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Globe: Roslindale ripe for picking for savvy real-estate investors

The Globe takes a look at Roslindale, basically says that with new luxury units in the planning stages in Forest Hills, savvy investors need to move into Roslindale, where they can continue their drive to push the middle class out of Boston by snapping up relatively low priced properties in what is still a neighborhood "in transition" with "pockets of grittiness."

Also, the Globe says Roslindale has "dozens of eateries." Dozens? Ed. clueless note: Yes, there are dozens of restaurants in Roslindale, at least 50. Obviously, I just don't know Roslindale.

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Comments

What an obnoxious article. Seems to be written to appeal to speculators.

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City officials love "vasectomy developments" - places designed such that families won't fit in them or cannot afford them.

Look at how the schools have been shut down over the years - I'm sure that SockPuppet and others can give a good rundown on that.

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I know seeing "teh poor and their behbehs" getting priced out of Roslindale and to a certain extent Dorchester, but what about Medford? Does your heart only bleed about the poor that are not in your cozy safe suburb?

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Look at the very top of this discussion. What is it about? Give you a hint: It begins with "R" and ends with "oslindale." And yet, amazingly, it's an issue that might be of interest to people outside this quiet and somewhat obscure neighborhood.

I'm sure if I ever write about the disposable-income set moving into Medford, you'll see comments relevant to Medford.

As for Swirly's specific comments, Roslindale, unlike South Boston, hasn't actually seen a lot of development yet. There are some new units on Belgrade by the Bellevue commuter-rail stop, and there's the proposed apartment building wrapped around the substation in the square, but those are really small potatoes compared to what's going on north of the Fens.

But you, of course, already know that, because you live and breath Roslindale, I'm sure.

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That belgrade development, and my house for that matter, were built by Insight Realty. They've been in this market for a while.

I would be interested to hear if the average uhub posters would prefer these developments not happen.

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Smartphone post + lack of proofreeding, no one is dissing your favorite 'hood.

This should have said "seeing the poor and their behbehs priced out of ros/dot/etc makes your heart bleed" (missing piece in bold) and was directed at swirly and the rest of the crew, who love to bitch and moan about the lack of subsidized/0-60% ami affordable housing in Boston but are perfectly content with their own towns being unaffordable to anyone but highly educated, mostly white upper middle class families. Little spoiled Johnny can learn about poverty and diversity from textbooks, but everyone else must experience it firsthand.

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I know it's gotten a little fancier but it's not exactly Wellesley.

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80% of the kids at one of Medford's four elementary schools qualified for free lunch, so they just skipped the administrative costs and made lunch free.

Oh, but its a wealthy town not facing the challenges of Roslindale! .

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Can't some of the blame for high real estate prices be placed on the shoulders of the person who sells their house at a huge profit? Perhaps the seller should ask only what a buyer can afford to pay., and nothing more. Or maybe they should try to get every last penny they can for it, like every single person who reads U-Hub would do when selling their house.

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directed at swirly and the rest of the crew, who love to bitch and moan about the lack of subsidized/0-60% ami affordable housing in Boston but are perfectly content with their own towns being unaffordable to anyone but highly educated, mostly white upper middle class families.

Good God you're funny - do you do standup? Surely, given the ethnic and economic diversity of rich white people in Medford you must be joking.

You do know that the Globe is constantly mentioning and profiling Rosie and Meffuh in the same bait-breath, right? Maybe that has something to do with their similarities?

I wonder how it is that all those rich white kids in Medford qualify for so many school lunches? Like 50% of the elementary population? Wow - that's really working the rich white system!

I'll have to show this to the gang at my house watching futbol because we have a big TV and their rich, white parents don't. I wish that I knew their parents better, but, hey, it would be quite a feat to be able to converse with rich white people in any and all of Creole, Szechwan Mandarin, Hmong, Vietnamese, Bengali, Portuguese, Italian and Spanish. (and Irish ...)

Oh, wait, maybe I should run home and kick them out so my kid doesn't experience the amazing diversity of the community?

And what about those silly rich MHS Valedictorian/Salutatorians and the MVHS Valedictorian this year, too - gee, the nerve of their rich white families not even coming to the US and learning English until they were rich, white, and in second, sixth and seventh grade!

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So what if only rich people lived in Boston and it became a "Manhattan"? Why is that a bad thing? It's not like the people who can't afford to live in Boston are being forced to live in homeless shelters.

I get that some people want (not need) to live in the same place forever but if they can't it is not the end of their lives. Look at all the benefits that come from rich people moving to a neighborhood:

- Less crime
- Cleaner streets
- People that bought homes years ago could sell for a huge profit.
- People that bought homes years ago could become landlords and have a new source of income.
- Less ppl strung out on drugs
- better restaurants and stores

...and the con is some people will have to move and actually go explore the world.

..and when I say "rich people" i don't mean 23 year old fist pumping bros who act like they are still in college.

other having to move to anothe

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Screw the people who have lived there for generations, new people want to move in.

I know you are just trolling it, but your comment, in a nut shell, is why people hate yuppies.

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no i am not trolling. i listed several items that would benefit people who have lived in the same neighborhood for generations.

Can you please define "screw"?

The reason people think this is bad is because they have been told their whole lives that rich people are bad...or they are jealous and jealousy leads to hatred.

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"Less crime
Cleaner streets
Less people strung out on drugs"

What I inferred is that it was those who have been in an area for a long time are the source of crime, drug addiction, and general untidiness. As one who has been in Roslindale for a long time, I would take offense with this. Now, the Roslindale trollers out there would look at every crime post about the neighborhood and claim that the place is going to hell in a handbasket, while others might think that having dozens of restaurants (though only a handful in the square) is some kind of progress, but in the end, Roslindale is about the same as it was in the 1980s crime wise, which is to say there was crime, but in general it was a good place to live in.

I do not link economic status with overall neighborliness and good moral standing. If those who have felt a strong tie to the neighborhood, or any neighborhood for that matter, cannot stay due to being priced out, how are they not screwed?

I have nothing against turnover. My parents moved from Dorchester, and Roslindale is a welcoming place. However, I've seen what happened in Charlestown, Jamaica Plain, and other points, and even though I think the claims about Roslindale being the next domino are overstated, it does worry me. I'm just glad I was able to buy a place.

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Forced displacement of socially immobile folk outweighs your pros because it is just making our lives worse while your lives get better. But why should you care, you're the original yuppie!

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As in elderly homeowners whose triple decker is now worth well over a million? I wouldn't call that socially immobile - rent out two floors and pocket $5K+ a month if you want to stay, or pocket the whole million and buy a house elsewhere if you're feeling too nostalgic about the days Whitey ran the place and can't stand the new "SoBo." As for the non-working poor or those working minimum wage jobs, why do the taxpayers have to waste $2500+ a month on a section 8 voucher once the neighborhood is gentrified and rents shoot off into stratoshpere when there's plenty of much cheaper housing alternatives elsewhere? Everyone's perfectly content with middle class folks getting priced out of the city, why are the poor different? At least working folks pay their taxes and, as long as they're paying full rent or mortgage, normally don't trash their neighborhoods.

Also, how does keeping a bunch of nonworking welfare families in your neighborhood make your life worse? Do you prefer trashed sidewalks, constant break-ins and robberies, drugs and shootings over safe streets, clean parks and nice restaurants?

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You're an idiot. I've lived here all my life and wouldn't know Whitey if he was standing right next to me. The only past I'm nostalgic for is the Southie without dog shit every two feet. Or, the Southie were I could park my car within six blocks of my home. Or, even, the Southie were I knew my neighbors and weren't surrounded by a bunch of Bros and Beckys who live to party ALL WEEKEND without regard for their neighbors, as they throw their empties off the back porch, into my backyard, or vomit in the gutter in front of my home because they can't make it home from the bars.
You're living in a fantasy where you think you've made Southie a better place to live. It's always been a great place to live, or you wouldn't have moved here in the first place.

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Thank the bros and beckys for a tenfold property value increase, sell your house and move to a neighborhood that suits your fancy. Heck, you don't even have to go that far - Savin Hill otb section is a lot like Southie prior to the yuppie invasion, and it's still fairly affordable. Those yuppies might have changed the neighborhood for the worse in your opinion, but they made you rich.

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Nope. I was rich before the bros and beckys. I'm not selling and I'm not going anywhere. I will just continue to call Inspectional Services on your bros, though.

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I am a yuppie and I am in agreement with everything you said.

The dog crap, the parking and the bros/beckys lower the quality of life. I wanted to point out there is a HUGE difference between the people you described (20-something party all weekend bros) and the "rich people" I described in my earlier reply.

On a side note, whenever I hear a loud party when im taking our dog for a walk I call the cops. then i go home and call the cops from my girlfriend's cell phone. then i call the cops from our landline. 3 reports for that one property in 15 mins. that means the cops will be more likely to show up.

- The Original SoBo Yuppie who was against the Gate of Heaven development.

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I read it so rarely now but can anyone there still write? It's just a dull, inaccurate article that reads like it was phoned in from Duluth. Even deceiving Roslindale's former residents as "Irish and Italian" seems lazy--am I nuts or has Rozzie always been more diverse than that? Lots of Greeks, Lebanese, etc--always seemed more of a mix/melting pot than say South Boston or the North End.

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... only 15 minutes to downtown.

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Read the part about how Roslindale got its name, then read the wikipedia article. They may legally have changed it just enough, but if it isn't out right plagiarism, it's sure proof of ineptitude.

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Who knew , Dad ! Years ago, my father emigrated from Ireland. Equipped with a second grade education, as he was the second born son, he wasn't going to get the farm. Eventually , he and his pick and shovel found he streets of Boston, and because Roslindale was close to the Gas company in JP , he was able to afford a house in the Holy Name parish. We got traded out of that parish later. He worked hard his whole life, raised a large family , played by the rules of his new country, but was always Irish. He did well getting by with little, and was the smartest man I have ever known, even with his second grade education. Who knew how smart, Ar dheas Dé go raibh a anam, Da .

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Dozens of eateries can be found along Birch Avenue...

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As a breakfast project, we tallied up all the restaurants in Roslindale Square, came up with 17 (if you go all the way down Washington to the Roslindale House of Pizza), which is more than I would have thought (we left off Diane's and the Greek bakery because, well, they're bakeries, but included Fornax because they serve sandwiches).

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Go to the second page of results and you start seeing JP and West Roxbury restaurants. In practical terms, that's fine - it's not like there are border crossings or mountains in the way - but for an article like the Globe's, it's totally inaccurate.

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Actually, 53 of the 90 restaurants on Yelp have Roslindale addresses.

And the City of Boston food inspection site lists just as many:
http://www.cityofboston.gov/isd/health/mfc/search.asp?ispostback=true&re...

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I will take out the snarky restaurant line in my original post. Who knew? Not me, obviously.

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To the article: http://www.bostonglobe.com/lifestyle/2014/06/13/glimpse-life-roslindale/...

And now I really want to know what areas they'd call "gritty". And... what defines "gritty".

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As for gritty, well, there's Archdale. But I suspect the author looked out her window as she drove south of Forest Hills and saw non-pale people.

Sadly, the point about Forest Hills is a good one, though - it'll be interesting to see what happens when the monument places, the lumberyard and the Emporium are all replaced by LEED-certified condos in brick-and-shiny-metal condos. And then the wave will just keep rolling down Washington ...

Who know, maybe once that happens, we'll see some almost-subway DMU service on the Needham Line.

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Adam, great review of yet another obnoxious globe article. As for "gritty", it's not just non-pale people, as there are plenty of non-pale people who write for, and appreciate articles such as this one, who are non-pale.

Since the Globe is written entirely for rich Metrowest towns, gritty is pretty much any area that doesn't look like fancy Metrowest towns or the fixed up townhouses of the South End where Metrowest trust find kids live after college and before they move back to Wellesley. This outlook is why South Boston is still "gritty" to them despite it is 3/4 yuppie at this point (and there aren't many non-pale people there).

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I don't find SoBo gritty at all. It's a beautiful neighborhood with beautiful people.

- The Original SoBo Yuppie

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a cousin of "hardscrabble".

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...undesiriable poors and working class. EEEWWWWW!

Boston is becoming less and less attractive with every neighborhood that is overrun with snotty yups and rich people.

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Just remember--we could be Newark or Baltimore or a lot of other places. I'm distressed as anyone about the affordability issue, since I'm barely managing in a neighborhood I couldn't afford to buy in today. But just remember that there's a flip side to the coin and it looks like Detroit or Cleveland. What I wish I knew is how to keep that elusive balance between burnt-out, crime-ridden, sad, dangerous neighborhood and unaffordable luxury-condo-land. I honestly don't know how it happens these days.

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..outside a handful of high asset inflation zones like Boston, NYC or the SF bay area is pretty affordable.

Much of it is what a given culture finds convenient.

Fitchburg or Clinton are beyond Boston's margin of convenience and if you look through Trulia listings you'll see a huge price drop.

Oddly the margin of convenience is further in metro NY and you have to go a way up the Hudson or to Bucks County PA backwaters before you see that drop.

And it's in line with the rest of the US.

Banks and speculators love our status quo here and the system is rigged to support their preferences.

And people who bought in at 50 grand in 1975 are pretty psyched to get 500 grand now.

My mother practically gave away the gorgeous victorian she grew up in in Medford for like 30 grand in a swap for a place in Billerica cause the family home was just depressing for her

This is what it looks like now https://flic.kr/p/nXiL3J and it's worth a bit more than the 30 grand she dumped it for in the 80s..

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you list cities that were essentially destroyed by highways. if we ended up with the SW corridor and the inner belt, Boston would have had a similar fate.

key is mobility - the problem is that the US transportation system is built around cars - cars are expensive (meaning, high level of access - big problem for poor people), requires a ton of space, and encourages low-density sprawl which also means large areas of poverty and crime. If US transportation policy was centered around non-car forms of mobility (walking, bikes, public transit) - there would be more affordable places that weren't either horrible neighborhoods or out past 495.

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...something that is now unworkable--manufacturing, shipping, etc. We have medicine, tech, higher Ed, tourism, thank goodness.

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and you can't have diverse economy without diverse, walkable urban fabric

big worry is about gentrification is it's effect on diversity.

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Is there an actual scale the Globe uses that ranges from "funky" to "gritty"?

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At what point does a place become "leafy" if not "bucolic"?

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..with Bucolia being beyond 495 give or take a forsaken mill town or two.

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Why, just a few days ago, the Globe earnestly reported:

Many families call on an architect to carve out or add more space. Not the case for the Glasses. The family - Amy, a partner at a strategy management consulting firm, Jeff, the CEO of a wireless technology company, and their three kids, ages 16, 14, and 11 - had more than enough room in its 6,000-square-foot circa 1890 Arts and Crafts-style town house in a leafy Brookline neighborhood. But life felt disjointed. The kitchen was small, dark, and dated, and the kids didn’t have a place to study. When the Glasses called Cambridge-based architect Maryann Thompson, they told her they loved the house but wanted to make it more livable.

Leafy AND livable. Now that's good livin'! I'm just curious how three kids couldn't find any places to study in a 6,000-square-foot house. What, exactly, is going on with their own rooms?

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... what having 6000 sq ft of living space (for 5 people) would be like.

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Good old exceptionalist Brookline.

We probably want to put the leafy laurels on Newton, too.

The building I babysit is probably smaller and yet it houses several floors of offices.

It's really two buildings, conjoined in the 70s as a tax and fire safety advantage

. My personal "suite" is a small 6'x12 foot space and a 12x12 space or 216 square feet total.

But it's free and that's all I care about.

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And their bedrooms, the kitchen table, the dining room table, Dad's study, family room, den, library, or living room don't count. Of course life feels disjointed. They need to expand.

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Yes, they must expand! For the children!

With 6,000 square feet of space, those eight trailers the size of the one I grew up in with three other people must be obstructing zen studying? Or maybe its those six apartments the size of the one my husband grew up in with four other people that are harshing their brainwaves?

I'm sure most UHub readers could fit their current or childhood homes into this pile many times over ...

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I think of "gritty" as an almost literal term, like a neighborhood that still has swathes of post-industrial streetscape--garages and auto mechanics, scrapyards, overpasses, bus depots, etc.--as opposed to tree-shaded residential areas or rows of small shops. Somerville still has a lot of "grit" despite the astronomical housing prices, ditto JP and Roslindale. And crime is crime. Parts of Roslindale are great obviously, other parts not so much. The assessment may have to do with skin color; it may just have to do with what we read everyday on UHub.

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If only there weren't grittiness. That is such a con. I don't want grittiness, not even a pocket of it. Hopefully, the transition will be complete soon and there will be no more grittiness.

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"...where they can continue their drive to push the middle class out of Boston..."

That is absolutely spot on! The greed of the spculators and "investors" can not be satisfied. It's disgusting. And all you "I got money! Gimme, gimme, gimme!" people are to blame as well.

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American planning association tracks preferences in living situations. Over the past 10-20 years it went from 30% of people wanting to live in a "walkable" neighborhood to just over half - across all age groups. The problem is that there aren't enough places like this to meet demand (since development patterns over the past several decades followed the highways). Roslindale is a great neighborhood with a lot of nice houses and a bunch of amenities you can get to on foot.

It's going to be a long time until federal policy shifts away from auto-centric development patterns. and even longer for developers to catch up in other places. It's kind of perverse that the same policies that contributed to white flight are now driving gentrification in places like roslindale.

So yeah, this article is obnoxious, but it's not surprising.

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to be more and more empty nesters selling their houses in the burbs and moving into the city. It's tough for working class and middle class families to afford apartments and condos when you're competing with people with resources like that and are willing to pay more.

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Three or four roommates can usually afford to pay more rent than a family with two kids and they have lower expectations. Boston's always been tricky that way.

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(and it would be true) but it did have a photo of the guy who gave my kid a haircut on Friday. I then was able to show the missus what he looks like. Of course, we ran into him an hour later buying the paper.

People have been talking up Roslindale and calling it an alternative to JP for at least 15 years. It is old news by now.

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Whenever the Globe notices there is a Boston outside of downtown and writes one of these pieces, it reads like a star log of aliens coming to Earth and reporting back to their home planet.

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