Evidence of trouble
What happened?
It wasn't all that long ago that people were knocking down walls to move to Boston, people from all over the country, all parts of the world, people who wanted a piece of the culture, the sports, the livability, and overall vitality of the place.
We thrived in comparison. The South was antiseptic havens of cheap strip malls, Super Big Gulps, and houses that came in two styles -- new and used. The West was host to freakish disasters such as landslides, earthquakes, and forest fires. The exhausted Midwest smacked of assembly lines and coal mines.
But Boston, like San Francisco, was filled with big companies populated by smart workers doing new things, and everyone wanted to be a part of it.
Route 128 transformed into a street of dreams. Law firms such as Testa, Hurwitz & Thibeault were so busy handling corporate IPOs that they were hiring lawyers as fast as they could find them. City Hall was so flush with cash that the mayor was spreading red clay in the infields of baseball diamonds all across town. Financial institutions in downtown skyscrapers had private chefs cooking lavish lunches for senior executives every day. When you have it, you spend it.
The rate of violent crime plunged. The harbor was rapidly cleaned. The Big Dig was slowly being built.
We had a Major League Baseball All-Star game, then a Democratic Party convention. More than anything else, we had an aura, a sense of invincibility.
Now look at what's happened. Testa, Hurwitz, for example, has disbanded, which is a nice way of saying that it essentially went broke. Murders and shootings have spiked. The Big Dig is a sieve in every possible way. And the mayor is so desperate for cash that he's pushing for sleazy slot machine parlors along Route 1A.
I honestly don't know what's gone wrong over the last couple of years, but something clearly has. If you don't believe me, consider what the Census Bureau said last week. Massachusetts had a larger rate of population loss from 2000 to 2004 than any other state except New York.
People are fleeing, because they're being given little reason to stay.
Over the last couple of years, this city has taken on the unmistakable feel of a satellite town. You can all but hear the wind whistling through the open windows of the empty corporate suites. Decisions affecting thousands upon thousands of local workers are made in offices far, far away. Revenues are sent back to headquarters in other states. In many respects, we've lost the ability to determine our own fate.
Fleet is gone.
The wealthy businessmen who still make decisions all seem to be venture capitalists and hedge fund managers making more money than any sane person can imagine and, in the process, making the city seem more prosperous than it is. The middle class is getting booted to the exurbs. Next stop: another state.
How does our governor, the one who wants to leave Boston for Washington, explain this? His spokesman last week blamed the weather, as if the cold and the snow are something new. If this were true, Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont would be uninhabited forest.
This place doesn't make it easy on itself. Good God, that's an understatement. Our governors all want to flee. We regulate to the hilt. We run people through the wringer. We delight in each other's downfall. We act as if we're still a mecca when, in fact, we're a milepost.
Local good-guy Jack Connors once told me the secret to Boston's centuries of success can be summed up in one word: reinvention.
I hope he's right, and I hope we do it. Boston has lost its sense of innovation. It's also lost its groove. We need leaders -- from politics, from business, from the community -- to do something about it before it's too late.
Brian McGrory is a Globe columnist. He can be reached mcgrory@globe.com. 
