Quote:
Originally Posted by BostonBornMassMade
Boston has only ever elected straight white male mayors, so it s a bit deeper than a black thing.
Boston hasn’t voted out an incumbent since 1948, and that’s because he went to prisons in the last 120 years Boston has had one Italian White male mayor. The rest have all been Irish. Since 1993 Boston has had only two mayors. The current mayor only came to power when the last one died.
Massachusetts has no term limits on any level and doesn’t vote out incumbents period. In fact I don’t even know the last incumbent governor that lost an election. I don’t think there’s been one in my life time.
Since Boston has become a majority minority city there only been one vacant mayoral seat.
The last 2 elections there were more black/Latino candidates than white candidates.
The problem is the Black and Latino votes gets splintered by neighborhood and ethnicity.
Yes of course Boston has neighborhoods like Germantown-it would be the Fort Hill part of Roxbury.
What’s crazy to me is that people speak of what it’s like for blacks in Bsoton but as you and other have shown have virtually no idea what the black neighborhoods are like, how big they are, how to get there etc etc.
you have some sort of frame of reference but when I get question like “does Boston have any majority black census tracts near or in it that make 70k annual household income?” All I can do is shake my head.
I was just in Boston for two weeks andIt was fantastic. I just got done interviewing for a job based in Nubian Square where I have a few friends who work there. Both college educated black and Latino. The black woman lives in Fort Hill, Roxbury, the Latino man lives in Cambridge.
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The absence of term limits for Boston row offices has something to do with it, sure; both Kansas City and Philadelphia limit their mayors to two consecutive terms in office, so that gives more people the chance to be elected mayor. (And btw, Kansas City has had one woman mayor while neither Boston nor Philly have elected one yet.)
But even though there's also no limit on the number of terms a Massachusetts Governor may serve, Bay State voters have elected one Black Governor, Deval Patrick (who spoke at Commencement my 35th reunion year; he's a 'Vardian too), so it doesn't explain all the difference. (Pennsylvania has yet to elect either a Black or a female Governor.)
(Mel King did post decent vote totals against Ray Flynn [a 'Vardian from Southie, and thus a guy who played against type] in his 1981 campaign, however; how many Black candidates have run for Mayor of Boston since him? 1981 was an open seat because Kevin White had stepped down.)
Don't include me in the "has no idea where the black neighborhoods are" group. Sheesh, I traveled to Dudley Square (now Nubian Square) to get my hair cut decently.
But I get your point.
Philadelphia actually has some majority-Black Census tracts where the MHI is in six figures. They're located in East Oak Lane, a bosky* neighborhood filled with free-standing Colonials, Tudors, Dutch Colonials and the occasional 50s rancher at the top of North Philadelphia. I've referred to this neighborhood as "the city's best-kept secret" in one article on it I wrote for the
PhillyMag Real Estate channel.**
*Trees are actually something of a class marker for Philly neighborhoods. The city has the lowest tree canopy (20 percent) of any of the large cities on the East Coast, and most of the tree-shaded streets in the city are in its more affluent neighborhoods.
**Something else Boston and Philadelphia have in common: the same company publishes their city magazines. It's headquartered here in Philly.
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