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Sometimes I wonder if the nation's capitol were in Boston instead. Would the rest of Boston just be completely overlooked altogether as well?
Probably so. How often do most people even see pictures of homes in Boston? It's nearly always the city skyline that appears in images, which is not particularly unique IMO.
I'm not knocking the actual city of Boston though. It's a great city and New England is awesome. Heck, the east coast overall is awesome. :-)
Probably so. How often do most people even see pictures of homes in Boston? It's nearly always the city skyline that appears in images, which is not particularly unique IMO.
I'm not knocking the actual city of Boston though. It's a great city and New England is awesome. Heck, the east coast overall is awesome. :-)
Yeah, that skyline thing.
I use to live in NYC, and the skyline isn't the part that I loved. I loved all of the neighborhood areas like East Village, Greenwich Village, SoHo, Chinatown, etc.
Seems like the best of DC is similar - Georgetown, Adams-Morgan, Capitol Hill, etc. Who needs to walk around among skyscrapers...that was always the least interesting 'neighborhoods' of any interesting large city in my opinion.
But, for whatever reason, this 'my skyscraper is bigger than your skyscraper' sentiment exists...lol
Originally from the midwest, but I lived in Boston for a little over a year, and DC for a little over a year (directly after my stint in Boston) so I feel like I have a pretty good basis for comparison.
There are similarities - both are similar-sized east coast cities with many older, historic row-house neighborhoods.
While I enjoyed many aspects of both cities, overall I preferred living in DC (I lived in similar neighborhoods in both cities - Allston in Boston and Columbia Heights in DC, at least as far as their location relative to downtown). I found DC to be marginally more friendly (neither are particularly friendly, but I didn't find DC to be quite so unfriendly), considerably more diverse, and with better weather overall. I also preferred DC's box-frame, painted row-homes to Boston's colonial architecture - something about Boston's emphasis on its colonial history comes off as rather staid after a time.
Don't get me wrong, it's a beautiful city, but not very, err...dynamic. I can see how a visitor to both DC and Boston might get the impression that DC is the city lacking character (especially if you only stick to downtowns of both cities), but that wasn't the case to me as a resident. The T could also be frustrating compared with DC's sleek, efficient Metro (also has it's problems of course).
Of course, Boston did have some advantages over DC - primarily it's harbor and proximity to beaches. Oh, and Cannolis
The city of Boston is more diverse than the city of DC. But the DC metro area is FAR more diverse than the Boston metro area. Greater Boston obviously has more (and more prestigious) universities. I personally feel that greater Boston has slightly better public transit. I prefer the architecture in DC and the DC metro area strikes one as very international, whereas the Boston area strikes one as somewhat provincial; in that vein, the DC area has the most people born out-of-state of any metro area and there are few people who've lived here for generations (as is the case in greater Boston). In spite of Boston's large university presence, the DC area is still significantly more educated and significantly wealthier on the whole.
Boston is a nice quaint city with a nice suburb feeling. But I feel like it has such a high turnover rate, meaning that people are only their temporarily (max 5-6 years). People dont seem to stay in Boston for the long term. Its a town for college students and recent working graduate (that dont end up staying long term) Rent in boston is ridiculously high for an old run down building with more unsafe neighborhoods like Mission Hill and Roxbury and parts of Jamaica Plains, and South End.
Yes DC metro area has lot of single recently working graduates as well, but they seem to settle down here longer it seems. Rent is high and not as bad as Boston and the buildings are newer and more to select from.
One bad thing is the DC is not as good as Boston for walking. Boston is small enough to walk from the harbor all the way down to Longwood area.
Boston is a nice quaint city with a nice suburb feeling. But I feel like it has such a high turnover rate, meaning that people are only their temporarily (max 5-6 years). People dont seem to stay in Boston for the long term.
I will qualify my above statement in light of the last post - Cambridge really is a unique and wonderfully intellectually pretentious little stretch that can't really be replicated anywhere that doesn't have the pillars of MIT and Harvard.
There is really no need to put down UDC by implication. It is a commuter campus--of course it's not going to have the shops and bookstores of Harvard.
There is really no need to put down UDC by implication. It is a commuter campus--of course it's not going to have the shops and bookstores of Harvard.
You've gotta be joking. This is as far a stretch as I've seen on here. I stated, if you would take the time to read for comprehension, that Cambridge, MA is unique in the world because two of the best universities are right down the street from one another: Harvard and MIT. Because of this concentration, greater Boston has the second largest center of technology development in the world outside of Silicon Valley.
The retail, commercial, and cultural vibe in that stretch of Cambridge "can't be replicated anywhere", as I stated. By your logic, I was also putting down the University of Washington in Seattle or Oxford in England or Georgetown in DC because they are also "anywhere" besides Cambridge, MA. Trying to turn this into some racial or class issue by listing one university out of the thousands in the world is beyond absurd.
If I may offer some advice, rather than inundating us with an endless stream of class warfare posts, you should work on understanding the deeper mechanisms that perpetuate the problems in many DC communities. Your earlier post claiming that the federal government should stop building Starbucks in Dupont revealed a fundamental lack of understanding how markets work or the limited power federal government has. People who receive income for a service they provide have the ability to shop where and purchase what they want. Simply attacking every aspect of society that isn't poor and/or black isn't going to address the valid concerns you have.
You've gotta be joking. This is as far a stretch as I've seen on here. I stated, if you would take the time to read for comprehension, that Cambridge, MA is unique in the world because two of the best universities are right down the street from one another: Harvard and MIT. Because of this concentration, greater Boston has the second largest center of technology development in the world outside of Silicon Valley.
The retail, commercial, and cultural vibe in that stretch of Cambridge "can't be replicated anywhere", as I stated. By your logic, I was also putting down the University of Washington in Seattle or Oxford in England or Georgetown in DC because they are also "anywhere" besides Cambridge, MA. Trying to turn this into some racial or class issue by listing one university out of the thousands in the world is beyond absurd.
If I may offer some advice, rather than inundating us with an endless stream of class warfare posts, you should work on understanding the deeper mechanisms that perpetuate the problems in many DC communities. Your earlier post claiming that the federal government should stop building Starbucks in Dupont revealed a fundamental lack of understanding how markets work or the limited power federal government has. People who receive income for a service they provide have the ability to shop where and purchase what they want. Simply attacking every aspect of society that isn't poor and/or black isn't going to address the valid concerns you have.
Well that is your opinion, if I misinterpreted it, I can't be blamed, since UDC is our state university. You seem giddy about the mallification and gentrificaton of DC, and eager to blame the underserved, oppressed communities for their own failures. Why?
Well that is your opinion, if I misinterpreted it, I can't be blamed, since UDC is our state university. You seem giddy about the mallification and gentrificaton of DC, and eager to blame the underserved, oppressed communities for their own failures. Why?
What I stated is actually a fact and you actually are to blame for drawing an illogical conclusion based on a completely unrelated comment about Cambridge, Massachusetts that had absolutely nothing to do with DC or much less UDC. I will accept your apology when you are ready to offer it.
The rest of your claim is completely baseless and wrong, contradicting many of the posts I've made on here. You're looking for a bad guy and you've assumed, based on nothing concrete, that I can serve that role for you just because I'm not championing your simple agenda that 1989 DC should arbitrarily be the definitive DC. What you fail to grasp is that I understand the complexities of urban redevelopment and understand the history of this city far better than you seem to. As you educate yourself on this subject, look at, for example, Logan Circle. Which population is the rightful owner of that neighborhood? Is it the wealthy people who built it over a century ago? The poorer people who moved in after it was abandoned by the wealthy? The middle / upper middle class people now moving into it?
There's no right answer. Cities change. It's neither entirely good nor bad. It's simply a fact. So please stop pushing your agenda on me claiming I'm "eager to blame underserved, oppressed communities for their own failures". I've said no such thing.
Last edited by Bluefly; 09-18-2011 at 10:35 AM..
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