Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
The Hispanics (and Latinos/as) are the future of the US. If anyone thinks non-Hispanic whites will exist in any meaningful numbers anywhere on the planet 100 years from now, they are living in a fantasy world.
What is New England going to do to stay relevant in a continent dominated by Hispanic/Latin culture?
Relevant? First of all, what does it matter if New England is or isn't "relevant"? And what does "relevant" means anyways? Harvard has been open since 1630. Demographics change but institutions continue. 400 years ago if you weren't Puritan you weren't relevant - so go to Rhode Island. 350 years ago if you weren't euro then die. 300 years ago if you were French then get out. 250 years ago if you weren't Yankee then go back to England. 200 years ago if you weren't propertied, you weren't relevant. 174 years ago if you were irish then stay in the north end. 150 years ago if u weren't white you weren't relevant. 100 years ago if you were female then stay in the kitchen. 50 years ago if you weren't Irish then stay outta Southie. 10 years ago if you were ***** then stay in the closet.
Once Egypt ruled. Then Greece. Then Rome. Then Spain. Then Britain. Then America. Who's next? Does it matter?
In all the examples above of the constant flow of change through society, leadership changes among different groups but society marches on perpetually. The only constant is change. Is Spain or Britain or Rome relevant today? Will America or New England be tomorrow? It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. If China rises to world leadership America will like Spain or Rome - continue - maybe not lead, maybe not dominate - but will continue and take their places as good citizens of the world. Like Copenhagen or Stockholm. Places that don't constantly grab headlines, but quietly exist as good healthy places to live without a lot of drama or sensationalism.
Leadership, though prestigious, is a burden. After enough drama most tend to prefer some serenity. If you live on times Sq long enough, quiet strolls in Rosarito will seem quite attractive.
People seem to forget that Boston's gentrification over the past 30 years has not been completed. Much of the old Boston culture stands. In the mid to late 1980s Boston was a high crime city, at one point the car theft capital of America. There was a culture of stodgy academics, sleazy politicians, oppressed ghettoized African American, a few immigrant Latino and Asians poor Irish American folks and a conservative Irish American middle class, and poor marginalized college students.
Elements of that are still present and haven been taken over entirely by the new pseudo-cosmopolitan, semi-diverse, fun-loving, progressive thinking that is what people might expect form what they see as a college town. Only 5% of the city are college students, 33,000 as of 2010, and there were only 20,000 in 2000! uof the northwestern Metro Boston Area and downtown itself. In the northeastern areas and in most of the residential neighborhoods to the south, with the exception of JP, MANY areas have no access to the subway. It's gonna be same old Boston just a little cleaner. You forget Boston WAS a working class city, with no glitz, and that will carry itself over......
People seem to forget that Boston's gentrification over the past 30 years has not been completed. Much of the old Boston culture stands. In the mid to late 1980s Boston was a high crime city, at one point the car theft capital of America. There was a culture of stodgy academics, sleazy politicians, oppressed ghettoized African American, a few immigrant Latino and Asians poor Irish American folks and a conservative Irish American middle class, and poor marginalized college students.
Elements of that are still present and haven been taken over entirely by the new pseudo-cosmopolitan, semi-diverse, fun-loving, progressive thinking that is what people might expect form what they see as a college town. Only 5% of the city are college students, 33,000 as of 2010, and there were only 20,000 in 2000! uof the northwestern Metro Boston Area and downtown itself. In the northeastern areas and in most of the residential neighborhoods to the south, with the exception of JP, MANY areas have no access to the subway. It's gonna be same old Boston just a little cleaner. You forget Boston WAS a working class city, with no glitz, and that will carry itself over......
It was a working class city because so much of the Metro Boston territory is in independent cities/towns where affluent can protect their turf. There's the famous case of Brookline which resisted incorporation into Boston twice, maybe three times, stopping the momentum that began with Roxbury, Dorchester, West Roxbury, and Brighton giving up their town governments to be part of the city. Brookline is a great example of how municipal independence can keep poorer people out. Boston is less working class now than it was 30-40 years ago, especially in town and in the old Irish strongholds of South Boston, Charlestown. New York Times article this morning cites a study saying Boston has the highest gentrification pressure of any city in the country. Yet many areas are resistant. There does seem to be a link between mass transit and property values. When the red line came to Davis Square, Somerville, in the '80s the neighborhood was transformed. Now people anticipate the same effect with the green line extension to Union Square. The parts of Dorchester that have the red line have less decline and more gentrification than the areas near Blue Hill Ave that are farther from it. The former orange line along Washington Street served Roxbury better than the present one. If they ran a silver line extension from Dudley up through Grove Hall and down BHA to Mattapan Sq there could be more gentrification throughout that corridor although the gang problem is a tough one. On the other hand, the old orange line along Main Street served Charlestown much better than the present alignment but the place gentrified like crazy anyway. And most of Southie has no subway service, and plenty of nasty underworld activity over the years as well, but real estate there is on fire anyway. So who knows?
I think your examples show that while the T helps gentrify neighborhoods, it's not the only thing that does so. Union Square is already way gentrified compared to the late 80s when I lived near the High School. Charlestown and Southie, as you say, have gentrified without the T. In the case of Southie, I think it was the last close-to-downtown neighborhood left where you could still buy a cheap house 10 years ago or so, so it was a question of proximity rather than public transit (and of course there's bus service to the Red Line).
It was a working class city because so much of the Metro Boston territory is in independent cities/towns where affluent can protect their turf. There's the famous case of Brookline which resisted incorporation into Boston twice, maybe three times, stopping the momentum that began with Roxbury, Dorchester, West Roxbury, and Brighton giving up their town governments to be part of the city. Brookline is a great example of how municipal independence can keep poorer people out. Boston is less working class now than it was 30-40 years ago, especially in town and in the old Irish strongholds of South Boston, Charlestown. New York Times article this morning cites a study saying Boston has the highest gentrification pressure of any city in the country. Yet many areas are resistant. There does seem to be a link between mass transit and property values. When the red line came to Davis Square, Somerville, in the '80s the neighborhood was transformed. Now people anticipate the same effect with the green line extension to Union Square. The parts of Dorchester that have the red line have less decline and more gentrification than the areas near Blue Hill Ave that are farther from it. The former orange line along Washington Street served Roxbury better than the present one. If they ran a silver line extension from Dudley up through Grove Hall and down BHA to Mattapan Sq there could be more gentrification throughout that corridor although the gang problem is a tough one. On the other hand, the old orange line along Main Street served Charlestown much better than the present alignment but the place gentrified like crazy anyway. And most of Southie has no subway service, and plenty of nasty underworld activity over the years as well, but real estate there is on fire anyway. So who knows?
To put it blunt and honest, Massachusetts is getting worse period. Everything in regards to urban development goes right to Boston. Why aren't they doing this faster in the other cities? I find gentrification does not make things better usually.. maybe cleaner, more "livable" but expensive and full of gays. I went back to MA not long ago and I got repulsed going near Boston.. the driving is awful, Medford square has even changed, those rotaries.. they seem to always be tearing up the roads in MA also. The place is going downhill and I was going to opt for NH if I stayed to be honest. Nashua/Manchester area is a huge improvement in quality of life its unbelievable so long as you aren't living the Lowell style experience there and even then, I feel its better than being in MA esp if your alternative is to be in Billerica or a ghetto like Lawrence. Boston though, it may be expensive, may boast high education but to me its not as progressive as how they like to make it seem at all. Its all sensationalism especially when your average M******* townie does not stack up intellectually to the level of institutions.
I think your examples show that while the T helps gentrify neighborhoods, it's not the only thing that does so. Union Square is already way gentrified compared to the late 80s when I lived near the High School. Charlestown and Southie, as you say, have gentrified without the T. In the case of Southie, I think it was the last close-to-downtown neighborhood left where you could still buy a cheap house 10 years ago or so, so it was a question of proximity rather than public transit (and of course there's bus service to the Red Line).
The scary part is that when Boston completes its gentrification, then all the mostly white middle class towns will be over run. Billerica will start to face nonwhite immigration and they are starting now even with that prison they plan to build that George Simolaris protested. Towns like Billerica and Tewksbury are going to take the brunt of it I feel and along with the Casinos will come a whole new crowd with it. I see where things are going now.. well and clear. Boston runs the state so how Boston goes, will dictate outer areas but seems when people get pushed out of Boston, they go north, not so much to places like Randolph, Stoughton or Holliston. More Billerica/Tewk.. I wonder why that's been but its weird how everyone goes north. The poor white inner city people in the past, now the nonwhites are headed north too.
Last edited by GoldCountry80; 03-04-2014 at 11:19 AM..
I'm not sure what your point is. Is it "immigrants are bad"?? Quite frankly, I think a lot of the white Massachusetts suburbs could do with some non-white immigrants.
I'm not sure what your point is. Is it "immigrants are bad"?? Quite frankly, I think a lot of the white Massachusetts suburbs could do with some non-white immigrants.
Oh wonderful.. let me guess you're form MA but want to push your immigration agenda down the Southern peoples throats too with you living in NC, escaping the North but coming there to live for warmer weather but not willing to conform to that areas norms.. just like back in the old days when you fools wanted integration. I side with the real south.. Just remember that. All people like you do is stir up the pot. I have nothing else to say to you and someday you will get yours for that.
I always get a kick out of posts from people who are either surprised by the driving in Boston or say that Boston's a "bad place" because the driving is so tough. If a city is a bad place because driving is difficult, traffic is bad, and drivers are aggressive, then London, New York, Rome, Tokyo, San Francisco, Madrid, Milan, Paris, etc. are all just simply awful cities.
If you come to Boston (or any of the cities I just listed) and expect to have little/no trouble driving, then you're the problem. Traffic sucks here. It's not a secret or a mystery. It's also not unique to Boston. Thankfully, Boston's a dense, walkable city with an extensive transit system to reduce/ eliminate the need to drive for most. If you move here (or any dense, urban city for that matter) and expect to live exactly like you do in the auto-centric place you came from, you're going to be miserable and I have very little sympathy for the folks that run into this problem. Because, as has been mentioned, Boston's traffic woes are no secret and certainly not unique to Boston.
I also get a chuckle out of people who complain that a city is, "full of gays." I get it. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, and if you don't like a group of people because of their preferences in the bedroom, nobody is going to change your mind. However, there's a word for people who deride an entire group of people based on their gender, race, or sexual preference, and that word is, "bigot." If you poll the entirety of America and ask whether they'd rather live in a city "full of gays" or a city full of bigots, the overwhelming majority will pick the city "full of gays." And the overwhelming majority of people who choose the city full of bigots are also going to be bigots. So every time a bigot says they don't like Boston because of [insert group of people here], most of us are quite happy that they choose not to live here.
Also, when you choose to attack a city and claim that its "high education" is just "sensationalism," it helps to avoid using an endless stream of run-on sentences and grammatical errors. You know, because they make it difficult to take your opinion on the matter seriously.
Oh, and GoldCountry80, three of the four posts before mine were written by you criticizing Boston and the people who live here. When you accuse someone else of "stirring up the pot," it's the pot calling the kettle black.
Oh wonderful.. let me guess you're form MA but want to push your immigration agenda down the Southern peoples throats too with you living in NC, escaping the North but coming there to live for warmer weather but not willing to conform to that areas norms.. just like back in the old days when you fools wanted integration. I side with the real south.. Just remember that. All people like you do is stir up the pot. I have nothing else to say to you and someday you will get yours for that.
OK, I guess I see where you're coming from. Ooh! Scary!!
Just FYI, the part of the south where I live now is a lot more tolerant and diverse than much of Eastern Massachusetts, as you exemplify so perfectly. Keep on fighting that battle!
Last edited by scratchie; 03-04-2014 at 12:27 PM..
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
