1920s Boston video

Makes Boston seem huge.
 
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Seeing this vid reminds me of how much I wish the art deco era didn't pass over Boston. Damn you economic and cultural stagnation!
 
^ditto

Not sure if any of you picked up on a subtle bit of misinformation in the video: The Boston Tea Party took place at Griffin's Wharf not "T" Wharf.

Nevertheless, that was a charming an totally entertaining bit of nostalgia.
 
True, there was "an economic depression for 40 years". However, pulling out of that did not require blitzing half of central Boston in the 50's and 60's.
 
When corrupt politicians get piles and piles of money to spend on projects, which all but guarantee patronage positions for all their supporters, and allow them to obliterate politically inconvenient neighborhoods, cities face another sinister form of blitz.

It doesn't help either that entities like the BRA can create artificially permanent constituencies by creating high rise luxury housing in one segregated area and hyper concentrating poor people in housing projects. Politicians absolutely LOVE public housing, because the dependents whom live there, and are intentionally not given much incentive or ability to leave, owe everything to the government and will vote consistently.

If anything, urban renewal did more to rip out the soul of cities through obliterating the dynamism of changing uses and social mobility within neighborhoods, than it did through violence on fabric.
 
Lurker said:
Politicians absolutely LOVE public housing, because the dependents whom live there, and are intentionally not given much incentive or ability to leave, owe everything to the government and will vote consistently.
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Do residents of housing projects really vote consistently? I would think turnout would be among the lowest.
 
I don't see why it should be, except to the extent that non-citizens (and thus non-voters) live there.
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Lurker
Politicians absolutely LOVE public housing, because the dependents whom live there, and are intentionally not given much incentive or ability to leave, owe everything to the government and will vote consistently.


If pols LOVED public housing, federal funding for local housing agencies to maintain developments wouldn't be cut on average 15% per year as they have since 2000.

And believe me, residents of public housing have some of the worst voting records across all demographics.

And there are now lots of incentives to leave, if residents only have the will to do so. Working residents can have their portions of their monthly rent payemnts escrowed to save for homeownership.
 
Ron Newman said:
I don't see why it should be, except to the extent that non-citizens (and thus non-voters) live there.
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Ron, non citizens (aside from permanent legal residents), aren't supposed to be living in state supported housing.
 
Let's not forget that an awful lot of public housing was built originally for the G.I.'s and their families after WWII. Only later did it become "low income" housing for the poor.
 
Actually at one point the standards for admittance to public housing were drastically reduced, late 1960s?, and that's when it gained its infamous reputation. It's only since those standards have been made more stringent once again that problematic behavior has been on the wane.
 
Lurker said:
Actually at one point the standards for admittance to public housing were drastically reduced, late 1960s?, and that's when it gained its infamous reputation. It's only since those standards have been made more stringent once again that problematic behavior has been on the wane.
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Before that it was only open to white political supporters of the politicians who got them built.
 
Van, that wasn't the case on a national level, although Larry is right to point out all the political bullshitting that happened in this city.

Public housing used to be limited to the working poor and those without habitual criminal offenses. When restrictions were loosened to help single mothers (this was right around the time welfare was changed in attempt to help large rural farming families, but instead it created the incentive for baby factory single moms), the chronically unemployed, convicts who had a difficult time finding landlords to rent to them, etc, the conditions in the projects very quickly went to hell.

The regulations residents now face in HOPEVI projects like Mission Main, Orchid Gardens, et al are very similar to the those before the restrictions were eased. Notice how those projects are no longer chronic shooting galleries.
 
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