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The Dorchester Avenue Project is a comprehensive effort dedicated to the overall improvement of Dorchester Avenue, one of our city's greatest boulevards. The Avenue Project addresses four miles of Dorchester Avenue, focusing on issues regarding transportation, neighborhood businesses, neighborhood housing, and streetscapes between Lower Mills and the intersection of Columbia Road and Dorchester Avenue. With the multitude of infrastructure projects and issues affecting the street, it was clear that the Avenue needed a proactive, concerted plan. In February 2005, Mayor Thomas Menino called together an interagency team comprising all the related City departments that have a hand in Dorchester Avenue's future. This specialized approach will tap into the expertise of the City agencies as well as the vision and voice of Dorchester's businesses and residents.
The Mayor officially kicked off the Dorchester Avenue Project with a community meeting in March 2005.
Overall in the blackser sections of Dorchester and the more southern parts its mostly a done deal. It was just general QOL improvements, better trash pick up, lighting, infill. Now its an aggressive upzoning making its wy southward from South Boston.
Nice video of Dorchester just west of Dot Ave circa 2005, how I remember it as a kid. Hasnt changed much:
Dorchester Ave is a specially designated corridor to build per the city of Boston and its getting new trains. It has multiple bus lines and runs parallel to I-93. It's already on the gentrification path. The current infrastructure is unbeatable.
Not sure what the developments are in ThirdWard or Freedmens town. Those types of places in those Texas city just seems super left behind whenever I look at them on Street View. What is the point of living there, non-sarcastically?
I don't know about Freedman's Town. But the 3rd Ward has two universities in it and Rice next to it, and the Texas Medical Center directly borders it on the West, not to mention Midtown as well as Downtown and Eado. With Midtown and EaDo well on their way to gentrified heaven. It also has a middle class semi-historically black neighborhood in Riverside Terrace tucked beneath it. U of H wants to become a commuter school which in itself could gentrify the neighborhood. U of H has 45,000 students. Similarly in an urban location, UT has 50,000. Significantly denser West Campus has about 18,000 people in 0.5 square miles of basically students. U of H + TSU could replicate a similar portion of students over 2 square miles. Rice as well as the existing infrastructure and TMC could easily take care of the rest. The issue is if the neighborhood would stay majority black when you combine the various influences of a HBCU+ historically middle class and black Riverside Terrace+ large Asian population of the TMC, + the diverse student body of U of H and the largely white gentrifies spilling over from EaDo/Midtown into 3rd Ward.
I don't think it's important to preserve the demographics (I'm a firm believer in everyone mixing it up), but would love to see if it could become basically the first desirable middle-upper middle class plurality black urban neighborhood in Texas in forever. These neighborhoods barely exist outside of New York.
The issue is the neighborhood is super-ghetto, like probably in the Top 5 in Houston. But theirs's so many factors working for it, that it's probably gonna be gentrified by 2030-2035, and only a few vestiges of the actual ghetto remain.
For example black people are now 45% of the 3rd Ward, from 71% in 2010. It drops another 26%, it will be 19% Black in 2030. The growth though has been equal parts Asian as White. MacGregor, dropped 17 points since 2010, and it's growth has been equal parts Asian/White/Hispanic almost. So both areas are getting more diverse and gentrifying fast.
Also here's some of the beautiful Housing Stock, in the neighborhoods just to the South in the general MacGregor area as well as throughout the 3rd Ward.
These neighborhoods have big development potential. Projects in the pipeline will offer current and future residents a mix of different living options from multi-family to single family homes in new mixed-use development proposals.
1. Which neighborhoods have the most potential to improve based on current or future infrastructure?
2. Which neighborhoods would you choose to live in and why?
3. Rank each neighborhood by current restaurants/nightlife?
4. Would you live in these neighborhoods now or would you rather wait for them to change?
5. How would you rank each neighborhood by desirability right now and why?
I don't know enough about these respective areas to offer a informed reply. My basic sense is:
The Atlanta, Houston, Dallas neighborhoods all appear to be mid-density small lot single family home districts adjacent to dowtowns. I would say Houston's Third Ward probably has the most development pressures/opportunities with Midtown on one side and the Universities on the other.
Ward 7 in DC is somewhat different in that it is a little further from the core. It's a little more urban with a lot of TOD type development planned near the metro stations, although large segments consist of SFHs.
Dorchester really feels like a big outlier to me. It is far more urban with lots of triple deckers and commercial corridors. Maybe an area like Petworth in DC would be a closer comparison? As others have noted is also somewhat of an outlier demographically with more Caribbean, Southeast Asian, old ethnic white populations/establishments, and white yuppies/LGBTs.
If I had to wager a guess, I would probably say Dorchester will see the most total development. Boston is fairly built out/expensive and this area will likely start getting more spill over development from South Boston. Ward 7 has a lot of TOD planned so I wouldn't rule that out either. But, my sense is prices need to rise a bit more to make large scale market rate TOD development more viable.
Tbh there aren’t many old ‘ethnic whites’ left in the Dot Ave corridor I think there’s more African Americans. That population faded away basically entirely 15 years ago. However they do have a few establishments left. Most have been replaced by southeast Asian and LGBTQ establishments in that corridor.
It should be added that Cape Verdeans are a pretty big part of the mix theyre and they are African not Carribean. Overall Dorchester especially there is mostly first and 2nd generation populations from Africa Caribbean and Southeast Asia with more ethnic old time whites in southeast dorchester a bit further from Dot Ave, and yuppies in far northeast Dorchester nearest South Boston. Most of the Southern African American have moved out as well or live further southwest/west away from the commercial corridor.
It’s a high density corridor with more in common with Queens NY than these places.
Ward 7 has a lot of TOD planned so I wouldn't rule that out either. But, my sense is prices need to rise a bit more to make large scale market rate TOD development more viable.
What you said about market rate housing would be true if DC wasn't currently piloting the most progressive economic development plan in the world for economically distressed areas of the city.
All of the development coming to Downtown Ward 7 is market rate because of a combination of the following:
Ward 7 in DC is somewhat different in that it is a little further from the core. It's a little more urban with a lot of TOD type development planned near the metro stations, although large segments consist of SFHs.
Dorchester really feels like a big outlier to me. It is far more urban with lots of triple deckers and commercial corridors. Maybe an area like Petworth in DC would be a closer comparison? As others have noted is also somewhat of an outlier demographically with more Caribbean, Southeast Asian, old ethnic white populations/establishments, and white yuppies/LGBTs.
If I had to wager a guess, I would probably say Dorchester will see the most total development. Boston is fairly built out/expensive and this area will likely start getting more spill over development from South Boston. Ward 7 has a lot of TOD planned so I wouldn't rule that out either. But, my sense is prices need to rise a bit more to make large scale market rate TOD development more viable.
How much development do you think that corridor in Dorchester can attract? The new development coming to Downtown Ward 7 in DC will be very interesting to track. The type of restaurants, demographics of daytime workers, and demographics of the residential population will play a huge role in the feel of the neighborhood.
Tbh there aren’t many old ‘ethnic whites’ left in the Dot Ave corridor I think there’s more African Americans. That population faded away basically entirely 15 years ago. However they do have a few establishments left. Most have been replaced by southeast Asian and LGBTQ establishments in that corridor.
It should be added that Cape Verdeans are a pretty big part of the mix theyre and they are African not Carribean. Overall Dorchester especially there is mostly first and 2nd generation populations from Africa Caribbean and Southeast Asia with more ethnic old time whites in southeast dorchester a bit further from Dot Ave, and yuppies in far northeast Dorchester nearest South Boston. Most of the Southern African American have moved out as well or live further southwest/west away from the commercial corridor.
It’s a high density corridor with more in common with Queens NY than these places.
How do you think Dot Ave. will compare to Minnesota Avenue NE? The urban core of Minnesota Avenue will run for 1 mile from East Capitol Street NE to Nannie Hellen Burrough Avene NE.
Bay City is one of the bigger Dot proposed development projects: Dorchester Bay City | Boston Planning & Development Agency
4,395,600 sf of office, research and development, and/or potentially academic uses
1,970 housing units
165,000 sf of ground floor retail/commercial space
How do you think Dot Ave. will compare to Minnesota Avenue NE? The urban core of Minnesota Avenue will run for 1 mile from East Capitol Street NE to Nannie Hellen Burrough Avene NE.
They’re fundamentally different. Minnesota Ave is going to work to reinvent itself as a modern urban corridor. Dot Ave is constantly reworking itself and it foundation. So development will move along faster in Minnesota Ave but it will never be like Dot Ave. Dot Ave has way more retail and services for a continuous stretch than Nannie Hellen Burroughs. It’s more akin to Petworth/Brightwood or just Georgia Ave maybe even Benning Road/H Street. But still it’s a bit more tight and vertical than those areas.
Minnesota Ave is much greener, less developed and with wide roads.
How do you think Dot Ave. will compare to Minnesota Avenue NE? The urban core of Minnesota Avenue will run for 1 mile from East Capitol Street NE to Nannie Hellen Burrough Avene NE.
Dot Ave seems more camparable to Georgia Ave in that it is mostly commercial for several miles. Minnesota Ave is commercial in parts, especially around the metro. But, it has long stretches where it's residential.
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