Boston Development

[Cotuit]

(Map: Boston Redevelopment Authority Urban Design)

Development

January 2, 2005

In the early 1980s, when telecommunications were just taking off, futurists predicted the death of the city as we know it. The logic went like this: If you can live anywhere, it won't matter where you live; geography is dead. In fact, says Bill Mitchell of MIT's Media Lab, the opposite has happened: If you can live anywhere, the most attractive communities thrive and grow. And Boston is among the winners. By 2050, predicts Mark Maloney, director of the Boston Redevelopment Authority, the city's population will have climbed to 750,000 from 590,000.

Imagine meeting a 20-year-old man, then seeing him again 45 years later: He'll have the same features but will probably be thicker through the middle. In that same way, Boston will still look like Boston, but it will be a much denser, more cosmopolitan city.

The financial district, which will be home to a half-dozen elegant high-rise residential or mixed-use towers, will no longer be a ghost town after 9 p.m. but will become the center of the city's night life. Indeed, over the next few decades, a critical mass of the city's businesses and restaurants will never close, predicts Maloney. This new round-the-clock Boston will be fueled by three trends: creative, high-tech workers, who will continue to flood the city; hospitals, which will expand to care for an aging population; and global businesses, which will further erode the traditional 9-to-5 workday boundaries.

Over the next two generations, an additional 40 million to 50 million square feet of commercial and residential space will be added in Boston - "the equivalent of a new Prudential Tower every year for the next 40 years," says Kairos Shen, director of planning for the BRA. Somewhere between one-third and two-thirds of that space will be residential. The city won't be quite as crowded as when 900,000 people lived here just before the end of World War II - mostly because families will be smaller - but it will be noticeably busier.

The plans for this New Boston are on file in the BRA's City Hall office, inked out in red. A whopping 17 million square feet are soon to be under construction, while another 20 million square feet have been approved for development. And there are 50 proposed projects under review.

The densest red on the map is in South Boston, an entire new 10-acre neighborhood, the first in the city since the Back Bay was filled in 150 years ago. The new South Bay at the edge of Chinatown and the Leather District will sit on what are now empty lots around the Interstate 93-Massachusetts Turnpike interchange. It will boost Boston's housing stock by as many as 1,500 units and be home to perhaps 5,000 residents.

East Boston will be home to another 1,500 new housing units spread over three enormous projects. And by 2050, the 44 acres of developable space over the Mass. Pike, which cuts an approximately 2 1/2-mile-long, 150-foot-wide gash through Boston, will be covered with 23 mixed-use skyscrapers. Some of those buildings will rise between 40 and 50 stories, to enable developers to recoup the cost of building above a road.

From The Boston Globe Magazine

[LeTaureau]

Spectacular. Absolutely spectacular map.

A couple of things I noticed... Whats with the SST? Did they lop off the ornamental spire, or is it just the rendering. I'd hate to see another boring flat roofed building there...

The Intercontinental and Russia Wharf look great, a good fit for that area.

To me, this map really brings to life a glaring problem with the South Boston developments... they are just not dense enough! Fan Pier is going to the most underutilized prime piece of real estate in the city. If the city of Boston is going to grow, it needs to increase density, and this region is poised to support growth, if it is developed to its full potential.

East Boston looks great too, love the waterfront developments there.

[PghUSA]

^ in love with that map, we need maps like that of every city, what was the link? Was it out of the newspaper? I've been searching for *free* 3d maps of most downtowns, That is a GREAT map of downtown Boston!

[Cotuit]

^ in love with that map, we need maps like that of every city, what was the link? Was it out of the newspaper? I've been searching for *free* 3d maps of most downtowns, That is a GREAT map of downtown Boston!

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I just added the credit for the map (Boston Redevelopment Authority Urban Design).

It's from the BRA, but it was in the Boston Globe Magazine.

[Cotuit]

A couple of things I noticed...  Whats with the SST?  Did they lop off the ornamental spire, or is it just the rendering.  I'd hate to see another boring flat roofed building there...

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I wouldn't read too much into the actual styling of the renderings, think of them more as place holders.

To me, this map really brings to life a glaring problem with the South Boston developments... they are just not dense enough!  Fan Pier is going to the most underutilized prime piece of real estate in the city.  If the city of Boston is going to grow, it needs to increase density, and this region is poised to support growth, if it is developed to its full potential.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Indeed. There are some limitations due to having to build above the Pike tunnels and also FAA restirctions on height. But there does need to be better density. A lot of the South Boston stuff is only planned at this point, so there's still hope for improvement.