Covert state violence is more worrisome. Simple things like private instead of public parks… or, even worse, the fact that the standard bench design now includes dividers which prevents them from being used as beds. That shit is way more fucked up due to being insidious than any of the more overt forms of oppression like police kicking people out after dark.
Please stop.
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I see. No, I missed the part of Suffolk’s comment about strong arming. I can’t tell if he was making a serious/factual point though, since he just said “probably” in a seemingly casual way.
To offer an alternate viewpoint, I consider the homeless to be pretty hostile to urban life in various ways. I moved out of Back Bay four years ago after living and working there for over two decades. Because home and work were both on Dartmouth St. but on opposite sides of Boylston I had to walk at least twice a day thru Boston's homeless panhandling ground zero: The 7-11 at the corner of Boylston and Dartmouth. On weekends it was usually more frequent due to things like shopping at CVS, taking the orange line, visiting friends in the South End, etc. Needless to say, I got plenty of exposure to the various ways the homeless can be pretty hostile to urban life, whether by themselves (screaming out loud, vomiting on the sidewalk, exposing themselves), interacting with other panhandlers (arguing, fighting to be the next to occupy the primo spot beside the door of the 7-11), interacting with the public (shouting at people, aggressive panhandling) and every so often interacting with me (the majority of the interactions followed standard panhandling protocols, but some were pretty unpleasant and one was somewhat physically violent. Oddly, the one that I remember in most detail was probably the silliest. While crossing ground zero a panhandler asked for a donation. Somehow I had cleaned out my wallet but had a big pile of change in my coat pocket, so I just grabbed the whole thing and gave it to him. I turned around and started to walk away when I heard him yell "Hey!". I turned around and he walks up, stands in front of me, and begins to pick out every penny from the pile and give them back to me. I just stood there for some time while he picked out the pennies thinking to myself "who says beggars can't be choosy?")
Please note that the comment above is not an attack on the homeless or an argument for moving them where they're out of sight and out of mind. They have as much right to be on that street corner as I have. It's just an observation that they're hostile to urban life, same as long, blank, urbanity-killing streetwalls like Tremont on the Common. Both make interacting with the urban environment more of an unpleasant experience than a pleasant one, and for some people that's enough to withdraw from participating in urban life.
I also don't get why people complain that the Seaport is a playground for the rich and tourists. Turning whole cities into playgrounds for the rich and tourists is what the whole Richard Florida, creative class gentrification, glorification of dense urban living, a café/restaurant in every lobby and boutiques/retail in every street corner has been all about. I read an article a while back in which the author calls these cities "Adult Dysneylands" and gives ultra-expensive, child-free but dog-saturated San Francisco as the most perfect example. At least no lower-income neighborhoods were gentrified out of existence in the making of the Seaport.
Suffolk 83
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No I dont at all where'd you get that from? Stating what I believe to be fact.
real_EthanHunt
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Have you been avoiding Back Bay your whole life too? Because that's exactly what that neighborhood has been for 100 years or more.
real_EthanHunt
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We all know staties rarely get out of their cars. They're not out walking a beat in Seaport or moving homeless people along, forcibly or otherwise.
Your belief and facts are far off.
But both commenters have their beliefs while admitting they rarely if ever go there, but they know best.
bigpicture7
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Depending on what interests you, the seaport can be a fun place to hang out while spending zero dollars. Accessible ocean views, a few decent green spaces, a really nice (and getting better) harborwalk. My kid likes watching the planes take off and we've played frisbee a couple of times on the green (there's actually plenty of space outboard of the stepped portion). The children's museum and ICA are right there (ok, not free, but there are ways to get discounted tickets). My family and I don't live there, but we live in the city and visit fairly frequently (probably at least monthly).
All of that said, real city neighborhoods have library branches, schools, and other services. They have full-service grocery stores. They have real basketball courts and other outdoor game play areas (not a single small court). They have small local businesses. And, yes, they have services for the less fortunate. These are things that make cities cities.
So, yeah, while it's definitely possible to have fun in the seaport for free (and I do so), it is not a real city neighborhood yet.
All of that said, real city neighborhoods have library branches, schools, and other services. They have full-service grocery stores. They have real basketball courts and other outdoor game play areas (not a single small court). They have small local businesses. And, yes, they have services for the less fortunate. These are things that make cities cities.
So, yeah, while it's definitely possible to have fun in the seaport for free (and I do so), it is not a real city neighborhood yet.
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Suffolk 83
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Why are people so combative and wanting to insinuate everybody else is an idiot? Maybe its the staties, maybe its the private security guards I'm not writing a dissertation about it but I can promise you there are virtually no homeless in the seaport, and its because I often go there, and the rest of the city as I live in the city. Please don't make assumptions about me based off basically nothing.
Whenever I read comments about the Seaport as a neighborhood, it somehow feels like 75% of the people posting have no memory of this area being a COMPLETE WASTELAND(!!!!!) less than 10 years ago. It has a level of cohesion and connectivity to the older Fort Point area today that wasn't really there even just 2-3 years ago.
It's just hitting that tipping point to feel like an actual neighborhood so of course it's not going to already have every amenity that centuries old, established neighborhoods would have. These things get added one at a time; they don't just simultaneously materialize out of thin air. For instance, have we determined that we NEED a school there yet, based on the demographics of the area and the availability of existing nearby schooling? Or is the argument to just build a school because it "should be there" and not to meet an existing need? Is a full sized basketball court a mandatory form of recreation, compared to other offerings, in order to qualify as a real neighborhood? Are zero of the retail/restaurants/bars small, local businesses, and what is the exact proportion needed to meet people's arbitrary standards?
Just because every single thing that anybody could possibly want hasn't all been built yet, does it really make sense to call a neighborhood a failure when (A) it wasn't a neighborhood at all just a few years ago and (B) half of it remains unbuilt? Improvements are incremental, and I see them every single time I visit the area.
It's just hitting that tipping point to feel like an actual neighborhood so of course it's not going to already have every amenity that centuries old, established neighborhoods would have. These things get added one at a time; they don't just simultaneously materialize out of thin air. For instance, have we determined that we NEED a school there yet, based on the demographics of the area and the availability of existing nearby schooling? Or is the argument to just build a school because it "should be there" and not to meet an existing need? Is a full sized basketball court a mandatory form of recreation, compared to other offerings, in order to qualify as a real neighborhood? Are zero of the retail/restaurants/bars small, local businesses, and what is the exact proportion needed to meet people's arbitrary standards?
Just because every single thing that anybody could possibly want hasn't all been built yet, does it really make sense to call a neighborhood a failure when (A) it wasn't a neighborhood at all just a few years ago and (B) half of it remains unbuilt? Improvements are incremental, and I see them every single time I visit the area.
real_EthanHunt
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you started by saying its
then went to
and have now fallen to
so yes, your writing gets a response. Whether its combative (wasnt meant to be) or dismissive (actual intent) of your baseless accusations.
This may be a whole new can of worms, but I never really understood where this whole narrative of Seaport being a neighborhood (and thus "requires" all the elements of a neighborhood) came from. The area in the Seaport permitted for residential use is not very large relative to that for commercial and maritime industrial use. It may not be a perfect analogy, but it's like complaining that there's no school or library right within Assembly Row. The City of Boston has various services that you describe, but I don't believe that means it's required in every single pocket or area in the city.
bigpicture7
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If you'd prefer for me to think of the Seaport as being like a copy of Assembly, then I agree it doesn't need those things
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Suffolk 83
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I dont double down on something I can't prove so I'm the problem? Ok I can see what I'm dealing with... there's some force keeping homeless out of the seaport, that was my whole point and I never claimed to have all the answers so there really wasnt a point in picking apart the argument aside from being a dick
MrDee12345
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And the next thread eligible for a move to "Just Stop" coming in 3...2...1...
Unsurprisingly, it all just boils down to having different views on what the desirable standards are rather than saying that one side doesn’t have any standards. Your view on what “better” is will differ from some others and vice versa. You may believe a school is needed. I don’t, since the demographics don’t appear to support that need. You see the place as being “weird,” I don’t. To each his own. I also can’t think of a single area where everyone has benefited to the same extent.
Anyways, just took a very late night nice solo stroll to this area to see what the fuss is all about. Verdict? Green space could’ve been bigger and less hardscaping would’ve been nice. Still looking forward to seeing everything completed.
Or.....the Seaport is a trendy local/tourist trap that attracts the paeans of wannabe policy wonks like skeeters to a zapper. Whether or not homeless folks are present doesn't change anything about these redundant, circular arguments that are better hashed out in the urbanism thread.
donkeybutlers
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How about refraining from calling entire groups of people "hostile to urban life"? Why is that not considered name calling? It truly is stunning how the rules of decorum seem to work here: let reactionaries say whatever atrocious nonsense they want but if anyone disagrees at all forcefully that's crossing a line.
one of those reactionary trolls you seem to let run rampant is right there⌄⌄⌄
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armpitsOFmight
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You're grasping for straws little one.
Blackbird
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