Boston is a city of neighborhoods, and it’s also one of the oldest cities in America. Settled in 1630 by English Puritan settlers, its long and storied history is closely linked to the history of the United States itself. This, however, is not a story about Boston — it’s a story about two of its neighborhoods, Roxbury and West Roxbury.

Roxbury was also founded in 1630 as a small farming village. The origin of its name comes from a description of the terrain its settlers struggled to farm on. “Rocksbury,” as it was originally known, was named for its large concentration of puddingstone.

Throughout the 19th century, the city industrialized and brought in an influx of English, Irish, and German immigrants. Much of the town remained agriculturally-based, however, but the introduction of streetcars made it one of Massachusetts’ first legitimate cities. The neighborhood was home to a large Jewish population in the early 20th century. Following a massive flood of immigration from the South in the 1940s and 50s, Roxbury became the center of the African American community in Boston.

West Roxbury was originally a part of Roxbury, along with the present-day neighborhoods of Roslindale and Jamaica Plain. During the industrialization of Roxbury in the mid-19th century, West Roxbury seceded — in 1851 to be exact. It took JP and Roslindale with it and suburbanized.

In 1874, the city of Boston annexed West Roxbury. Its population includes a large population of Irish immigrants and their descendants.

Though the beginnings of these two neighborhoods were closely tied together, now, they are not only separated geographically, but demographically as well.

Roxbury versus West Roxbury, demographically

Though both neighborhoods have large populations of adults, Roxbury has many more young adults, particularly ones in their late teens and early 20s. Since the neighborhood is close to several colleges and universities, that makes sense. West Roxbury, however, has a very small amount of people aged 20–21, but it is a more family-centric neighborhood.

Roxbury proportionally has as many traditional married couple families as West Roxbury has single mothers, a fundamental difference between the two.

Neither neighborhood has an overwhelming amount of single fathers. West Roxbury’s emphasis on the typical American family further shows the divide between these two neighborhoods.

The two neighborhoods also are extremely different racially. Since its influx of Southern immigrants in the 1950s, Roxbury has maintained its position as an African American hub in Boston.

The average household income in West Roxbury in 2009 was $71,066, with six percent of households below the poverty level, according to a American Community Survey report.

In Roxbury, the average household income was $27,740, with 29.2 percent of households below the poverty level.

It’s pretty evident that there are few demographic similarities between the two neighborhoods. Age distribution is where the two neighborhoods are the closest, but that spread is to be expected because it reflects an overall population trend.

Roxbury is much more centrally located to downtown Boston than its name counterpart. At right around three and a half miles from the city’s center, compared to West Roxbury’s nearly 10 miles, its closer location can also explain some of the demographic differences. West Roxbury is simply a more suburban neighborhood.

It was never my intention to do a comparison between these two neighborhoods—my original data set was the city of Boston’s reported crime statistics. What stuck out to me was Roxbury’s high crime rate compared to West Roxbury’s relatively low crime rate.

Roxbury had the most crime incident reports from 2013–2014 at 51233. During the same time frame, West Roxbury had the fewest crime incident reports at 15279. Though these are just crime incident reports, the sheer difference between the two is astounding.

This graphic compares the amount of crimes involving firearms between Roxbury and West Roxbury.

Percentage-wise, neither neighborhood has an overwhelming amount of firearm crimes. Roxbury clocks in at about three percent of its reported crimes involving firearms and West Roxbury is at less than one percent.

Educational similarities

One last tangible way to compare these two neighborhoods is to compare education and their public schools. For the purposes of this project, only public schools were researched.

Greatschools.org rates schools based on reviews from parents and students. A quick glance shows that neither neighborhood has excellent public schools based on these reviews.

The highlight for both neighborhoods was the Boston Latin Academy in Roxbury. Its rating—an eight—was easily the highest. There were, however, several elementary and middle schools in Roxbury that received ones. The average rating for West Roxbury was a four.

So, despite the demographic differences, there is a surprising similarity in public education in these two neighborhoods.