Time & Perspective Quote by Peter Berg

Berg’s line has the plainspoken urgency of someone used to sets, not senate chambers: stop admiring the skyline and start arguing about the script. “What kind of town” sounds casual, almost neighborly, but it’s a provocation. He’s framing the future as a choice, not a drift. And “how are we going to plan on that?” sneaks in the real demand: values are meaningless unless they survive budgeting meetings, zoning fights, and the slow grind of implementation.

The intent is to force specificity. Not “growth” or “vibrancy” - those are realtor words. Berg asks for a picture you can disagree with: a town for families or investors, for pedestrians or cars, for renters or homeowners, for newcomers or legacy residents. The subtext is that towns often get the future they fail to articulate. Development happens, money moves, traffic patterns harden, and then everyone acts surprised when the community no longer resembles the nostalgia they were protecting.

As an actor, Berg’s cultural authority isn’t technocratic; it’s narrative. He’s borrowing the simplest tool of storytelling - the question of genre. Is this place becoming a drama about belonging, a thriller about displacement, a comedy of civic dysfunction? The rhetorical move works because it shifts power from abstract “the market” or “the city” to “we,” while also indicting that same “we” for passivity. Planning isn’t just policy here; it’s collective authorship, with consequences that can’t be rewritten after the premiere.