Boston NOT One of America's Emptiest Cities

I'm in the middle of Building a New Boston by Thomas O'Conner and it's pretty even handed about the successes and failures of Hynes-to-White era redevelopment.
 
Do you know where that book is still being sold. I see Barnes & Nobles is out. Since a new train station at Four Coners Dorchester may be on the stimulus list I just read 'Streets of Glory'.
 
I'm reading it for a Harvard Extension School class, so it should be at the Coop.
 
PaulC said:
It was dead center at Summer/Winter & Washington intersection. I don't know if it's still there and I don't remember if this group was 'The Vault' or if included more people that the vault.
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statler said:
I know "What if" history is a fools game, but I often wonder what would have happened to Boston if the West End was never demo'd and the Expressway was never built.
Would the city have bounced back the way the North End did, or continued it downward spiral to oblivion?
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I think this counterfactual is a bit of a red herring. Providing for NY-Maine through traffic and taking apart a residential neighborhood had nothing to do with the economic bases that have sustained Boston through the late 20th century. Hospitals and universities - mostly located away from downtown - have had more to do with why Boston hasn't become Baltimore or Philadelphia. A comparative lack of race riots in neighborhoods also far removed from downtown may have helped as well.

On the other side, the finance industry might have been bolstered by highway access downtown - but the destructive extent of the demolition was probably not necessary to achieve this. And Boston has also benefitted from its position as a regional hub, so maybe direct access to Logan was helpful, but it's hard to imagine its thunder being stolen by an airport in, say, Worcester.
 
Not Von Hoffman (unfortunately, not offering anything this semester), but Allison (head of the History Dept. at Suffolk).
 
That's the exact same article that was posted at the beginning of this thread.
 
statler said:
I know "What if" history is a fools game, but I often wonder what would have happened to Boston if the West End was never demo'd and the Expressway was never built.
Would the city have bounced back the way the North End did, or continued it downward spiral to oblivion?
Click to expand...

I think this is an interesting question that perhaps deserves its own thread. It is easy to look at the city today and point out mistakes of the past, focusing on how decisions effect us decades later and ignoring the effects they had in the short term. "What if" is certainly a fools game if one is looking for a definitive answer, but if that is kept in mind it can make for great discussion. I am not well versed in Boston's 20th century history, but would love to read along.

Actually, can anyone recommend a book for someone who doesn't read much nonfiction?
 
Larry Vale's are good. 'Bibles, Brahmins and Bosses' by Thomos O'Connor. Or 'Boston: A Topographical History' by Walter Muir Whitehill.
 
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