# Will the Boswash areas merge together?



## hudkina (Oct 28, 2003)

plcmat said:


> I don't see how that is the inevitable alternative. By its very design origins Boston/Cambridge will always be urban and populated and lively/walkable in its center. It's not going to turn into Phoenix or Atlanta.


A place doesn't have to be "Phoenix or Atlanta" to become less lively/walkable at its center. Take a look at cities like Detroit and St. Louis and you'll know that isn't true. St. Louis and Detroit were once just as lively/walkable as Boston, but people flocked to the suburbs because housing was new and cheap and the commute to the jobs in the city was simple. Then businesses flocked to the suburbs because that's where the people were and they could have more space at a cheaper rate. Fast forward 30 years and you have a bunch of empty homes and businesses. Fast forward another 20 years and you have a bunch of empty lots and boarded up buildings.


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## Xusein (Sep 27, 2005)

Azia said:


> i think by 2050:nuts: Richmond are merged with Washington/balti Wash/balti are merged with Philly philly are merged with NYC NYC are merged witch Hartford Hartford are merged witch Providence and Providence will merged with Boston , so by current grow rates ,then Boswash will have over 70 million inhabitans , an gigantic contuios build up megacity :nuts::nuts::nuts:


I don't believe Hartford will ever merge with Providence. Too much rural land, and there really isn't much interaction between the two metros. We aren't even connected to each other by a direct highway. hno:


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## plcmat (Jan 16, 2008)

hudkina said:


> A place doesn't have to be "Phoenix or Atlanta" to become less lively/walkable at its center. Take a look at cities like Detroit and St. Louis and you'll know that isn't true. St. Louis and Detroit were once just as lively/walkable as Boston, but people flocked to the suburbs because housing was new and cheap and the commute to the jobs in the city was simple. Then businesses flocked to the suburbs because that's where the people were and they could have more space at a cheaper rate. Fast forward 30 years and you have a bunch of empty homes and businesses. Fast forward another 20 years and you have a bunch of empty lots and boarded up buildings.


This same migration happened in Boston to some extent in the 70's. But I've been to St. Louis and Detroit and Boston is different, it is much older, the downtown or near-downtown neighborhoods are much denser, there is a lot more cash flowing around to convert once downtrodden neighborhoods into lots of expensive condos, it's just a different type of city with much more intellectual capital than either St. Louis or Detroit, which rely more on manufacturing and service industries.

Are you implying people remain in downtown Boston because there isn't affordable housing in the suburbs? If anything people leave the Boston area entirely and move to places like Raleigh-Durham due to cost of living issues.


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## hudkina (Oct 28, 2003)

plcmat said:


> This same migration happened in Boston to some extent in the 70's.


Yes, and having a large greenbelt that made it A. more difficult to build said subdivisions and B. increased the commute to the central city from the suburbs that had to be built further out, caused fewer people to flock to the suburbs.





plcmat said:


> But I've been to St. Louis and Detroit and Boston is different, it is much older, the downtown or near-downtown neighborhoods are much denser, there is a lot more cash flowing around to convert once downtrodden neighborhoods into lots of expensive condos, it's just a different type of city with much more intellectual capital than either St. Louis or Detroit, which rely more on manufacturing and service industries.


Boston was founded only about 70 years before Detroit and only reached 100,000 about 30 years before Detroit. Boston was founded in 1630, Detroit was founded in 1701. Boston reached 100,000 in population in the 1840s, Detroit reached that milestone in the 1870s. In the grand scheme of things, Boston and Detroit are pretty close to being the same age. Especially when you compare them to cities like Phoenix and Atlanta.

In any case, the Detroit and St. Louis you see today are the results of the depopulation in the middle of the 20th century. There was a time though when the central areas of those two cities were not that different from the central areas of Boston. Even though Boston has a rich history dating back into the 1600's and 1700's, the reality is that most of the stuff you see in Boston dates back the 1800's and 1900's. While it is true that you can find lots of historic sites from the colonial period, most of the city isn't that old.

Detroit itself used to have a density of about 14,000 per sq. mi. and that was over an area of about 140 sq. mi. I'm sure the core 50 sq. mi. had a density closer to 30,000 per sq. mi.

Here are a few images of what Detroit looked like before the exodus:




























> Are you implying people remain in downtown Boston because there isn't affordable housing in the suburbs? If anything people leave the Boston area entirely and move to places like Raleigh-Durham due to cost of living issues.


What I'm saying is that if given the option a lot of people would choose the larger house with the lower taxes if it was more convenient. The less convenient such a lifestyle is the more likely they'll stay where they are.

If Detroit had enacted a large greenbelt around the city (or at least the inner-ring suburbs) it's possible that the people and businesses wouldn't have left at as large a rate as they did.


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## plcmat (Jan 16, 2008)

These are awesome pictures!! Interesting data on Detroit as well.

Boston, like St. Louis, used to have over 800,000 inhabitants. I understand your point about easy suburban access accelerating urban flight. I hadn't really thought of this in this way before and would be interested in reading more about this theory.

I still believe Boston held on to more of its urban population because it is a very different city economically than Detroit or St. Louis (or Buffalo or Cleveland for two more examples of cities that have lost tons of people). And Boston has inner city transit options that Detroit and St. Louis don't have. It's really one level "more urban" than either of those two cities, and more similar to Chicago, New York and Philadelphia, even though it is smaller (though considering metro populations, not that much smaller than Philadelphia).

Also, many of the inner ring suburbs of Boston (Cambridge, Somerville, Quincy, Brookline, Chelsea, et al) would probably have been part of Boston proper had Boston been developed later and in the Midwest. Boston really has the feel of a city with over 1M people because if you add in these close in contiguous areas it does. I don't know if that is relevant here or not.


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## hudkina (Oct 28, 2003)

Detroit and St. Louis both had extensive streetcar systems in the cities as well as interurban systems that extended out into the suburbs.

Here was Detroit:


















Detroit's streetcar system was dismantled in the 50's and 60's and replaced by a bus system and the interurbans were more or less replaced by freeways. That's another part of the reason people moved to the suburbs. If they had to use a car to get to their job regardless of whether or not they lived in the city, and if the freeways made it easy for them to get to their jobs, then they definitely chose the suburbs.

And while I understand that Boston is obviously a lot bigger than it's population implies, I think you are misunderstanding just how big Detroit once was. In 1950, Detroit and a few of it's inner-ring suburbs (Hamtramck, Highland Park, River Rouge, Ecorse, Grosse Pointe Park, and Grosse Pointe) had just under 2 million people in about 150 sq. mi. In comparison, Boston had about 1.6 million in about the same area.

Detroit - 1,849,568 - 138.77 sq. mi.
Highland Park - 46,393 - 2.98 sq. mi.
Hamtramck - 43,355 - 2.11 sq. mi.
River Rouge - 20,549 - 2.67 sq. mi.
Ecorse - 17,948 - 2.69 sq. mi.
Grosse Pointe Park - 13,075 - 2.16 sq. mi.
Grosse Pointe - 6,283 - 1.07 sq. mi.
*TOTAL - 1,997,171 - 152.44 sq. mi. - 13,101.3 ppsm*


Boston - 801,444 - 48.43 sq. mi.
Cambridge - 120,740 - 6.43 sq. mi.
Somerville - 102,351 - 4.11 sq. mi.
Newton - 81,994 - 18.05 sq. mi.
Medford - 66,113 - 8.14 sq. mi.
Malden - 59,804 - 5.07 sq. mi.
Brookline - 57,589 - 6.79 sq. mi.
Waltham - 47,187 - 12.70 sq. mi.
Everett - 45,982 - 3.38 sq. mi.
Arlington - 44,353 - 5.18 sq. mi.
Chelsea - 38,912 - 2.19 sq. mi.
Watertown - 37,329 - 4.11 sq. mi.
Revere - 36,763 - 5.91 sq. mi.
Belmont - 27,381 - 4.66 sq. mi.
Melrose - 26,988 - 4.69 sq. mi.
Winthrop - 19,496 - 1.99 sq. mi.
Winchester - 15,509 - 6.04 sq. mi.
Stoneham - 13,229 - 6.15 sq. mi.
*TOTAL - 1,643,164 - 154.03 sq. mi. - 10,668.1 ppsm*

In comparison the city of Philadelphia had 2,071,605 people in 127 sq. mi., Chicago had 3,620,962 people in 208 sq. mi. and New York had 7,891,957 people in 315 sq. mi.


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## tocoto (Jan 18, 2003)

Hudinka, thanks or the great pictures of Detroit.

I think your theories about Boston are wrong. First, there was no planned greenbelt around Boston. Land use happened due to all the small towns each having zoning authority. The ability to move away from Boston was not hampered much by what you call the greenbelt, there were plenty of cheap easy to reach towns in the burbs in the 50s, 60s and 70s. Until the 1980s there were tons of cheap places to live in Boston if anyone wanted to live in the city or inner suburbs.

Detroit is a bigger city than Boston and was a bigger metro for much of the 20th century. On the other hand, Boston has a bigger economy, much more office space and higher commercial rents than Detroit. It has a real subway system and huge well preserved rowhouse districts. By many measures, it has one of the largest downtowns in the US even though it is not among the top 10 cities in terms of population.

Detroit does not have the depth or importance in American history Boston does. Boston was a major city and port long before Detroit reached prominence with the coming of the auto.

Boston is a city of finance and innovation and has been for hundreds of years. That makes its economy resilient and so even though it lost ground to manufacturing centers closer to raw materials during the 20th century, it did very well in the finance and research sectors because of all the old money and the yankee ethic that includes the importance of work and education. 

Philly is a bigger city than Boston as well, and it also has history, old money and education on its side. One reason for Boston's resurgence in the second half of the 20th century is that the loss of manufacturing prominence and jobs forced the Boston area into high tech and a service economy. This change happened in Boston earlier and to a greater degree than Philly or Detroit. 

If Detroit suffers from the misconception that the whole city and metro is a ruin, which it isn't, Boston suffers from the misconception that it is small. By CSA, metro Boston is similar to metro Philly and larger than metro Detroit in population. Regardless of the past or present population, its prominence is generally accepted to be a step above Detroit, St. Louis and even Philly at this point in history. Boston has more 500 footers, far more commercial floor space, and about the same DT population as Philly. Commercial and residential prices and rents are far higher in Boston. IMHO Boston has the larger downtown of the two although there are good arguments for both so call it a tie.

Getting back to the original question of this post. BosWash already is merged on most levels, it's really just a matter of degree at this point.


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## plcmat (Jan 16, 2008)

Once again, awesome pictures of Detroit, streetcars lined up one after the other.

I believe some areas of Boston also had these in addition to the subway, as there are vestigial wires and tracks in some areas.

I wasn't underestimating the former size of Detroit. 

I think many people would be shocked to know that St. Louis used to have over 800,000 people. I guess that is reflected a little in its large metro size vs the population of the city itself.

I don't know how you determine when areas have merged. When everyone living in the area (except at the extreme ends) has the choice of commuting to at least two of the major cities within the area? (I am counting Hartford and Providence as major cities, each has a metro population of over 1M). Wilmington too I guess. I suppose this is true for everywhere between New York and Washington. Not sure about certain areas between Hartford and New York or Hartford and Boston.


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