There's no sign well-heeled yuppies are taking over

By Matthew Brelis, Globe Staff, 05/23/99

BY THE NUMBERS City demographics

With all the worried talk about gentrification of the city - and the resulting calls to restrict yuppie bars and roof decks in South Boston - one would think Boston's headed down a road where every neighborhood is indistinguishable from the Back Bay.

''I won't let Boston become like too many other American cities - a home to only the rich and the poor, where the people in the middle have no place at all,'' Mayor Thomas M. Menino said in his State of the City speech in January. ''Boston is a place for everyone and I intend to keep it that way.''

The latest map showing neighborhood income patterns suggests that Menino can stop worrying.

For one thing, the number of what demographers classify as the more prosperous neighborhoods has remained stable from 1990 to 1997, the most recent year for which there is information. There's no evidence of hordes of well-heeled yuppies (or baby boomers) taking over.

Second, the number of mixed-income neighborhoods in the city has increased over the past seven years. And, as any urban planner will tell you, mixed income neighbors make for a vibrant, desirable place to live.

Still, Boston has a ways to go; nearly half of it - 47 percent - is made up of neighborhoods dominated by one income extreme or the other. In that context, the trend toward mixed income pleases city officials.

''It surprised us that there were not more higher-income tracts,'' says Kevin McCall, deputy director for program development in the city's Department of Neighborhood Development.

McCall said the city has not been able to determine if the shift toward mixed-income, middle-class neighborhoods is the result of great urban planning - such as middle-income housing in the Dudley Street area - a booming economy, or poorer people being driven from the city to places such as Brockton and New Bedford because of Boston's high rents.

Many specialists think it is the latter. If that's the case, the city's increase in those desirable mixed-income neighborhoods is coming at a price.

This story ran on page C01 of the Boston Globe on 05/23/99.
© Copyright 1999 Globe Newspaper Company.