Please write a description of the housing history of one of the following neighborhoods:
• Boston: Allston/Brighton, Chinatown, North End, Roxbury, South Boston, South End
The first part should cover the time period from the first residential settlements in the area up to the middle of the 20th Century. Who first owned the land here? Who began to build housing on the land? If the builders were also the occupants, why did they choose this place? If “developers” were involved, who were they trying to attract to their homes? What role did the public sector play in the early shaping of the neighborhood? Were there other big turning points in the history of this place—the addition of an institution of some kind, the construction of an important new piece of infrastructure, a natural disaster such as a fire or flood, or the emergence of a new industry or employer that attracted a new wave of residents? Did the population change over this early history or was it fairly constant?
The second part of your story should cover the period from just after World War II up until the end of the twentieth century. This was an era of major public intervention in and around our cities – the interstate highway system, urban renewal, the second wave of public housing, anti-poverty programs and new housing subsidy programs. In what ways was your neighborhood impacted by these initiatives and the decentralization of population? How did private for-profit and non-profit organizations respond? Did these programs change the residential make-up of the neighborhood or not? How? At the turn of the century, what was this community’s role as a housing resource for the city?
The best resources for learning about the history of Boston are the Boston Redevelopment Authority (BRA), the Massachusetts Historical Society, Historic Boston, and the archives of the Boston Globe and the Boston Herald. There are also many books which recount elements of this history, including particularly Sam Bass Warner’s “Streetcar Suburbs”, Herbert Gans’ “Urban Villagers” and “Eden on the Charles” by Michael Rawson.