They get it in Boston
The failure of sprawl, from the Globe:
What ever happened to Interstate 495? You remember I-495 -- the belt in the boondocks beyond Route 128 that was billed in the late '90s as the new center of gravity, the suburban template for the future where people would work and live far from the ominous skyline of Boston?
It's still there, and people continue to flock to it. Its explosive growth has caused horrific traffic congestion and the herniation of town budgets obliged to provide expensive services like schools and sewer systems for the hordes. But that's not where the action is now. That's not where the buzz is. The buzz is back in our much-maligned urban core.
[...]
Foy produces a statistical map drawn by the Metropolitan Area Planning Council of multifamily housing starts from 1997 to 2002 in suburban Boston based on US Census data. In communities inside Route 128, the percentage of starts routinely tops 40 percent. It tails off dramatically, with a few exceptions, moving out to I-495 and beyond. Some 87 percent of housing units produced in Massachusetts between 1991 and 2000, he notes, were single-family dwellings, putting the Commonwealth fifth from the bottom among states in terms of multifamily starts.
Some might argue that, lacking a public transportation infrastructure, the I-495 corridor was always doomed to the automobile-driven sprawl that eventually eats itself. People moved there because they like 2-acre zoning. If so, there is every reason to believe that, absent mass transit, the same destructive phenomenon will repeat itself when the next belt further out, Interstate 290, is developed.
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rj3 | 1:03 PM |
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I'd suggest that the collapse of the computer companies between 128 and 495 was perhaps a significant factor. (a former Digital employee)
