Whites double back to Boston as inner suburbs get some color

Via Matthew Yglesias, here is a prescient cartoon (click it to enlarge) done by Tom Toles in 1998:

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You can see the success of this "plan" in Boston by looking at new Census data. Go to this map and click on various census tracts; you can see that the white population in the South End, Roxbury, and Mission Hill (all near the Orange Line) has increased over the past decade while the number of African-Americans has declined or been stagnant. Then go to this map and click on tracts in Everett, Malden, and Revere; the black population has soared while whites have gone elsewhere.

This isn't really a conspiracy, of course. It's just a matter of higher-income groups rediscovering the advantages of living in the heart of the city (now that crime has gone down and pizza shops have been replaced by cocktail bars). The question is what will happen to inner-ring suburbs as their relatively low housing costs attract more and more immigrants and low-income residents. They're likely to become more dependent on state aid in order to provide education and other public services. My fear is that they will face a political alliance between prosperous Boston and well-off suburbs (all of them able to generate income from high property taxes and lucrative commercial property) that will impose "fiscal discipline" on less fortunate communities.

Comments

[Chris VanHaight]

For a possible scenario regarding where this is heading, take a look at Paris. A freakishly expensive inner city surrounded by squalid "banliues". An added problem to the poor being pushed to the suburbs is the "out of sight, out of mind" syndrome.

[Robert David Sullivan]

Maybe urban planners should take advantage of anti-French animosity among American conservatives. "Keep our major cities affordable, or we'll end up like Paris!"

[Gabrielle Gurley]

Chris is right with this caveat: The northern and eastern suburbs of Paris tend to be the poorer areas. The wealthy tend to migrate to towns west and south of the city.