Dot rats predominate in at-large council race
By adamg - Thu, 07/09/2009 - 10:40am.
The Dorchester Reporter lets us know that seven of the fifteen candidates for at-large seats on the city council this fall come from Dorchester.
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Well that is good and that
Well that is good and that is bad for Dorchester. Obviously it is good because it shows the area has become very politically active which is good for the area. It is bad because now you are slicing the pie very thin for each candidate from the area. Other candidates on the other hand may have a lock on their local area which may be all the difference in a race with so many people. Victories may be won with handfuls of votes.
Bullet voting
Which is why bullet voting was devised.
This representation is to be
This representation is to be expected, just based on the size of the neighborhood. For example, Hyde Park, Jamaica Plain and West Roxbury combined have roughly the same population as Dot, and are fielding five at-large candidates combined--a similar distribution.
The real question is why Dot doesn't always field so many candidates, and the answer appears tied to increased electoral participation citywide.
It is odd that Marty Walsh claims Dot is about 1/3 of the city. It has about 1/6 of the total population and about 1/8 of the total land area.
Yeah, 'bout that ...
Yeah, I didn't understand what Walsh was talking about but I think he meant the representation at City Hall. Turner, Feeney, Yancey, and Yoon.
What's unfortunate is that of the 15 at-large candidates, none are from the "downtown" neighborhoods of Chinatown, North End, South End, Fenway, Back Bay or Beacon Hill.
The votes aren't there, either, necessarily. One feeds the other, I guess.
Still, it would be nice to get some representation.
Tell me about it
It just hasn't been the same for Rozzie since Dapper O'Neill died.
At least you have Mike Ross, who used to live in one of your neighborhoods (was it Beacon Hill or Back Bay?).
Birthrite?
Ross used to live on Beacon Hill - now he lives in Mission Hill. Guess he likes living on hills (although actually I think he was on the flat of Beacon Hill).
Anyway - I think one of the reasons you don't see downtown people running for office per other posts is that many of us weren't born here - or at least raised - which for some odd reason seems to be a prerequisite for getting elected in this town. Other than Yoon - does anyone know if any of our other city councilors were born outside of Boston (Ross is from Brookline I think - but that's geographically essentially Boston even if they don't want to admit it)? Outside of Mass?
It was pretty funny at the Back Bay forum a couple weeks back
Most of the candidates seemed to try to outdo the others in their Bostonishness - I think Sean Ryan won because he spent 14 years in the BPS system. Ayanna Pressley was born in Chicago, though.
North End, South End, Back
North End, South End, Back Bay and Beacon Hill yeah those are the four areas I think of two when I think about the downtrodden working classes that need to be represented.
Is it at all possible that the majority of the people in that area are either A) Students B) Already making more then what a city councilor makes anyway or C) Already have more power just being themselves giving money to other candidates or working for other politicians? Beacon Hill has John Kerry, thats one Senator of only two in the state. In addition he was the former Democratic candidate for President one of only a handful still alive today.
NO
No, the people of the downtown neighborhoods should be represented because their property taxes pay for all the city services those "downtrodden working classes" use, such as firefighters, police officers, ambulance workers, street cleanings, snowplowing, etc., and because they are residents in the city, too.
Quick, how much does a city councilor make? Yep, I knew you didn't know.
The South End has more subsidized housing than any other neighborhood in Boston, so yes, the people who live there need representation, as do the residents of Chinatown and South Boston, many who are on the low and very-low end of the income / education ladder.
Representation
Let's not get too carried away with non-representation stuff, though - that's why God gave us district councilors.
So downtown residents are
So downtown residents are paying for services used by those million dollar three deckers in Jamaica Plain and the single family colonials in West Roxbury? They'd be interested in hearing that.
Yes
The office towers (largest 200 or so) pay about half the commercial property tax - I think around $400 million of $900 million). The residential data is a little dated (I did the analysis about 5-6 years ago), but probably still relatively accurate - the area essentially bordered by Mass Ave, the expressway and 93 plus charlestown and fenway make up about 15% of the city in population and pay about 1/3 of the residential property tax. All together that geographic area (again about 15% of the population) pays about half the property taxes in the city (and has almost no kids in the schools which are 1/3 of the budget).
Really?
John, do you have the number of people in subsidized housing in the South End vs., say, Jamaica Plain handy? I would have thought it was otherwise.
Really??
Really?? You think Jamaica Plain has more subsidized housing?? Why would you have that impression?
A good place to start for this information is the website of the Boston Housing Authority. http://bostonhousing.org
The downtown neighborhoods have so much subsidized housing, in fact, that the BHA has to give it its own map.
Of course, BHA housing is just type of subsidized housing. Section 8 housing can be found in any neighborhood, since renters can live anywhere they choose, within a budgetary limit.
I'll see if I can find my spreadsheet of data. It shows the breakdown of property tax (commercial & residential) by neighborhood, as well.
(I've been down this road before with members of this forum, so I'm sure they will chime in with their two cents.)
So I'll take that as a no
I just wondered if you'd actually counted them up. I hadn't. The projects are more apparent when they're really big, like Bromley-Heath or Charlestown. The South End doesn't have anything like that, you know, 1000 or more units. So that's why I'd have that impression. As for Section 8, I wouldn't expect much of that in the tony neighborhoods of downtown.
From the Boston Indicators Project
Hi.
I have. I'll try to find my spreadsheets.
Here's information from the Boston Foundation's Boston Indicators Project.
http://www.bostonindicators.org/indicatorsproject/housing/indicator.aspx?id=2786
In five of Boston’s 15 major neighborhoods, more than 20% of the housing stock is affordable: Roxbury (50%), the South End (44%), Charlestown (29%), Jamaica Plain (27%), and South Boston (21%). In all other Boston neighborhoods, more than 10% of the housing stock is affordable except for Hyde Park and Back Bay/Beacon Hill.
In fact, "Central Boston" has as many "affordable" housing units as does Dorchester, East Boston, Roslindale, and West Roxbury. Central Boston includes the North End and Chinatown, but not the Back Bay or Beacon Hill. Back Bay / Beacon Hill is the smallest neighborhood, by land-size, of the 15 major neighborhoods.
Very interesting
I thought of the South End as more like Back Bay than like Roxbury at this point, what with all the million dollar townhouses. I guess that is the wrong impression. It looks like a lot of poor folks have managed to hang on there despite gentrification.
When you assert that "Central Boston" has as many affordable units as etc., is that as many by percent or by quantity? I'd imagine there aren't as many people living in that zone as in, say, Dorchester. I know it's dense, but it's also small, and large parts of it are commercial rather than residential.
Not sure how I was supposed
Not sure how I was supposed to answer your question within the question thereby giving me a chance to answer it. Salary levels of City Councilors are not that hard to find, hey look wikipedia has it as of 2006 listed as 75,000. Yeah thats good money but is it more then what many people in that area make?
I see you are trying to out Dorchester Dorchester with your numbers and its not working.
Why don't you run if its that big of a deal?
Yes
The median household income in 02116 is $60,000.
Boston city councilors make $87,500 per year.
I don't know what you mean about out-Dorchestering Dorchester.
Yes, the South End has more subsidized housing than any other neighborhood, and yes, the downtown neighborhoods subsidize the lifestyles of people in the outer-boroughs, but, does it matter?
I don't think you know a lot about downtown Boston living.
Well Im trying to educate
Well Im trying to educate myself on this... but your lacking links of any kind and just tossing numbers around and vague statistics and expect everyone else to just believe you. Others have asked repeatedly where you are getting your numbers on low income housing that fly in the face of common acceptance that some areas have more subsidized housing then others.
I looked at places like wikipedia but when I got to the pages of half the neighberhoods you mentioned in Downtown they consist of long lists of famous and rich people that live in the neighberhoods, and in the case of Beacon Hill it is broken down by street!
It seems to me that you are the one presenting information that is counter to the popular conception so it would also seem that the onus is on you to provide us with the proper information.
I was just about to ask for
I was just about to ask for links to data and analysis as well. Pointing us to the front page of the BHA site is a bit info-miserly if you've "been down this road" before. Note that I think it's certainly possible that you're accurate in your assertions about relative housing/tax/etc densities. I'd just appreciate some specific refs/URLs.
In the same vein, I was wondering if Stevil could make his previous analysis available.
No need to reinvent the wheel, after all.
Exaggeration
Some Dot rats will tell you that Dot, by itself, is actually larger than the whole rest of the city-- and they'll do so without exaggeration or grandiosity; they actually believe it.
Maybe they include the old 'Dorchester Heights'?
But sometimes residents in Boston vote more than other residents. I still doubt that Dorchester represents 1/3 of the people that actually vote, but you can bet that West Roxbury and Hyde Park have a VERY high percentage of people that go to the polls and actually count as a number and vote.
For example, Hyde Park,
Once again, Roslindale gets no love. ;P