FREE ESSAY ON THE CHARACTER OF CITIES

THE CHARACTER OF CITIES

The Character of Cities
In this course we have learned that a city's character is a legacy for seeing,
interpreting, exploiting, and transforming its social, cultural and political
opportunities as a physical community. How is it possible for a city like Boston to have
character? Well, the institutional and cultural continuity along with the resistance and
reconstruction of culture has allowed the character of Boston to be defined simply by the
underlying idea of conflict. Through J Anthony Lukas' Common Ground and Richard
Broadman's Mission Hill and the Miracle of Boston, we can see that the catalyst for this
sense of conflict has been social dissentions between classes and races. These
dissentions are clearly detailed through both the Urban Renewal plans of Mission Hill in
the 1960s and 1970s and the school busing case of 1974.When looking at the character of
Boston one must understand the amount of controversy our city has encountered as well as
the way they have identified and resolved these crisis's. Through this deduction along
with my own personal experience of living in Boston a step towards finding a distinct
character of Boston may be possible. 
When analyzing conflict as the character of Boston, you will find that conflict is
triadic not dyadic. This means that there are three parties involved instead of just two
parties. This is important when looking at the two issues of urban renewal and busing.
The concept of conflict includes established insiders with many options, struggling
insiders with some options and ascendant outsiders with few or no options. When comparing
this information to both urban renewal cases and the busing you will see that Boston does
in fact have three parties for each of its conflicts. The politicians play the role of
the established insiders; the white race plays the role as the struggling insiders and
the minorities especially the African-Americans play the role of the ascendant outsiders.
An alliance between the established insiders and the ascendant outsiders caused the
isolation of the struggling insiders and this provides us with the busing case of 1974.
When these groups form alliances or make certain deals the health of the city especially
Boston may be disturbed. Boston has always been an ambivalent city when it comes to
looking at new issues. 
This ambivalence has caused much friction and has brought much confusion and anger to the
citizens of the city of Boston. For example, In Richard Broadman's Mission Hill Miracle
of Boston, you see a detailed look at the urban renewal plans for Mission Hill in the
1970s. Could it be possible that Mission Hill would end up like the West End? There was
no chance that Mission Hill would end up like the West End because of the interaction and
care the citizens of the Hill had for its neighborhood. Many of the people of Boston
especially the Irish-Catholics had been oppressed for so long, for example the slogan,
Irish need not apply! However when James Michael Curley came to office as mayor of Boston
he gave the citizens of Boston a new hope. The conflict during his reign existed between
the Yankees and the Irish. The Yankees owned the city while the Irish ran the city
politically. The variance of the Yankee world of Harvard University, the Back Bay and
Beacon Hill from the lives of a typical Irish Mission Hill citizen was pretty
substantial. With the reign of Curley a sense of confidence in the Irish-Catholic
community existed long after his term in office. Even though Curley was not reelected the
atmosphere that he created in Boston lingered on and trickled down throughout the next
two decades. 
From Mission Hill once being an industrial neighborhood part of thriving industrial city,
is now today an area torn by racial conflict with many burned and abandoned houses and
factories with large open spaces where homes once stood. From this 1974 quote you can get
a sense of the aftermath of the urban renewal and flight of the African-American
population into the projects. When the Urban Renewal Act was first presented, the
citizens of the Hill were adamant about their disdain for the Act. There is no way are
they gonna take any property on Mission Hill because if they take one street then it was
the beginning of the end; Mission Hill would no longer be. The sense of community in
Mission Hill was fantastic. The sense of togetherness and fight was combined and created
into a massive force of angered citizens. The Urban Renewal Act was halted when the
families of Mission Hill marched on the State House coming in droves of people. But the
conflict between the citizens and the politicians would take a new turn when Harvard
University and the hospitals would enter into the battle. New conflict, new problems. The
idea of who cares about the people only the land is important was very evident. Before in
1941 when the first small projects were built, an affordable, easy cost of living was
accessible. The difference between these projects and the ones built later in the 1950s
was that you had voters and political pull actually living in these projects. So the
projects were kept safe, new and beautiful. However, when the political pull was lost and
the projects lost its importance blacks were forced to live there. Whites felt that
Blacks were forced on them because of the Urban Renewal plan. Before this the Blacks and
the Whites never really crossed paths and never had much conflict. And Harvard's
involvement had been trying to buy out the Mission Hill area since 1960. They have tried
to buy it out piece by piece like a puzzle. The citizens of the Hill feel that they are
letting the neighborhood go to the dogs. This conflict has been such a problem that some
people believed in the 1970s that Mission Hill might one day not exist because of the
growth of the hospitals. 
Boston according to J Anthony Lukas is the cradle of liberty, no city in the nation can
boast so many revolutionary events.(Lukas, 315) When talking about conflict and the city
of Boston the most recent case would be the school busing case of 1974. There is no
bigger case concerning the desegregation of schools in the city of Boston. The reaction
from the citizens of the city especially the citizens of South Boston and Charlestown
have made Boston famous for its volatile reaction.
In June of 1974 Judge Arthur Garrity found the city of Boston guilty of de facto
segregation of the public school system. In that, he tried to get the school committee to
adopt a plan for integration but they refused. He was forced along with the state
Department of Education to devise a plan that would integrate the Boston public schools.
This plan entailed busing black students to nearby white schools in order for the black
students to receive an equal opportunity of education. When these black students arrived
to class on September 12, 1974 they were greeted with stoned buses, people shouting
racial profanities at them, and people hurling eggs and rotten tomatoes. A typical day
according to Phyllis Ellison, a black student who attended South Boston High School,
included between 10 to 15 fights! Teachers were almost afraid to say the wrong thing,
because they knew that it would excite the whole class. On December 11, 1974 tension ran
high and escalated further. A black student at South Boston High stabbed a white
classmate. This created such problems that black students had to hide in the principle's
office in order to stay free from any violent behavior towards them. Parents were forced
to come pick their children up; some even carried their children out. The scene in the
schools was out of control. J Anthony Lukas explains how school would be canceled at
least once or twice a week because tension was too high. Lisa McGoff Collins explains, I
missed so many days of my junior year from walkouts and sit-ins and boycotts, I'm
surprised I got promoted.
In Common Ground, we are introduced to three very different families. Through Lukas'
extensive interviews with the black family, the Twymons, the white middle class family,
the Divers and the working Irish class family, the McGoffs we are invited into the world
of the desegregation case of 1974. Lukas is able to present the ideas of the city of
Boston (the school committee and the politicians) as well as the ideas of the three
families from three very different lenses. Lukas' book provides us with a valuable
insight into the American urban experience, as it makes clear that urban communities stem
from the perceptions and fears of every type of urban resident. It is evident that the
residents of South Boston fall into this category. Many students as well as their parents
spent that first day of school out on the street pelting the buses with whatever objects
they could find. A boycott of the schools led to a 20 percent attendance record
throughout that fall. South Boston residents were angered by the way this was being
forced onto them. South Boston was a safe, industrious neighborhood that was being used
to bear the brunt of the busing problems. Why should a kid from across town be forced to
wear another school's colors on the gridiron? This sense of competition and loyalty to
your hometown was ever present and strong. People felt that Garrity being a WASP was
getting his ultimate revenge on the Irish of Boston, busing would fix them. To understand
what busing did to South Boston one must look at the numbers. In the decade before busing
only 3 black students had been enrolled in South Boston High School. By 1986, South
Boston High still had the highest percentage of white students but it was down to about
30 percent. This is a great variance from the early 1970s. South Boston was changing and
the city of Boston was changing. 
What has busing done to the city of Boston? It has given the city a better understanding
of how to live with various ethnic races. Also, it has woken the city up and gotten rid
of the fright that many people lived with in Boston. The fright of the other races and
the possibilities of what these races could do to us. As the population grew and the
sense of loyalty to your hometown outgrew busing became more accepted. In a way the
people of Boston have learned from this social experiment. I believe that in trying to
desegregate the schools and using busing as a tool, that we have brought education in
Boston to an ultimate low. However, the diversity and experiences kids are introduced to
may someday help in their own personal lives. Personally, coming from a prestigious
school which is now addressing its own racial quota problems; I am glad I was introduced
to many ethnic people. It was not only the minorities that enriched my life but it was
the other white kids from Southie and Charlestown that I became intrigued by. I was
interested in how a kid like me (that looked like me and had the same interests) acted
even though he or she was from a different part of Boston. In some instances I had more
in common with the black kid from Mattapan than the white kid from South Boston. The
issue of what type of education you want your child to be exposed to the central theme
here. Do you want the prestigious scholastic education of a Boston Latin or do you want
the diversity of a Snowden or South Boston High. 
Boston has done a pretty good job at identifying important issues for the city to deal
with but the decisions they have made concerning the urban renewal and bussing have left
many people wondering what is going on with the city. Maybe these instances where city
officials and politicians mess up help build the character of the city. What type of a
city is Boston? That is a question that has many answers. Is it the Athens of America or
the home of Yankee conservatives who want to stamp out diversity? In an overview one can
see that Boston has built its reputation through the conflict that it has encountered.
Whether the city has addressed these issues with the right answers or not it has made
Boston a better place to be because it has already experienced so many things. From early
revolutionary leaders to the fairly recent quota case at Boston Latin, Boston had seen
its share of social dissention. Boston has resolved conflicts between different groups
very professionally and orderly. In the past thirty years since the busing case not many
cases of racial problems have surfaced. I think Boston provides the country with a very
detailed and specific look at its issues. It seems that all sides of the issue are looked
at very carefully before a decision is made. Through the urban renewal case and the
busing case of 1974 one can see that when finding a distinct characteristic one would
find conflict to be it. This sense of conflict surrounds every issue and blankets the
ideas expressed in the movie, Mission Hill Miracle of Boston and the book Common Ground.
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