Is Boston designed for babies?

[belmont square]

Re: Rose Kennedy Greenway

Boston functions pretty well, arguable better than all but 10, maybe 5 places in the entire United States. Not that we need to cut it some slack but lets at least keep the criticism constructive.

I'd go further and say that the point is not even arguable--Boston functions better as an urban place than all but four cities (NY, Chi, DC, SF) and good arguments could be made to place it as high as number 2.

On the kids point, I live in the city and have two. I realize that in 2008 there probably aren't enough people raising kids in the city to support the aquariums, faneuil halls, etc without the suburban families. That being said, the presence of these child-friendly resources helps to balance some of the challenges in raising kids here. My girls and I have no trouble taking the subway to these venues, but then we also ride it almost every day.

I guess one of the things I like about living in a city is that all age groups are represented. In a typical Boston suburb, the elderly, childless adults, and young adults are nowhere to be found. Boston (and many other big cities) are in much greater danger of turning into places where you don't see kids than they are of being overrun with them. It's one of the reasons I don't mind the gatherings of "menacing" teenagers in Downtown Crossing (by the way, in what community are the teenagers not the most menacing characters?)--it's evidence that Boston has not yet devolved into a lifestyle center for empty nesters and childless adults.

 

[GW2500]

Re: Rose Kennedy Greenway

Should all our urban planning be done with a focus on satiating the needs of suburbanites? No, and thinking it does right now is false. But a few family friendly attractions makes Boston or Chicago or San Francisco or NYC what they are. The flip side is Detroit. You prefer that?

Trust me you don't want Detroit, my family ( along with a million of Detroiters) left there for a reason.

I'd go further and say that the point is not even arguable--Boston functions better as an urban place than all but four cities (NY, Chi, DC, SF) and good arguments could be made to place it as high as number 2.
.

I'd say Boston is definately behind NY and Chicago. Probably on par for the most part with the other two. But Philly deserves its props as atleast a real city with urban fabric too.

 

[skintreesnail]

Re: Rose Kennedy Greenway

The last few posts were great responses to the cornucopia of Boston-bashing that?s been going on in this thread. I think it?s the youth in the city that adds to its charm and light-hearted feel. And seriously, Boston has as many ?places? as any other great city and doesn?t suffer from being as overbearing. If you really want to see some disneyfication, check out the Baltimore harbor. And the T is an embarrassment? Are you kidding me?

I live in Philadelphia, and even though it?s a great city with lots of culture and entertainment, it still has so many problems that it really can?t touch Boston yet, but I hope that someday it will. You think that you have some problems there with NIMBYs, which I?m sure you do as all places do, well here we have vast fields of prime real estate surface parking scattered throughout the city, and pits where construction had begun but never was completed due to outcries of the community or just messed up planning/corrupted developers. And speaking of disneyfication, we have an entire block here in the middle of center city, dubbed the ?Disney Hole? after a Disney-funded theme park/shopping center that never was built in the late 90s. It is now a surface parking lot as it has been for years. And we still can?t get it together to fix up our waterfront.

I would even put Boston over Chicago in some cases. It?s so flat there and Boston is so close to some pretty great mountain ranges, not to mention the amazing New England coastline. Also, every time I?m in Chicago, I get this overwhelming feeling that everyone there think way too highly of themselves. And it definitely doesn?t feel as safe.

The greenway really isn?t bad at all. Also, it?s still in its early development stages and will change. Last time I was in the city I was overjoyed by the absence of the artery and really loved the vast open prairie land that it created and thought that it really was aesthetically pleasing. A part of the city is now visible that never was before. You really should be more proud of your city. It's very beautiful.

 

[Beton Brut]

Re: Rose Kennedy Greenway

And the T is an embarrassment? Are you kidding me?

Thanks for your kind words about Boston.

Regarding the T, as a daily passenger, I'm as serious as a heart attack. It is among the most ill-managed and ill-maintained agencies of its kind in America. The unions essentially hold control of the level of service that the T can realistically provide (and are among the best paid transit workers in America). The overall quality of service, from the cleanliness of stations and vehicles, to the timeliness and frequency of maintenance on facilities, to management of contracts with suppliers and service providers is truly disgraceful. As a lifelong Bostonian, I am embarrassed to bring out-of-town guests to the station near my home.

 

[czsz]

Re: Rose Kennedy Greenway

The flip side is Detroit. You prefer that?

Way to take the expressway to red herrings and false dichotomies. Look, I love that soccer moms bring their charges into Boston and spend like crazy on ice cream and educational toys or whatever. BUT - other cities manage to attract families without setting out, explicitly, to be the most attractive to them. Fifth Avenue is a rather chaotic place to drag a pack of 5 year olds, but parents do it anyway to get to FAO Schwartz and/or Rockefeller Center. We don't need to design the city around families to get them to come if the attractions that draw them in are compelling enough that they brave the rest.

On the other hand, designing solely and explicitly for families does tend to EXCLUDE AND DISCOURAGE other groups of high-spending individuals. How many young adults and even corporations have perhaps declined to move to Boston because its nightlife is lacking compared to other cities, for example? Or because the subway closes down so early with no alternative public transportation (sure, European subways close down early, too, but every one of them has night bus service). In part, both of these things are lacking because making Boston a 24 hour city might detract in some ways from keeping it "family friendly". It might make the streets in some choice residential neighborhoods noisier, or (in the case of the T) take away money being lavished on child-friendly assets. There needs to be a better balance.

Imagine for a second that Boston built a hip design museum (cf. OCAD in Toronto) or a truly impressive concert venue (cf. Millennium Park in Chicago) on the Greenway instead of the history museum that's destined to be stuffed with Revolutionary War artifacts and packed with field-tripping schoolchildren - it might just catalyze the growth of another sort of community in the city, and diversify the sort of people milling around this part of downtown. Isn't diversity good for the kiddies, too?

 

[cden4]

Re: Rose Kennedy Greenway

czsz, I understand your point but I don't see anyone intentionally trying to make the city family friendly to the expense of other groups. Can you cite some examples?

The T doesn't run late enough and has no late bus service because the unions have everyone by the b*lls, and no one is brave enough to stand up and give the riders of the system what they deserve.

Has a hip design museum or an impressive concert venue been proposed? I think either one of those would be a great addition to the city.

If anything, the biggest threat to the city are NIMBYs who say no to everything and basically want to turn it into a suburb with low density, lots of parking, and no restaurants or bars open past 11. (Why they just don't move to the suburbs, I have no idea.)

 

[czsz]

Re: Rose Kennedy Greenway

It's not really a matter of explicit intentionality; I can't really cite some sort of definitive policy paper arguing for family friendliness. But it comes out in the presumptions of people who make choices about what goes into the city. The NIMBY mentality you cite owes a lot to overriding social norms which dictate that things deemed wonderful in 'family friendly' suburbia (quietude, pastoralism, easy transport for gaggles of kids, safety) are fundamentally good everywhere, including cities. And while it's a mentality we associate with NIMBYs, it has infiltrated the decision making processes of the highest levels of city government. When was the last time we heard a proposal to make Boston more fun for twentysomethings? All we get are parks, quaint museum, parks, theatre for expensive musicals, parks, zoning for condos for middle aged executives, parks, neighborhood "main streets" initiatives that encourage quaintness and such, and more parks.

The T doesn't run late enough and has no late bus service because the unions have everyone by the b*lls

This is truly fucked up. In Europe, the unions are so powerful that whole countries go without transportation for weeks - but when transit does run, there are night buses. Why are the unions in Massachusetts the only ones in the world that can't seem to bend to this?

 

[skintreesnail]

Re: Rose Kennedy Greenway

Honestly, you shouldn't be embarrassed to bring people from out of town on the T; some of my best memories of Boston are riding the subway while visiting my aunt and uncle. I would spend the summer there and take the train to work in the morning to the first Job I ever had and show off the sites to my cousin who came to visit, hopping from line to line. Sure, it's lost a lot of the adventure since then, but everyone who've been to the city with me are impressed with it and enjoy riding. I have one friend who is scared to death of the NYC subway system, but had no problem with the T. And one thing I can say about the service, which I guess may have changed over the past few years, is that I never got stuck on the train. The trains in NYC and Philly are always stalling for one reason or another.

There are always areas for improvement, especially for mass transit, but I think Boston has one of the best. It's incredibly extensive and is at least much cleaner than SEPTA in Philadelphia (which I would say takes the cake on most mis-managed transit system). I can assure you that NYC's system is pretty filthy too, but its shear magnitude makes up for it. Chicago's system needs a ton of work; there are a multitude of spots along the line where the train needs to slowdown to a crawl due to the erosion of the tracks. And you can't really get everywhere you want to go on it. And as far as unions go, well they control transit pretty much everywhere. There was a big strike in philly this past summer for almost a month, where the trains were shut down completely. I know something similar happened in NYC.

I can also tell you first hand that Buffalo, Syracuse, Cleveland have some pretty skimpy systems as well. Toronto's system is pretty good, but a lot of it is streetcars that need to go with the traffic, which can get frustrating during rush-hour. A lot of pretty big cities don't even have subway systems and rely solely on buses, which are nowhere as near as efficient. Anyway, that?s my rant on this subject.

 

[aquaman]

Re: Rose Kennedy Greenway

Way to take the expressway to red herrings and false dichotomies. Look, I love that soccer moms bring their charges into Boston and spend like crazy on ice cream and educational toys or whatever. BUT - other cities manage to attract families without setting out, explicitly, to be the most attractive to them. Fifth Avenue is a rather chaotic place to drag a pack of 5 year olds, but parents do it anyway to get to FAO Schwartz and/or Rockefeller Center. We don't need to design the city around families to get them to come if the attractions that draw them in are compelling enough that they brave the rest.

On the other hand, designing solely and explicitly for families does tend to EXCLUDE AND DISCOURAGE other groups of high-spending individuals. How many young adults and even corporations have perhaps declined to move to Boston because its nightlife is lacking compared to other cities, for example? Or because the subway closes down so early with no alternative public transportation (sure, European subways close down early, too, but every one of them has night bus service). In part, both of these things are lacking because making Boston a 24 hour city might detract in some ways from keeping it "family friendly". It might make the streets in some choice residential neighborhoods noisier, or (in the case of the T) take away money being lavished on child-friendly assets. There needs to be a better balance.

Imagine for a second that Boston built a hip design museum (cf. OCAD in Toronto) or a truly impressive concert venue (cf. Millennium Park in Chicago) on the Greenway instead of the history museum that's destined to be stuffed with Revolutionary War artifacts and packed with field-tripping schoolchildren - it might just catalyze the growth of another sort of community in the city, and diversify the sort of people milling around this part of downtown. Isn't diversity good for the kiddies, too?

I don't think there is a single case where you can say the city has set out to make something family friendly at the expense of others in the city. And don't kid yourself about other cities' not developing areas with families and kids in mind. I remember Times Square during the Dinkins years and can tell you everything you see in Times Square today was done to make the place safe for tourists from Indiana and attractive to people with kids. There's a giant Toys R Us in Times Square with a ferris wheel inside fercrisesake. Not exactly something that was designed to be appealing to hip 20-somethings.

New York, though, has a huge advantage over Boston: its size and scale has allowed for a sizeable part of the city's child-bearing aged population to stay within the city limits. Not in Manhattan so much, but Queens, Brooklyn, etc. are filled with families. Boston's not really a family city, but the mayor and others know that the city will die a boutique city death if it doesn't try to appeal to young people with kids. If anything, the city isn't doing enough to do what really matters to child-bearing residents: safe neighborhoods and parks and excellent schools. Stopping a good design museum in favor of a bland patch of Greenway grass miles from the residential areas of JP is really not on any young family's agenda as far as I know.

I do agree that Boston is desperate for an infusion of adult diversions -- it's perhaps one of its top 2 or 3 greatest weaknesses, IMO -- but you can't say their absence is because the city halts them in favor of families. NIMBYism and entrenched old-money interests are to blame. Bars have to close at 2 because old crabs in places like Brighton have nothing to complain about but noisy drunks and college kids. The T shuts down because Boston's system is only built one track wide in each direction and there's no other time to allow the track walkers to get through and fix problems. We don't have a cutting edge art scene or hip design museum here because there are too just few people who both want such things and have the money to make them happen here -- whether that's because all the Beacon Hill and Back Bay trust fund money goes to places like the Peabody Essex or into MassHort, I don't know. But the city doesn't quash such things because they threaten the sacred nuclear family.

 

[Ron Newman]

Re: Rose Kennedy Greenway

Wherever that trust fund money's going, it's not to MassHort. If it were, we'd already have our Garden Under Glass. (To circle this discussion all the way back to its original subject.)

2 am bar closing is state law, by the way.

 

[jass]

Re: Rose Kennedy Greenway

2 am bar closing is state law, by the way.

Its not a state law to be so strict on other institutions though. The IHOP at Harvard wanted to be 24 hours, and they were forced to close from 4-8am. I dont know of any Mcdonalds in the city thats open after 11pm, while 95% of suburban ones are open at least until 2am, most are 24 hours.

Im not saying that Mcdonalds and IHOP should be the focus of our city, but options are nice. Boston has very few after 11pm.

 

[Suffolk 83]

Re: Rose Kennedy Greenway

I don't know about that T bash... I'm not seeing it. I'm consistantly happy with the T. Except a couple weeks ago when a bus never showed up when there was an hour in between them and it was 1130pm and cold as hell.

I think there's a great difference between the service in certain areas. Red Line and Green Line are usually right on the money. and the few times things to get screwed up, I consider it the same as a traffic accident on the highway that causes backups...shit happens.

 

[Ronwell Pudding]

Re: Rose Kennedy Greenway

I can say I wholeheartedly support a later bar closing time. In Brighton Center it is 1 AM, that is unacceptable. I find it strange then when I'm home in Upstate New York (not exactly your booming metropolis) visiting family (its where I was raised) I can stay out until 4 AM at bars. Also can we please sell beer and grocery and convenience stores. Again I'll site my experience in New York where its allowed; and there still is a market left for liquor stores.

Given the city efforts to redevelop the Downtown Crossing I happen to think its a perfect area for a district that allows a 3 or 4 AM closing time. It would give the area a reason to exist now that the retail and department stores are closing. A few clubs, restaurants and bars mixed in with the theaters would draw crowds. Say Thursday, Friday, Saturday 3 or 4 AM closing, extend the T hours those days until closing time; it already has good access to the Green, Red and Orange lines. College kids and the nearest residents, they won't complain. Plus the ways the street work it can be easy for the police to manage the boundaries and keep drunken activity contained. I'm not imagining a new Combat Zone but with the intimacy of many of those streets it might make for a cool scene.

As far as 24 hours, besides Store 24 some of which I've actually found closed at 4 AM, there is an IHOP in Brighton along the river and I heard of a 24 hour McDonalds in Somerville and of course South Street Diner.

 

[czsz]

Re: Rose Kennedy Greenway

I don't think there is a single case where you can say the city has set out to make something family friendly at the expense of others in the city. And don't kid yourself about other cities' not developing areas with families and kids in mind. I remember Times Square during the Dinkins years and can tell you everything you see in Times Square today was done to make the place safe for tourists from Indiana and attractive to people with kids. There's a giant Toys R Us in Times Square with a ferris wheel inside fercrisesake. Not exactly something that was designed to be appealing to hip 20-somethings.

Expressio unius non exclusio alterius. The expression of one thing does not necessarily imply the exclusion of others. Of course New York and other cities have this problem, too. But it's not that bad there, because

New York, though, has a huge advantage over Boston: its size and scale

...after which you mention that this

has allowed for a sizeable part of the city's child-bearing aged population to stay within the city limits ... Boston's not really a family city, but the mayor and others know that the city will die a boutique city death if it doesn't try to appeal to young people with kids. If anything, the city isn't doing enough to do what really matters to child-bearing residents: safe neighborhoods and parks and excellent schools.

I agree, although Boston already has one of the highest percentages of parkland of any American city. Maybe the reason they're not always so well maintained is that, in the quest to create pastoralism in the city, we've stretched the city's finite resources. That's why

Stopping a good design museum in favor of a bland patch of Greenway grass miles from the residential areas of JP is really not on any young family's agenda as far as I know.

is a flawed assumption. If the city weren't spending as much time and energy planning for and supporting family-friendly activities, it would be able to spend more on other things, like the

adult diversions

that you agree this place lacks. Because clearly the private sector isn't picking up the slack, considering

We don't have a cutting edge art scene or hip design museum here because there are too just few people who both want such things and have the money to make them happen here -- whether that's because all the Beacon Hill and Back Bay trust fund money goes to places like the Peabody Essex or into MassHort, I don't know.

But this is true of other cities, too. The wealthy always more consistently fund "high culture" - the conservative art museum, the symphony, the botanical gardens. Devotees of the avant-garde are few among their ranks. We have to wonder whether some shift in civic priorities - or culture - is what's needed to effect a change.

p.s. - I think we might need a new thread

 

[Lrfox]

Re: Rose Kennedy Greenway

I can stay out until 4 AM at bars. Also can we please sell beer and grocery and convenience stores.

We are sooooo off topic and we probably need a new thread and I'm sure our esteemed administrators will take care of it. Still, I'm going add to this.

Ronwell, I agree with you. I go to school in Maine, and every Hannaford, Shaws, Mobil, Irving, Rite Aid, etc sells liquor as well as beer. There's no reason (other than the Bay State's ever so slow weening off of the blue laws) that Massachusetts shouldn't do this as well.

Second, the law on last call needs to be ammended. I believe in New York State, the law is 4am but each town has the option to have last call earlier (New York City needs a 4am last call, but does Stockbridge or Smithfield?). Something like that would work here especially if each neighborhood had the option to adjust last call to anytime that's earlier than the state law. Like you said, a 3am last call in DTX would be great, but in some residential areas not only would it be a bad idea, but you'd never get support from the community.

I know that on the Southcoast, in places like Fall River and New Bedford, certain bars just close the door at last call, 2am, but continue to serve the people in there until they leave (I'm sure there are some in Boston, I just haven't been). Granted, Boston is not Fall River or New Bedford (thank god), but if there's a market for real late night bars there (i left Billy's Cafe in Fall River at 5am once this past summer), then Boston will certainly have a market for them; especially with the college kids in town.

I'm hopeful that in my lifetime, Boston at the VERY least operates mass transit, even if it's just light rail and certain buses, until shortly past last call (whether it's 2,3, or even 4am). This is something that needs to happen. Boston is not New York City, but it is one of the largest metropolitan areas in the country and it's embarassing that your options for getting home from the bar at 2am are Taxi (or limo), Walking, or Driving. I can tell you with a certain degree of certainty that while the first two (walking and taxi) work for people who live in town; those of us who live outside 128 don't have a good option, and there are plenty of us who are in town to party (especially during baseball season). I'd rather take a taxi from Braintree to a buddy's in Weymouth than take a taxi from DTX to Weymouth. I know that suburbanites aren't a primary concern when planning these things, but when they go out and party, they go to Boston because believe it or not, Randolph doesn't have the best scene at night.

**Edit**
The flaw with the argument for more parkland in order to attract families is that the city can't win. If a family wants vast amounts of open, safe space, they'll move to the 'burbs or the country. If the city tries to provide endless open space, it'll lose its urbanity. Density and open space aren't mutually exclusive, but there is an equilibrium and I think that one of Boston's best traits is that it's damn near to that equilibrium. Boston won't have a problem attracting young people as long as the colleges and places like Newbury st., Harvard Square, Quincy Market (at night), etc exist. Families that want the country will move there, you can't persuade them to stay... The key is in the schools and the parkland that does exist. If you can provide a decent school system, a relatively low crime rate, and safe parks, the families that are willing to live in an urban area will stay.

 

[Ron Newman]

Re: Rose Kennedy Greenway

Massachusetts doesn't have a law against selling alcoholic beverages in grocery stores.

What it does have is a law that says any one owner can only have 3 liquor licenses statewide. If you're a big company like Shaw's or Stop & Stop or Trader Joe's, that means you can pick three of your stores to have these licenses, and that's it.

 

[Riverworks]

Re: Rose Kennedy Greenway

In response to "MassHort" from a previous post ... I know that for the last 10-15 years the agency was thinking about moving the entire airport to Manchester, NH. All money going into the airport was shut off for years. It wasn't until recently that Massport realized that they wanted to definitely keep the airport in East Boston. As a result, they've been pouring money into the airport left and right. I know for a fact that all of Terminal D (soon to be dubbed the Terminal E expansion) will accommodate all of Northwest Airlines and give Airtran a new home in Terminal C. More airlines are trying to be added every month.

But let's just be thankful that we don't have another South Boston on our hands here. Can you imagine the airport gone? East Boston used to be a tiny island (Noddles Island) and was maybe 1/4 mile wide, 1 mile long... All of that land added was because of the airport. I wonder what urban planners were thinking when they were looking for a site in the 1930's and 40's.

I work on Long Wharf ... and the Greenway definitely is depressing. The only thing that keeps my attention is the racing traffic as I try to cross over to State Street. I openly welcome the "new tower" /development proposed for the Aquarium garage. I only hope that the developer will consider the site's context and engage it appropriately. Progress on these Greenway buildings need to happen fast. Anyone seen Cloverfield? It feels like that monster took a walk through downtown Boston and left a large void in its path. Just the scale of the Greenway compared to the surrounding high rises is really disturbing to me. And the amount of green spaces ... I just wish city officials would've thought things through ... not just the existing, the demolition, and the proposed ... but the finished product and the feel of the area. We need more projects like the Chinatown's Gateway Center and the Back Bay's Columbus Center to take back our city.

 

[Riverworks]

Re: Rose Kennedy Greenway

Why sell alcohol in supermarkets? You would only end up making more trips. In New York for example ... you go to a liquor store and they only sell the hard stuff and wine, whereas beer is sold in supermarkets. I like how liquor stores in Massachusetts only sell ... well .. liquor. It's all in one place. Not everyone just wants beer (or the other).

 

[Lrfox]

Re: Rose Kennedy Greenway

Why sell alcohol in supermarkets? You would only end up making more trips. In New York for example ... you go to a liquor store and they only sell the hard stuff and wine, whereas beer is sold in supermarkets. I like how liquor stores in Massachusetts only sell ... well .. liquor. It's all in one place. Not everyone just wants beer (or the other).

I don't understand. Wouldn't you be making fewer trips if the grocery stores carry both hard stuff and beer (and of course, groceries and pharmacy items)? I am not sure about New York, but in Maine, Beer, Wine, and Hard Stuff are sold together in grocery stores (there are plain old liquor stores too). I can go pick up the burgers and dogs for my cookout, the beer for the boys, the vodka (or wine) for the ladies and some deoderant and shampoo... all in the same place; now THAT's convenience.

Ron, I didn't know that about the liquor liscenses in Massachusetts. I understand the logic behind it, but it shouldn't be so damn difficult for a large chain (such as Shaws or Stop and Shop) to liscense each particular franchise.

 

[KentXie]

Re: Rose Kennedy Greenway

I think the best place to do all these things is at the Seaport. They are already building a mall there and tons of restuarants. I always hoped that the Seaport would turn out to be the new entertainment district. Put a few theater there for musicals, ballet, movies, etc., put some dance clubs, bars. Hell forget the current Fan Pier plan and build a canal that was envisioned in the earlier design. The WTC of Boston there and so is the convention center, ICA, Children's Museum and the Computer Museum which means that the area should expect a huge amount of pedestrian traffic if we can just add more things to it. Hell turn one of the piers into a mini Soldier Pier of Chicago. Put an arcade there. The only bad result from this is that if the Seaport did end up like this, it will suck DTX dry.

It's too bad that they f*ed up such huge potential in the Seaport though.