Up and Coming Areas in Dorchester? (Boston, Somerville: middle-class, real estate, low crime)

[jiveturkey]

I'm looking at buying a three-family in Dorchester, one that caught my eye is Ellington st near Blue hill ave.

Now I know this area rough and tumble, with a shooting that happened a couple blocks away two days ago, but my understanding is that dorchester as a whole is gentrifying. Where do you see these neighborhoods in five years?

More or less, I want to have a property that, while it may be in an area with more crime, will see that crime decline in the coming years.

Are there any neighborhoods in Dorchester you would recommend as a good up and coming areas?

[missionhill]

I would say that Dorchester as a whole is not gentrifying. Dorchester is a mostly very solid working-class area. It is unrealistic to think that the Blue Hill Ave corridor is going to go middle-class any time soon, and why should it? Where are regular working folks supposed to live? They can't all afford to buy ranch houses in Randolph or other suburbs. Certain parts of Dorchester are gentrifying, especially around the Columbia Road and Savin Hill stops on the red line, where relative affordability, proximity to downtown and to U Mass Boston, and low crime are attracting young academic/professional types. The Jones Hill area has been gentrifying as a gay enclave. Melville-Park has been slowly gentrifying over 30-40 years even as the white population there has declined, with African Americans doing quite a bit of the gentrifying. There, the appeal is the stock of beautiful Victorian and early 20th century houses and shady streets. Same with Ashmont Hill. Real estate speculation efforts to gentrify some other areas have apparently gone bust, as "goyguy" has described re. Meetinghouse Hill. I think that property off Blue Hill Avenue could be as solid an investment as anywhere these days as prices have gone down a lot there and likely won't drop more anytime soon. You can get a lot of house for your money. You'll have lots of good neighbors, but maybe not too many of them with jobs on State Street now or ever.

[goyguy]

Ellington/Erie has been down for a long time and won't be "up" again very soon. But plans are in place to enhance the Fairmount commuter-rail line by adding stations along the way. There's always a pattern when this happens. Once a non-bus transit route is extended or enhanced, (re)development follows. (Exhibit A: Davis Square in Somerville, slow steady decline since WWII followed by rejuvenation into a "happening" place starting when the Red Line reached it in 1984. Exhibit B: Boylston St in Jamaica Plain, now anchoring a "hot" area of renovated houses since the Orange Line was rerouted and Stony Brook Station opened, previously a derelict and sketchy neighborhood. Much the same can be said about the entire Southwest Corridor section of JP today.)

This particular proposition isn't as cut-and-dried. Uphams Corner has experienced little to no turnaround despite its having a commuter-rail stop on this same line as well as the Strand, and being close in to town. All that will change is the addition of stations, not lengthening of the route. There's still a yawning earnings gap between Whites/Asians and Hispanics/Blacks in this country. So most "urban pioneer" gentrifiers are of paler hues and likely not as quick to invest in what have been "minority" enclaves for the past half-century or so. What AA gentrification has been occurring has mostly taken place in Fort Hill (aka Highland Park) and a few pockets of Mattapan, as well as on Jones Hill (abutting Uphams Corner to the east/northeast and far from being a "gayborhood" exclusively.)

But everything has to start somewhere. What condition is this building in? Someone's purchasing it and making at least a few infrastructure and cosmetic improvements - without turning it into a Better Homes & Gardens or Architectural Digest showplace - would set a tone for the vicinity all by itself. There's an inevitable, if gradual, ripple effect if one person takes good care of their property and has reputable tenants. Helping that ripple effect would be establishing or strengthening a block watch program. More folks are compromised by crime than there are perpetrators. A quiet, strong, steady presence of "eyes on the streets" can have remarkable results in a short period of time. Buying into a "bad" neighborhood calls for a lot more work than just on the building and grounds, it calls for an investment in the community in many ways.

Nothing helps somebody get a better feel for an area than taking a walking tour on a sunny day, then again (maybe only from a locked vehicle this time) by night. Are "boom boom cars" cruising around while sketchy characters slouch on street corners and droop off porches? Do people speak to each other on the sidewalks, and better yet stop to chat? Does quiet prevail after 10 PM or so? (You also have to take into consideration, in AA enclaves, the "party houses" that sometimes turn abandoned buildings into noise factories during the wee hours.) If there are vacant lots, are they maintained to any extent? Where do the sidewalks and gutters fall on the immaculate-to-trashed scale? What IS the crime rate - ask at the local PD, they have to tell you - and is there a definite increase or decrease over the past 2-5 years? Criteria to meet are many, but buying a home is the biggest move short of perhaps getting married that any of us will ever make.