Actually, the word story isn’t quite right. A better word is overstory. An overstory is the upper layer of foliage in a forest, and the size and density and height of the overstory affect the behavior and development of every species far below on the forest floor. I think that small-area variation—such as what distinguishes Waldorf schools from other schools and what sets Boulder apart from Buffalo—is more like an overstory than a story. It’s not something explicit that’s drilled into every inhabitant. The overstory is made up of things way up in the air, in many cases outside our awareness.
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