The Boston Renaissance: Race, Space, and Economic Change in an American Metropolis

Since the 1950s, the state of American cities has preoccupied the public imagination. But how much of what is reported in the media comes in the form of presumption, sweeping generalization or conjecture? One in a series of volumes examining a broad range of U.S. cities, this book offers an in-depth look at the enormous changes that have occurred in Boston, Mass., since the 1970s (when the city was rated the lowest on a Brookings Institution study for cities in distress). Carefully detailing how Boston regained healthy levels of employment, housing and family income in the 1990s--while experiencing the ""growing dominance of high technology"" and a decline in blue-collar jobs--Bluestone and Stevenson chart how the city's radically shifting economic base has affected families, racial and ethnic minorities, women, schools, property distribution and the labor market. Using charts, statistical analysis and reports from both the private and public sectors, the authors paint a graphic, detailed portrait of a city in flux. They discuss, among other topics, how class tensions in the post-Civil War era affected housing stock, the effect of unemployment on minority women and the correlation of high school education to hourly wage rates and job opportunities, and they effectively map the impact of major social and racial changes on this urban environment. (June)