Brookline is a jewel of a suburb. Cheek to jowl with Boston - it has managed to maintain its own identity - a unique mixture of busy streets and rolling countryside, upscale shops and village pubs, gracious apartment buildings and large estates, and home for legions of academic and scientific professionals, who work at the nearby medical centers in Boston. Brookline has staunchly refused to be absorbed by Boston, which surrounds it like a horseshoe. A community of 6.6 square miles and almost 55,000 people. Brookline has kept its town meeting form of government since 1705, when this "Muddy River" farmland of Boston became incorporated and named for the brooks that formed its boundaries. Among its many unusual resources, Brookline has its own working farm (with farm stand), the oldest country club in the nation, a town golf course, the home in which John F. Kennedy was born, a magnificent park on a hillside overlooking Boston with a wonderful open air skating rink and marvelous transportation museum, and numerous neighborhood parks and playgrounds scattered throughout the Town. Its major retail centers, like Coolidge Corner and Brookline Village, are bustling pedestrian-oriented shopping areas with a variety of shops - antique stores, coffee shops, bookstores, fresh fruit and vegetable markets, delicatessens and restaurants. Along with offering both a city atmosphere and a feeling of being in the country, there is a wonderful mix of people in Brookline: elderly, minorities, immigrants from many lands, young families and college students. It is said that the student body at Brookline High School -- a nationally renowned institution -- includes students from more than 50 different countries. Although predominantly residential, Brookline is anxious to attract new commercial development, and in just the last two years, the Town has amended its zoning to encourage new growth along its major thoroughfares.