. I prefer it here. However, the only downside is the god-awful sidewalks. However, we know how to make nice sidewalks. Just look at Mukilteo. Even here, suburban strip malls have flawless concrete sidewalks. So it's not impossible in Massachusetts. We just need to do it.

I'd make like a resourceful Ukrainian and learn to re-pave the road myself*, but that's against the law.

*(Ukrainian television put out a video about how Russians, which I am ethnically, just complain about their built environment while Ukrainians go and fix it themselves. I'd love to be like a Ukrainian in that regard if the laws allowed, but at this point in MA I'd just get arrested probably.)