I think you're being unnecessarily belittling and negative here. Boston is NOT tiny. It's the core for a CSA of seven-and-a-half million people, making it the fifth largest in the USA. In addition, it is ranked ELEVENTH worldwide in the list of global cities by GDP. Much smaller markets have supported 1,000-foot towers, and there exists no reason to believe that we cannot grow our market. In fact, it's projected to grow at a rate of 2.4% annually through 2020.
Suburban Boston
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I think you're being unnecessarily belittling and negative here. Boston is NOT tiny. It's the core for a CSA of seven-and-a-half million people, making it the fifth largest in the USA. In addition, it is ranked ELEVENTH worldwide in the list of global cities by GDP. Much smaller markets have supported 1,000-foot towers, and there exists no reason to believe that we cannot grow our market. In fact, it's projected to grow at a rate of 2.4% annually through 2020.
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Re: The Clarendon
Well no, I meant small specifically in square footage of developed land. Even the suburbs of Boston are less dense than suburbs in California or Arizona.
This is a ridiculous statement. Boston, Metro Boston, has plenty of land to build on. If you went to Roxbury alone your could fill in so much land that you wouldn't need to build a few skyscrapers downtown. [This is just a hypothetical idea to prove the amount of land, not thinking about realistic real estate forces] Also there are still many places downtown that are lowrise that could be built out.
Metro Boston also has plenty of space. The city, proper, is small compared to many other cities, but it still has the character of a big city (which is why so many people, including myself, love it).
Well no, I meant small specifically in square footage of developed land. Even the suburbs of Boston are less dense than suburbs in California or Arizona.
This is a ridiculous statement. Boston, Metro Boston, has plenty of land to build on. If you went to Roxbury alone your could fill in so much land that you wouldn't need to build a few skyscrapers downtown. [This is just a hypothetical idea to prove the amount of land, not thinking about realistic real estate forces] Also there are still many places downtown that are lowrise that could be built out.
Metro Boston also has plenty of space. The city, proper, is small compared to many other cities, but it still has the character of a big city (which is why so many people, including myself, love it).
czsz
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Re: The Clarendon
You mean specifically? There are a lot of suburbs like Wayland and Westborough that are basically far-flung exurban sprawl. Even if they have quaint, walkable town centers, they're numerically less dense than parts of California with very tightly-packed subdivisions.
To give a visual example...
California subdivision...autocentric but tightly packed:
Boston exurb...very large lots creating greater distances between uses and greatly expanding the area of the metro vs. the population:
Even suburbs closer to Boston are not as densely packed as the California example above:
You mean specifically? There are a lot of suburbs like Wayland and Westborough that are basically far-flung exurban sprawl. Even if they have quaint, walkable town centers, they're numerically less dense than parts of California with very tightly-packed subdivisions.
To give a visual example...
California subdivision...autocentric but tightly packed:
Boston exurb...very large lots creating greater distances between uses and greatly expanding the area of the metro vs. the population:
Even suburbs closer to Boston are not as densely packed as the California example above:
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Re: The Clarendon
/\ Exactly /\
Btw, thanks for doing all that work for me
/\ Exactly /\
Btw, thanks for doing all that work for me
tocoto
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Re: The Clarendon
These types of communities are common in the west and are often surrounded by far less dense tracts. They are often gated as well and are associated with an irrigated golf course.
California subdivision...autocentric but tightly packed:
Boston's suburbs although not always very dense are more sustainable and include much better mass transit.
These types of communities are common in the west and are often surrounded by far less dense tracts. They are often gated as well and are associated with an irrigated golf course.
California subdivision...autocentric but tightly packed:
Boston's suburbs although not always very dense are more sustainable and include much better mass transit.
commuter guy
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Re: The Clarendon
This is starting to veer off into a land use discussion, but it's true - NEW suburban development in greater boston is much less compact than in the sun belt or in the midwest. Local control over zoning is so strong in New England. Suburban towns by and large seem hell bent on preventing "overdevelopment." By way of example, in Omaha, a very large farm, directly adjacent to tightly developed auto centric sprawl, will be purchased by a national residential developer. Streets will be plotted, sewer and water infrastructure laid out, and hundreds if not thousands of homes on 7,000 foot lots will be constructed. In California the pattern is denser. There is no local town opposition at all because everyone within 5 miles of the place just moved into a similar type subdivision within the last 5 years. Contrast with your typical town outside of Boston, with its large lot zoning and inability or refusal to permit water and sewer infrastructure to be constructed which would allow for monotonous higher density auto centric sprawl. New England just keeps building (relatively few) McMansions on huge lots located a very long commute from Boston.
This is starting to veer off into a land use discussion, but it's true - NEW suburban development in greater boston is much less compact than in the sun belt or in the midwest. Local control over zoning is so strong in New England. Suburban towns by and large seem hell bent on preventing "overdevelopment." By way of example, in Omaha, a very large farm, directly adjacent to tightly developed auto centric sprawl, will be purchased by a national residential developer. Streets will be plotted, sewer and water infrastructure laid out, and hundreds if not thousands of homes on 7,000 foot lots will be constructed. In California the pattern is denser. There is no local town opposition at all because everyone within 5 miles of the place just moved into a similar type subdivision within the last 5 years. Contrast with your typical town outside of Boston, with its large lot zoning and inability or refusal to permit water and sewer infrastructure to be constructed which would allow for monotonous higher density auto centric sprawl. New England just keeps building (relatively few) McMansions on huge lots located a very long commute from Boston.
czsz
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These were all independent mill cities that grew up independently in the early 19th century when urban density was a virtual given. They only happened to be swallowed up by the Boston commuter belt. Any development consequential to suburban growth is much less dense.
These are contradictory statements. How are these towns necessarily any more sustainable? Arguments have been made that superior transit coupled with thoughtless development can actually push sprawl beyond its natural boundaries by relieving suburban commuters of the traffic mess they would face if heading into the city from, say, Plymouth. At best "park and ride" development helps us avoid the exhaust of more cars crawling into Boston or the proliferation of more parking ramps in the central city, but that doesn't account for the fact that more people might be living closer in (and either making shorter drives or taking transit anyway) without the added convenience of the commuter rail.
Joe_Schmoe
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Personally, I think Concord, Lincoln, Wayland, and Sudbury, etc are far more beautiful than that California example which is a nightmare. I'd definitely rather live in the Massachusetts suburbs than the California one. But Boston has its dense suburbs as well in Somerville, Cambridge, Watertown.
czsz
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It's nice that we've managed to pack some commuters into old mill towns, but it hasn't stopped the rest of eastern Massachusetts from becoming primarily sprawly.
Joe, the problem is that none of the new suburban development in Massachusetts is dense like Somerville. Yes, Concord is beautiful. But if every new suburb of Boston looked like Concord (rather than a collection of gauchely-built, widely-interspersed McMansions ala Wayland), the state would pay a steep social, financial, and environmental price for de facto sprawl.
czsz
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Wendell Cox cherry-picks the statistics that he doesn't outright fabricate, until they grind his axe. He's an apologist for the oil companies and right-wing Republicans.
His conclusions are as void of genuine useful truth as the claim that Obama pals around with terrorists --and they're products of the same process.
He deserves to be ignored, not quoted.
His conclusions are as void of genuine useful truth as the claim that Obama pals around with terrorists --and they're products of the same process.
He deserves to be ignored, not quoted.
Maybe it's just here, where I live, but older south shore Boston suburbs like Milton and Braintree, and to an extent Randolph and some other surrounding towns, etc. are relatively dense, don't have much sprawl, and maintain an elevated level of historical character through their architecture and street patterns than the description of "suburban" you've all described.
Where I live in Stoughton, there are many new developments, but the town is far from having a bland feeling. Maybe it's because of its Commuter Rail line stop and closeness to major highways that had established my town long ago in suburban development. before suburbs were filled with "Little Boxes." But Stoughton and the other towns on the South Shore have been established communities for hundreds of years, as long as Boston. Bostons age and colonial layout make it a more interesting place as it evolves, and this is true of its long established suburbs. People have been settling and expanding these places as long as they have Boston, and the space available to develop modern, soul-less, mistakes don't detract from the generations of suburban design and development that serve reasonable dense suburban populations.
There are tree's here, and woods. Everythigns cleared, leveled, and bland in McMansion communities, and in most of those in my area, they atleast have a few years behind them and enough respect for the rest of the area to have interesting foliage.
Long story short, it's interesting and dense in suburban Boston and isn't out west, even with new sprawl.
Where I live in Stoughton, there are many new developments, but the town is far from having a bland feeling. Maybe it's because of its Commuter Rail line stop and closeness to major highways that had established my town long ago in suburban development. before suburbs were filled with "Little Boxes." But Stoughton and the other towns on the South Shore have been established communities for hundreds of years, as long as Boston. Bostons age and colonial layout make it a more interesting place as it evolves, and this is true of its long established suburbs. People have been settling and expanding these places as long as they have Boston, and the space available to develop modern, soul-less, mistakes don't detract from the generations of suburban design and development that serve reasonable dense suburban populations.
There are tree's here, and woods. Everythigns cleared, leveled, and bland in McMansion communities, and in most of those in my area, they atleast have a few years behind them and enough respect for the rest of the area to have interesting foliage.
Long story short, it's interesting and dense in suburban Boston and isn't out west, even with new sprawl.
czsz
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You're suffering from some red herrings.
The fact that these towns have, in many cases, compact and walkable centers does not mean they do not have serious problems on their outskirts. Routes 1 and 9 are cases in point.
The fact that houses are located in arboreal forest settings in metro Boston is hardly a justification for their distance from one another. Atlanta is plenty leafy, too. This is more indicative of the dominant land use prior to suburban development than anything else (in the Midwest, most new subdivisions don't "clear cut" land, which would be expensive, but are built over treeless farms. In much of eastern Massachusetts, agriculture proved comparatively unprofitable long ago, and the forests grew back).
And, of course, one ought to emphasize that the problem lies much less with the likes of Braintree than with towns much further removed from the urban core, which make up most of the land mass of the metro.
The fact that these towns have, in many cases, compact and walkable centers does not mean they do not have serious problems on their outskirts. Routes 1 and 9 are cases in point.
The fact that houses are located in arboreal forest settings in metro Boston is hardly a justification for their distance from one another. Atlanta is plenty leafy, too. This is more indicative of the dominant land use prior to suburban development than anything else (in the Midwest, most new subdivisions don't "clear cut" land, which would be expensive, but are built over treeless farms. In much of eastern Massachusetts, agriculture proved comparatively unprofitable long ago, and the forests grew back).
And, of course, one ought to emphasize that the problem lies much less with the likes of Braintree than with towns much further removed from the urban core, which make up most of the land mass of the metro.
^Then perhaps it's not so much that we lack density close to the inner core, but more that we have extended the far reaches of the whole metropolitan area. Our CSA includes multiple counties in New Hampshire and the entire state of Rhode Island now.
kennedy
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Marblehead is certainly not your depiction of "Suburban McMansions"
The entire town is walkable, especially the dense (really, really, really dense) downtown and oldtown areas. The houses in most of the mainland of town are the perfect lot size (decent yard, but not acres of land). On the Neck, where all the mansions are, it is still walkable along the shore and through the bird sanctuary.
My brain is slightly fried but I knew I had a purpose when I was writing this...I'll finish my thoughts later.
The entire town is walkable, especially the dense (really, really, really dense) downtown and oldtown areas. The houses in most of the mainland of town are the perfect lot size (decent yard, but not acres of land). On the Neck, where all the mansions are, it is still walkable along the shore and through the bird sanctuary.
My brain is slightly fried but I knew I had a purpose when I was writing this...I'll finish my thoughts later.