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Not to prematurely declare an end to summer, but pumpkin coffee officially returns to Dunkin’ today (and honestly, you could probably get away with it in this weather). But before you also dig your flannel out of the closet, let’s get to the news:
Class divide: Boston has a long, painful history of racial segregation. But a new report found another form of segregation has grown in the region over the past several decades: income segregation. The report released yesterday by the think tank Boston Indicators found that even though Greater Boston has become more diverse and less racially segregated, households are increasingly clustering by class, especially among high-income brackets. Boston Indicators executive director Luc Schuster spoke to WBUR’s Amy Sokolow to break down the “troubling” trend:
- What is income segregation? The study broke Boston-area households into three different groups: low-income, middle-income, and high-income. Schuster said his team looked at the percentage of low- and high-income households that live in neighborhoods (specifically, census tracts) where the majority of all residents are of that same income category. Then, they combined the two percentages to create a “Residential Income Segregation Index,” or RISI.
- What they found: In 1980, Greater Boston (i.e. most of Eastern Massachusetts) had a RISI of 32%. As of 2023, it had risen to 43%. In other words, 43% of all low- and high-income households live mostly among income groups like themselves. Schuster said the increase is primarily driven by the level of high-income household segregation doubling from 7% in 1980 to 15% in 2023. (The report also noted that Greater Boston’s high-income households saw by far the largest income gains of any group during the four-decade span.)
- Where it’s happening: Schuster said income segregation is particularly prevalent in “high-income suburbs in Metro West,” like Weston and Sudbury, where the percentage of high-income households clustered among each other is above 50% in some towns. Boston Indicators also released an interactive map showing segregation by community.
- Why it matters: According to Schuster, “some of the most important decisions” around school quality, transportation and other public investments are made at that hyperlocal level. “When we have persistent patterns of racial and income segregation, it means that people have very divergent access to these,” he said.
- How to fix it: Schuster said zoning rules that allow for denser housing would be one of the most effective changes. “ A lot of cities and towns in Greater Boston only allow large single-family homes to get built on the vast majority of land in those communities,” he said. “If we’re doing that, it very literally means people who can’t afford to purchase a large single-family home can never live in that place.”
- The big picture: Greater Boston had the fourth-smallest middle class among the 50 metro areas included in the study. However, while the region’s income segregation is growing, it still ranks in the middle of the pack. Meanwhile, Schuster said Greater Boston ranks “bottom of the pack in terms of racial segregation,” despite some improvements. Read the full report here.
Not so fast: The Harvard Kennedy School is not moving forward with a plan to offer international students an online option if the federal government prevents them from returning to the U.S. As The Harvard Crimson reports, school leaders say they didn’t see enough demand from students. “We will not be launching HKS Global at this time, though we are prepared to do so in the event circumstances change,” school officials wrote in an update on their website. The university will still offer returning international students the option to finish their studies at the University of Toronto.
- The contingency plans were announced in June in case the Trump administration revoked visas for international students as part of its ongoing pressure campaign against Harvard. However, a university spokesperson told the Crimson “most students will be able to join us on campus” after all, except for a small group whose plans are disrupted by the HKS Global cancelation.
Going up: Two long-planned towers on Dorchester’s Morrissey Boulevard will soon rise up along I-93. According to The Boston Globe, construction on the 18-story apartment building will begin next year at the site of the long-vacant Channel 56 TV studio, which will be demolished later this year. The plans are moving forward after the Boston Planning and Development Agency Board gave its OK last week.
- The two towers will have 754 new apartments, 151 of which are income-restricted units. The project also includes a new community park and bike paths. (You can read more about the plans here.)
P.S. — A tearful Rob Gronkowski was in town yesterday for a ribbon-cutting (and football-spiking tutorial) to commemorate the opening of the new Gronk Playground on the Charles River Esplanade. Want to know more about what goes into creating a new playground? WBUR’s Hanna Ali recently spoke to the state’s top playground planner about Gronk Playground (among others) and some of its unique features.
This article was originally published on WBUR.org.
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