South End demographics

[JohnAKeith]

I've spent the past couple of weeks pouring over census reports from the early to late 1900's to see what types of changes the South End, my neighborhood, has seen over the past century.

To set the stage, here's some data from circa-1930 collected by the "Boston Council of Social Agencies", which was apparently a privately-run organization focused on the health and welfare of Bostonians.

I used the data from them, which is fine, except their definition of "South End" is broader than what was used later (by the BRA) and today (by the BRA and generally by the local population). For example, their data from 1930 includes much of Bay Village and Chinatown in its "South End" total (all the way to Milk Street to the north and to the Fort Point Channel to the east), so you can see why I wish I had tract information. It also includes the population living in what is now called the "Newmarket" neighborhood.

From 1950 on to today I have population by census tract broken down by race/ethnicity and will post that later (or, perhaps, on the Boston Herald real estate blog but cross-posted here). The changes in races (and incomes) during the past 50-60 years may surprise you but not for the reasons you might assume.

So, the following is based on their cumulative of data covering the map and districts shown immediately below here.

What you'll see first is obvious: "White" includes both foreign and "native"-born people - they tracked only White and Negro and "Other.

That's important because if we look at a snapshot of the South End, today, we'd also see "White" but the social-economic demographic is starkly different (basically, based on income / profession / homeownership levels).

The "White" of today includes (we can assume ...) white people who are fifth-or-sixth generation American, not a mix of foreign- and native-borns.

So, even though we might see the same percentage of "Whites", historically, the make-up of that demographic is so different.

And, back in the day, Asian was not tract separately, nor was American Indian or Eskimo. And, Hispanic, which is not a race (can be of any race), was not tracked until later in the 20th-century.

Below the map is my spreadsheet of data.

Then, I included three charts showing lodging houses as percentage of total housing, rate of tuberculosis diagnoses per hundred thousand, and number of people on relief, compared to the city as a whole. (Is the TB rate higher because the Boston Medical Center is in this neighborhood?)

Finally, there is a breakdown of what Boston looked like in 1930.

 

[JohnAKeith]

More of my thoughts about changing demographics in the South End during past decade.

Q&A on South End's growth: Realtor sees changing neighborhood character
By Cara Bayles, Town Correspondent, Boston.com

New census numbers show that the South End's population grew 12 percent over the past decade. The dramatic increase, a net gain of 2,784 residents, seems to be driven by a noteworthy jump in housing stock. Housing units rose to 14,485, a 13.2 percent increase, making the small neighborhood the city?s third-fastest growing housing market over the past decade.

John Keith, a Boston-based realtor, real estate blogger and South End resident, says the numbers reflect a change in the neighborhood's character. An area once known for just Columbus Avenue has become home to several sub-communities like SoWa (considered a swaggering answer to New York's SoHo), the Washington Gateway commercial area, and several new major housing developments.

Q. Why did you think this significant growth is happening in the South End?

A. It There was a good economy, there were a bunch of people who wanted to move from the suburbs into the city, and there were a bunch of people relocating here, either from other neighborhoods, or other towns and cities in Massachusetts. A good economy brought good jobs to Boston and because of that people wanted to move here.

When people wanted to move here, they had a few select neighborhoods they wanted to move into. Most people, when they move into the city, tend to target a few downtown neighborhoods because that's what they consider to be Boston, vs., say, West Roxbury or Hyde Park. When they think of Boston, they think of downtown.

Among the downtown neighborhoods, the South End had some things that the other neighborhoods didn't. Beacon Hill can be congested and it also has fewer housing options, because it's a smaller neighborhood, it's more dense. There wasn't a lot of new construction over there. The Back Bay is very nice, but also very expensive. People liked the South End because it had the character, the value, and the housing they were looking for.

Q. There have been a lot of new developments in the South End. Is it a "if you build it they will come" sort of phenomenon? Have those been filled easily?

A. It was a confluence of situations. The housing came about when people wanted it. If you built it now, it would take a while to work through the inventory.

It grew because people wanted to live here and developers felt there was a way to make money off of it. There was land available. The Back Bay was very restrictive of where you can build. Whereas, in the South End, there were still empty lots and large buildings that could be torn down.

Some of the biggest developments happened on Washington Street, more toward the beginning of the decade. You had 400-500 units being built on what were empty lots. It filled a gap, literally and figuratively. At the time, it was a very risky thing, because it was on what was considered the edge of the South End, or at least the edge of the residential area.

But by design, and by economic good fortune, there were a bunch of units in there, they sold them all, and suddenly there was this density on Washington Street that wasn't there before. And it created a whole SoWa (south of Washington) sub-neighborhood in the South End.

SoWa wasn't real estate agents colluding to try to come up with a catchy name to sell things, it was the guy who ran TGI [ed. GTI] properties who came up with it because he wanted to brand it as a place where you could live, work or go out to eat. The brand really does help when you describe those blocks. That sort of development happened all over the South End. On Mass. Ave. it happened, and now on Harrison (Ave.), you have thousands of units of new housing.

Q. You mentioned that the timing worked out really well, and that this level of development might not work now. What made it a good time?

A. People were aging and they wanted to sell their homes in the suburbs and move to city. Then there was also the good economy, which meant people had the financial ability to buy expensive property.

The timing of it was also you had a city that was getting safer and safer, where the streets were getting cleaner, buildings were being repaired. ? Things were getting better, it was a nicer place to live, and that drew people in. Some of that happened just by accident. You had higher property tax income coming in, so the city could do all these things, and some of it may have been decisions on the part of City Hall.

Q. According to census data, the demographics have shifted. White residents led that charge, with a 18.2 percent increase -- or 2,219 new residents. The neighborhood's Asian population also grew by 31.3 percent -- or 1,035. The Hispanic/Latino demographic grew 3.6 percent, or by 115 residents. The South End's Black/African American population dropped by 17 percent, or 642 people, marking the highest proportional drop in black residents citywide.

Have you noticed a demographic change yourself?

A. There's definitely a change. There's certainly a higher number of white couples with baby carriages. I'm saying that based on my clients, but that's also from what I see in the neighborhood.

We have a lot of people coming in for dinner and everything else. So, it can kind of throw you off from what you're seeing, because if you came here at night, you'd say the neighborhood is just people coming in from the suburbs to eat, based on the traffic.

I think for people who live here, and I don't have the numbers, I would say it seems more upper middle class. It definitely became whiter. The African-American numbers went down, the Asian numbers went up and the Hispanic went up [according to recent census figures].

Where I live, it's closer to Castle Square and Chinatown, where there's a large Asian community. If you went to another part of the South End, like near Villa Victoria, you'd see more of the Hispanic population. So, it's still very segregated. It's a melting pot, and we all live in the same neighborhood, but it's not like we all live in the same building. It's divided by income, as far as I can tell.


Q. The uptick in the population is being equated with the increase in available housing. Is this gentrification? Is the South End becoming more of a high-end real estate market?

A. Yeah, it is. That's where the activity is, that's where the change is. I think there's an increase in home ownership in the South End.

? People have written about this in the past few months, about African-Americans moving out of the city into the suburbs or into the South. But it's also not like the neighborhood was black and then suddenly went white. If you look 30 years ago, it was more white than black. It made a change, it changes every year.

Back in 1960, there were 28,000 white people here and there were 9,800 black people. So, there was some movement, and there were changes, but I don't think you can draw any type of a conclusion.

Q. Do you think that the development of new housing has contributed to the income shift you mentioned?

A. There's been change over the past ten years. Buildings were renovated, and buildings that were renovated were rented out for higher prices. The owners of the buildings thought they could make more money. That's capitalism. They took properties that were rentals or were rundown, or abandoned or half-empty, and renovated them, and then either sold them as condos or turned them into an apartment building. And so people who had lived there, yeah, they couldn't afford to live there. ?

You have a change in demographics, but you also had a change in the housing. And this is the good part of gentrification, you had rundown housing that was abandoned 20 or 30 years ago, and you had buildings that weren?t in good shape. The South End, for 25 years used to be just considered Columbus Avenue. And then about 1990 or a bit later, it became Tremont, and now, you can add Washington Street and Harrison to that. So, that happened because the housing was renovated and because people wanted cheaper housing than they could get on Columbus Ave, and they kept moving further and further in.

When I was looking for an apartment in '92, I didn't want to live south of Tremont. I was like, "It's too far from the train, the buildings are run down, it's kind of desolate." Now, there's all this new housing, which means no one's being displaced, although it raised the property values all over the neighborhood. So, it was adding people, not necessarily moving people out. I think as developers moved further south, it reached corners that had previously been untouched.

? Building in the South End originally was a little different, because there were empty lots, but now it's hard to build here. That's what drove increases in housing prices; there was nowhere for people to move when they wanted to come here. The added housing did not meet the demand.

It's gone through a dramatic change, and I think it's exciting that it did. It's such a vibrant neighborhood now.

http://www.boston.com/yourtown/news/south_end/2011/04/realtor_john_keith_discusses_g.html

 

[Sicilian]

Performance art non-profit Mobius, founded in Boston 35 years ago, is moving from Boston to Cambridge, leaving its Harrison Ave space vacant.

The non-profit artists association has a triple-net lease, Speare said, under which the group must pay rent, condo fees and commercial taxes (despite the fact they are a tax-exempt organization).

"The real estate tax was four times what we were told it was going to be," Speare said. According to the City of Boston Assessing Department’s website, in 2011 Mobius was charged over $18,300 in real estate taxes. In 2010, it was almost $17,900.

Two years ago Speare said he and other Mobius members went to the city to try and get the real estate tax removed from their bill, which the city said could only be done if Mobius owned the building. Even at that point, Speare recalled the city said it would still be at their discretion whether they charged the tax or not.

In a February 2007 BRA press release, Menino is quoted as saying, "Not only does this project advance the city’s overall housing goals, it addresses the very specific and unique needs of the artist community. As we all know, artists play an important role in the health and vitality of our city by enlivening our neighborhoods and adding to the city’s creative capital."

From http://www.mysouthend.com/index.php?ch=news&sc=&sc2=news&sc3=&id=121342