Affordable Housing Institute : US

Rock, a National Park Service geologist once told me while we were hiking in the Fiery Furnace, is always coming or going: either it is being formed (by pressure, heat, and time)

 

 

or it is being eroded (by water, wind, and time). 

 

 

In the same way, neighborhoods are always coming or going: gentrifying or decaying, and in the same slow cycles that, because they are much longer than normal human perception, seem invisible on a casual glance.

 

Roxbury is among Boston’s oldest neighborhoods: founded in 1630:

 

Roxbury had many resources the colonists were looking for: open farmland, timber and stone for building, and the Stony Brook for water power. Additionally, its location on the only road to Boston gave the town an advantage in transportation and trade and a strategic military position.  Roxbury was defined by its rocky hills, drumlins left by a prehistoric glacier.  In the area of Roxbury Highlands are many outcroppings of native Roxbury puddingstone, a kind of composite rock used over the centuries in buildings throughout the Boston area.

 

The colonists soon began constructing buildings and roads that still define the neighborhood today. Washington, Dudley, Centre, Roxbury, and Warren streets were all laid out in the first years of settlement. The town center was located at John Eliot Square, where the first meetinghouse was built in 1632, with its burying ground nearby at the corner of Eustis and Washington streets.

 

It was home to stately Georgian mansions

 

 

and grew into a flourishing streetcar suburb:

 

 

Streetcar in Cleveland, city of light

 

like many other cities including Washington DC’s Anacostia.  But with the great black migration north after World War II Roxbury, like so many urban neighborhoods, first went black, then suddenly went ghetto, as Randy Newman sang:

 

Yes he’s free to be put in a cage
In Harlem in New York City
And he’s free to be put in a cage in the South Side of Chicago
And the West Side
And he’s free to be put in a cage in Hough in Cleveland
And he’s free to be put in a cage in East Saint Louis
And he’s free to be put in a cage in Fillmore in San Francisco
And he’s free to be put in a cage in Roxbury in Boston
They’re gatherin’ ’em up from miles around

 

But those good buildings remained, even if boarded up:

 

 

Now Roxbury is coming back, as highlighted by a lengthy Boston Globe article on its re-emergence, a wonderful example of the cyclicality of urban neighborhoods:

 

Roxbury is on the cusp of a revival, real estate agents say.

 

(And we know how reliable brokers are, don’t we? J )

 

What becomes a rising neighborhood most?  A mixture of features both permanent and temporary, consisting of:

 

Good ground:

 

Among Roxbury’s selling points is its proximity to the city’s business districts — the new Silver Line makes the daily 2.3-mile commute from Dudley Square to Downtown Crossing in under 20 minutes.

 

 

Good bones:

 

In addition, Roxbury has both new housing stock and charming old homes.

 

Walkability to new-urbanist attractions:

 

”I’ve discovered parts of the city I never knew about,” she said. ”I can play tennis on courts near Northeastern. I can walk a mile to the MFA. Fort Hill is one of the most beautiful parks in Boston with free jazz concerts in the summer. There’s a bike path outside my door that goes all the way up to Massachusetts Avenue or down to Forest Hills or the Arboretum.”

 

A strong metropolitan economy:

 

With housing costs soaring, many first-time buyers are seeing Roxbury as an affordable alternative to other neighborhoods.

 

A strong buyer’s bargain element:

 

Price, of course, is a big part of Roxbury’s draw. The 2004 median sale prices in Boston’s downtown neighborhoods were $1.26 million for a single-family and $463,000 for a condo, according to the Warren Group. For Roxbury, the medians were $370,000 for a single-family and $399,000 for a condo.

 

Targeted government investment:

 

And the City of Boston and community development corporations have invested in revitalizing commercial parts of Roxbury such as Dudley Square. Besides building affordable housing, these efforts aim to attract more retailers to make the neighborhood more vibrant.

 

Along with social capital including HOPE VI public housing revitalization:

 

 

And some historic rehabilitation:

 

Just last month in Dudley Square, Nuestra Comunidad, a community development corporation, joined with such partners as the City of Boston, the Commonwealth [the state of Massachusetts -- ed.], and Bank of America Corp. [using historic and low income housing tax credits -- ed.] to unveil the restoration of the Dartmouth Hotel. Plans call for retail at street level and affordable housing on upper floors.

 

And mixed-income mixed-tenure housing alternatives:

 

”In the past, the balance of development has tipped heavily to affordable housing, and that’s certainly needed,” said Michael Miles, president of a neighborhood group. But what’s also needed is the development of market-rate housing that’s attractive to longtime Roxbury residents who otherwise might have to move out of the neighborhood if they want to trade up, he said.

 

Even though nobody is ever forced to sell the family homestead, renovation and rising property values always brings out the political advocates:

 

”The fact that new people are coming to the area is very much a positive,” said Joyce Ferriabough Bolling, a political and media strategist who lives in Roxbury.  ”But a lot of people who live here feel they’re being priced out of the market.  Gentrification is a concern.”

 

Oh?  Who’s forcing you out?  For every gentrifying immigrant, there’s an appreciation-capturing resident:

 

Perhaps nobody is more bullish on Roxbury than Dennis Bynum, 41, an ambulance supervisor. In a neighborhood near Dudley Square, he’s acting as his own agent as he seeks to sell the three-family home where he lived for 15 years. His price: $1.3 million.

 

Bynum is undeterred by realtors telling him his price is too high. As he sees it, values in Roxbury are going nowhere but up.

 

”I’m basically going to wait for my price,” he said.

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