Expanding Opportunity Through Imagine Boston 2030
“We will expand opportunity so it reaches every person in every corner of our City.”
That is a promise that I made to my fellow Bostonians when I was sworn in as the 54th Mayor of Boston. Now, almost three years later, we continue to work towards fulfilling this promise, as we push for more housing that is affordable, more access to shared goods like transportation and open space, and quality education that opens opportunities for everyone.
Change happens constantly in a city, and it proceeds on all these fronts at once. How do we make sure all of our work stays true to our goals of spreading opportunity and achieving equity? We knew from the beginning that Boston needed a citywide plan and a community process to create it. The result is Imagine Boston 2030. The document we released this past month, Expanding Opportunity, marks the first draft of our plan.
There is a reason why we chose this particular moment in time to embark on a new citywide plan. The history of Boston’s growth is marked by peaks and valleys, especially during the 20th century. After hitting a peak of over 800,000 in 1950, our population began to decline significantly, while private investment languished. Sitting back and letting change happen wasn’t working. Bostonians realized they would have to be more strategic if they wanted to revitalize their city. So a series of planning efforts culminated in a 10-year “general plan,” aimed at directing strategic investments to help retain our population and build up our economy.
The 1960s and 70s were turbulent times for Boston. But, guided by that planning, Boston grew in ways that forever changed our city. We got a modern skyline, new highway systems, and iconic places, from the Prudential Center to City Hall to Madison Park High School. While not without controversy, this earlier era of planning shaped the city we know today. Planning matters.
In 2016, Boston is at another unique point in our history. This time, our population is growing. In the past five years, we’ve grown twice as fast as the rest of the nation, and we’re fast approaching 700,000 people. We have a thriving economy: Boston’s workers are one third more productive than the national average. Companies from across the country and around the world are moving to Boston, as our industries in key sectors continue to thrive and grow. Our strength in the innovation economy and our high quality of life point to even more growth in the future.
In this time of prosperity, we realize now, more than ever, that we need to be proactive about both the opportunities and challenges brought on by growth, climate change, and advances in technology. We understand we live in a changing world and a changing city, and we must be proactive about guiding this change if we are to grow equitably and inclusively.
We face challenging questions. How do we make housing affordable to everyone in the midst of such great demand? Or develop at an appropriate pace without overtaxing our natural resources or transit infrastructure? Answering these questions can be difficult, but solving these problems together can help us hold each other accountable and make change we collectively agree on.
That’s why we’re asking Bostonians for guidance. Boston’s new citywide planning process features unprecedented opportunities for input. Our draft plan, Expanding Opportunity, was created with the ideas and input of over 12,000 Bostonians from every corner in our City.
Our residents sent emails, stopped on street corners to answer our questions about their vision for the city, handwrote ideas, put pins on maps, texted their preferences on their smartphone, and even played with colorful building blocks to literally build a vision for our city. Expanding Opportunity is the result. It shows us how we can move from defining broad goals to creating actionable steps.
We’ve identified five key areas for growth: enhancing our neighborhoods, encouraging mixed-use job centers, expanding neighborhoods into neglected areas, creating a vibrant, healthy waterfront for future generations, and creating networks of opportunity for all. Enhancing neighborhoods means housing for a variety of incomes, thriving commercial main streets, and reliable transit. Encouraging mixed-use job centers, like Downtown and Longwood, brings together housing, jobs, retail, and public gathering spaces all in one area. A waterfront for future generations means protecting public space and economic activity, while putting in place flood protections and new building regulations to prepare us for climate change.
Networks of opportunity are aimed especially at residents and neighborhoods that have been historically underserved, such as along the Fairmount corridor. We see great opportunities for new growth and new access to places like Beacon Yards in Allston, Sullivan Square in Charlestown, and Newmarket/Widett Circle as ways to reduce pressure on our current housing market and physically stitch the city together. We are inspired to complete the more than 100-year-old vision for Frederick Law Olmsted’s Emerald Necklace, which will connect Franklin Park, one of our largest parks in the geographical heart of our city, to the waterfront. There are many ways of creating connections, and our City is looking at all of them.
We are already taking action on the ideas we’ve heard from residents so far — from announcing last week that we aim to be carbon neutral by 2050, to advocating for more funding for Franklin Park. Every action we take going forward will continue to be guided by the visions residents share with us.
Lastly, I want to reiterate that Expanding Opportunity is a draft. This is a living document, and it is not complete yet. I want to thank the 12,000 voices that came together to help us create our citywide plan. Constructing a citywide vision is a massive undertaking that requires an extraordinary amount of input. We are continuing to ask for ideas and suggestions. I invite you all to read our plan at imagine.boston.gov and let us know your thoughts. I’m excited about working with you to build this next era of transformative change together.
