The Chicken and Egg of Boston Housing and Education

Posted by: Helen Coen
Posted on: Monday, June 11, 2007 at 11:40 am
Categories: Schools, Lifestyle, Neighborhood News, Lifestyle, Schools, Neighborhood News, Schools, Jamaica Plain, West Roxbury, Neighborhood News, Lifestyle, Roslindale

seaport.jpgIn in article by Tracey Jan in last Friday’s Boston Globe entitled ”S. Boston developer plans a private school,” a proposal was announced to develop 2,500 housing units within a 23 acre site in Boston’s Seaport District.  A proposed site, which today contains nothing but parking lots, would be developed by John B. Hynes III into residential housing, a performing arts center, two (2) health clubs, a public garden and a private school.

The problem facing the Seaport district is not unique.  Emerging neighborhoods have faced similar problems and addressed them in different ways.  What is lacking in the Seaport District are the basic amenities that exist in most other neighborhoods and suburbs of Boston (e.g. schools, shops, restaurants, people, etc.).  The concept of ‘build it and they will come’ has not worked well for the Seaport District.  There are convention centers, museums, hotels, etc. but what is lacking are people, because there are little to no housing units in which people can live.  The Seaport District will never be a neighborhood until people start living there–and people will not start living there unless there is sufficient quality education for their children.   This in a classic example of the proverbial problem of which came first the chicken or the egg.   

John B. Hynes III has proposed a simple solution to a complex problem: a school which will serve 1,500 children from kindergarten through high school.  He hopes the school will help attract families to his development and to the area.  City officials are not embracing his idea and are calling it “hair-brained,” and “catering to the upper end.”

By including a school with the development plans, Hynes is solving the age old question of which came first the chicken or the egg?  He is proposing a solution by combining the Chicken and Egg.

Good education attracts families, and families attract everything else.  Hynes has the right idea: offer good quality educational options and they will come.

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2 Responses to “The Chicken and Egg of Boston Housing and Education”

  1. Tim on June 11th, 2007 11:41 am

    I agree. If you build it they will come is the only approach worth considering.

  2. maureen rossi on June 11th, 2007 12:18 pm

    Good article, Helen, your true calling may be as a reporter.
    I can remember my cousin Bobby Daley buying a $69k condo in the area near there in the late ’80’s.

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