Gentrification hits Dudley Square: 25-story residential/office tower proposed, with no affordable units in it

I have been traveling thru Dudley for nearly 25 years now and the change is palpable. Very positive for the most part: re-investment is a good thing but displacement is also inevitable. Unfortunately, I think one can expect to see the trickle down effect of the south end "revitalization" make it to Dudley; residents there are bracing for it, Byron Rushing just gave a community talk on it. IMHO, The South End has become a lot less interesting to me and has lost some of its funkiness; the physical neighborhood has benefited from the infusion of wealth but it doesn't mean there wasn't a human and cultural cost to this. It's what it is.

Back in the 70's, when the general diagram in the states was wealth=suburbs and poverty=cities, people predicted that the inverse would eventually occur to be reflect a pattern more common in so-called developing countries: greater wealth in the cities, poverty in the outside ring. It has been slowly occurring in Boston if you take the long view: west end, south end, parts of southie, bay village, JP, Rozzie, etc. Folks move to less expensive ring towns: Lowell, Lawrence, Randolph, Brockton, etc. Of course this is simplistic but the diagram seems to hold and support my observations over the last 30-35 years. It's what it is.

The south end still has tent city, mandella, methunion manor, and villa victoria, the south end, and perhaps others I am forgetting...maybe that's the model: build in subsidies so that affordable units can remain in areas subject to tremendous development pressures. Roxbury has been doing this already through the BHA (Whitter and OP ), with CDC's such as Nuestra Comunidad and Madison Park, and with private developers (POAH, Trinity). Maybe this is enough and makes it possible for other developers to build upscale units in other parts so that it truly is a mixed-income neighborbood, rater than a series of mixed-incomes buildings.

my 2c

1. Market rate does not mean luxury housing. It means "market rate", which is to say "market rate for the location". "tower" does not equal luxury, either.

2. I think you seriously underestimate the extreme price pressure in the market, including Roxbury. Including Dudley Square. It isn't "rich yuppies" who will move to a development like this - it will be a mixture of people seeking decent modern housing at a reasonable (so far as the area goes) rent and people who will want the relative convenience of being near their jobs.

I find it strange how many people equate "market rate" with "luxury sky high rents". Yes, rents are sky high in general. No, they will not be sky high here, necessarily (or relative to the surrounding neighborhood or the city in general). That very well may be the selling point of the development. Plenty of my son's friends from different cultures live in mid-priced tower apartments in otherwise marginal areas because their families lived in these kinds of places before they came to the US.

If you live in Dover, NH and commute to Massachusetts, you end up paying MA income taxes and NH property taxes (as an owner or through your rent as a renter) and NH excise taxes and any number of fees, too.

Also, one look at the Amtrak schedule and you will quickly see how it does not work for commuters to Boston.

That is not at all what I meant. Come on--can you read a little more closely and give me the benefit of the doubt just once in a while? I mean a dense, busy, pedestrian-friendly center where you can reasonably expect to find groceries, a pharmacy, restaurants, a hardware store, and other spots of interest, whether you want coffee or ice cream or whatever. It has nothing to do with hipsters or whiteness (honestly--how many "hipster" businesses exist on Centre St in JP unless you're counting our two awesome thrift shops?) For the car-less, having some kind of dense neighborhood center where I can knock off multiple items on my Saturday morning to-do list or get a few hard-to-find things (thank you, Bob's Pita, for example) is a priority. Dudley, to go back to the original topic, is a "destination" by that definition though I still think it could some boosting. But my question was just out of curiosity and expressed--I thought--pretty neutrally. I've lived here my whole life but I don't claim to be familiar with every neighborhood in the city. Does anyone?