Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

From Disinvestment To Displacement: Gentrification And Jamaica Plain’S Hyde-Jackson Squares, Jen Douglas

Trotter Review

In this essay, I offer a place-based history of socioeconomic and demographic change in Hyde Square and nearby Jackson Square (henceforth “Hyde-Jackson Squares”). I document the area’s ongoing gentrification and describe the distribution of gentrification pressures. I situate this contemporary process against the socio-spatial patterns carved out by the area’s historical rise as an industrial suburb, its struggle amid decades of disinvestment, and the community efforts that ultimately stabilized the neighborhood. In these sequential transformations is the story of how Latinos and Blacks entered, departed, and have strived to remain in the neighborhood.

“Separatist City”: The Mandela, Massachusetts (Roxbury) Movement And The Politics Of Incorporation, Self-Determination, And Community Control, 1986–1988, Zebulon V. Miletsky, Tomás González

Trotter Review

November 4, 2016, marks 30 years since the historic referendum in which close to 50,000 citizens of Boston living in or near the predominantly Black area of “Greater Roxbury” voted on whether the area should leave Boston and incorporate as a separate municipality to be named in honor of former South African president Nelson and Winnie Mandela, or remain a part of Boston. The new community, what planners called “Greater Roxbury,” would have included wards in much or all of the neighborhoods of Roxbury, Dorchester, Mattapan, Jamaica Plain, the Fenway, the South End, and what was then known as Columbia …

Community Land Trusts: A Powerful Vehicle For Development Without Displacement, May Louie

Trotter Review

In the Great Recession of 2007–2009, Boston’s communities of color were hit hard. A 2009 map of foreclosures looked like a map of the communities of color—Roxbury, Dorchester, and Mattapan. The one island of stability was a section of Roxbury called the Dudley Triangle—home to the community land trust of the Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative (DSNI).

Originally established to respond to the community’s vision of “development without displacement,” the land trust model was adopted to help residents gain control of land and to use that control to prevent families from being priced out as they organized to improve their neighborhood. …

Gentrification As Anti-Local Economic Development: The Case Of Boston, Massachusetts, James Jennings

Trotter Review

Activists and political leaders across the city of Boston are concerned that gentrification in the form of rapidly rising rents in low-income and the poorest areas are contributing to displacement of families and children. Rising home sale prices and an increasing number of development projects are feeding into this concern. There is also a growing wariness about the impact that this scenario can have on small and neighborhood-based businesses and microenterprises whose markets are represented by the kinds of households facing potential displacement. This potential side-effect suggests that gentrification could actually emerge as anti-local economic development in Boston. It can …

Food Insecurity Among Children In Massachusetts, Stephanie Ettinger De Cuba, Deborah A. Frank, Maya Pilgrim, Maria Buitrago, Anna Voremberg, Harris Rollinger, Denise A. Hines

New England Journal of Public Policy

This article focuses on the prevalence among Massachusetts children and families of food insecurity, inadequate access to enough nutritious food for an active and healthy life. It summarizes research findings on the association of food insecurity with less optimal children’s health and development from the prenatal period through adolescence. Food insecurity also correlates with other material hardships, such as housing and energy insecurity. Data show families’ participation in public nutrition and other assistance program is associated with decreased prevalence of food insecurity and with mitigation of its impact on children’s health and well-being. The article concludes with recommendations for policy …

Introduction: Communicating Research To Policy Makers—Briefing Report Chapters From The Massachusetts Family Impact Seminars On Youth At Risk, Denise Hines, Karen Bogenschneider

New England Journal of Public Policy

Research and policy should go hand-in-hand. With few exceptions, however, the history of research utilization in policy making has been disappointing. Policy makers typically do not have the resources to seek out the growing body of research on the complex issues they face. Instead, they tend to rely on personal impressions or information from special interests that is often fragmented and biased. This practice occurs despite growing evidence that public policy would be more effective if it were based on hard evidence and dispassionate analysis.

How can we better connect researchers and policy makers? One proven, cost-effective, and replicable model …

Transracial Foster Care And Adoption: Issues And Realities, Fern L. Johnson, Stacie Mickelson, Mariana Lopez Davila

New England Journal of Public Policy

The article places transracial foster care and adoption into a broader perspective that highlights social and cultural factors and the reasons for controversy about this adoption option. The first section describes the demographics of children in the foster care system. This is followed by an overview of requirements for approval as foster and adoptive parents in Massachusetts and information about the laws governing transracial adoption. The controversy over transracial adoption is laid out by explaining the race-blind and race-matching positions. Policy priorities are outlined that take into account the main points of controversy. The final section focuses on growth in …

Children And Homelessness In Massachusetts, Donna Haig Friedman, Katherine Calano, Marija Bingulac, Christine Miller, Alisa Zeliger

New England Journal of Public Policy

In Massachusetts, more than half a million children (15% of all children) live in poverty, 30% of all children live with parents who lack secure employment, and 41% live in households with high housing cost burdens. This article examines the root causes of poverty and its links to child homelessness in the state. Though the state has a long-standing progressive political legacy, the well-being of low-income families with children continues to decline. The article offers evidence about the extent of child homelessness and its profound effects on Massachusetts children and youth. The interconnectedness of what are usually thought of as …

A Historical Overview Of Poverty Among Blacks In Boston, 1950-1990, Robert C. Hayden

Trotter Review

Like most nineteenth-century residents of Boston, blacks worked hard to maintain their homes and families. Even before the Civil War, both enslaved and free blacks in "freedom's birthplace" worked long and arduous hours. Those who migrated to Boston from the South in the 1800s had come to secure higher wages, mobility, and opportunity for themselves and their families. Boston's black population grew from 2,000 in 1850 to 8,125 in 1890, and to 11,591 by 1900. In 1900, 39 percent of black Bostonians were northern-born (New England, New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania), and 53 percent were southern-born.

Residential segregation for …

Pastor Brunson's Shofar, Richard Tenorio

Trotter Review

A short story by Richard Tenorio of sibling love and sacrificed ambition, which is set in Roxbury, traditionally the twentieth-century home territory for blacks in Boston. Today, Roxbury is poised on the lip of gentrification, and blacks in Boston are on the move again, seeking home and security and belonging.

Masscap And The Caa Role In Advocating For Change, Joseph Diamond

New England Journal of Public Policy

Cites the efforts of the Massachusetts Association for Community Action Inc. and community action agencies (CCA) to alleviate poverty in the state. Programs offered by CCAs that aim to improve the quality of life of low income people; Efforts of the organization to call for changes in federal and state policies directed to the poor; Details of several initiatives assisted by the organization; Support for the adoption of the Massachusetts Self-Sufficiency Standard.

Challenges To Multiculturalism, Jorge Capetillo-Ponce

New England Journal of Public Policy

An anti-bilingual education referendum was offered to citizens of Massachusetts in November of 2002. The referendum read, in part, “The current state law providing for transitional bilingual education in public schools will be replaced with a law requiring that, with limited exceptions, all public school children must be taught English by being taught all subjects in English and being placed in English language classrooms.” The University of Massachusetts Gaston Institute analyzed the results of that referendum, here reported on by Jorge Capetillo-Ponce.

Community Action In Massachusetts, Jim Canavan

New England Journal of Public Policy

Evaluates the contribution of community action agencies (CCA) in alleviating poverty in Massachusetts from its creation during the term of former U.S. President Lyndon Johnson until 2004. Description of the programs to the poor offered by CCAs; Operation of CCAs across the state; Affordable housing offered by the CCAs.

When Half The Neighborhood Is Missing, Gus Newport

New England Journal of Public Policy

Local nonprofits too often compete with each other for power, turf, and funds. The author, formerly director of the Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative, advocates for a collaborative process that engages the local community in defining and executing new initiatives. Governance for the good of the people must rely on sound research, sound principles and values, and the understanding and support of the community.

Child Care: Four Decades Of Growth And Change, Bruce Hershfield, John Sciamanna

New England Journal of Public Policy

Child care has grown and changed over the past four decades. The federal government now has two major early education programs, Head Start and the Child Care and Development Block Grant. Although Head Start was enacted in 1965 and has had mostly bipartisan support, it took the federal government until 1990 to enact a national child care program. Massachusetts, led by an active advocacy community and strong leadership in the state legislature, has been a leader among states in support for child care funding and policies. It is its support for strong licensing, periodic increases in reimbursement rates, parental choice, …

When They Need Help The Most: Public Services For Immigrants, Miren Uriarte, Phillip Granberry

New England Journal of Public Policy

Ending unauthorized immigration is at the heart of current federal initiatives in both immigration and social policy. The intertwining of these two areas of policy is nowhere clearer than in the 1996 passage of both the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA), better known as Welfare Reform, and the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA). Immigration status became a key point of differentiation in access to public benefits as cutbacks were instituted with the stated goal of curtailing undocumented immigration. The denial of public benefits to limit unauthorized immigration has a disproportionate impact on those groups …

Delivering Social Services Through Faith-Based Organizations: Case Of United Way Of Massachusetts Bay, Kevin Peterson

Trotter Review

As deliverers of social services, faith-based organizations have been stereotyped as being inefficient and focused on spiritual outcomes alone, and have therefore been largely ignored by funding agencies. The United Way of Massachusetts Bay, realizing the importance of such organizations, particularly in communities of color, has actively sought to dispel these stereotypes and work with faith-based organizations to enhance service delivery to needy Black communities in Massachusetts. Through training and participatory research, faith-based organizations have begun to appreciate the importance of measurable outcomes.

School District Performance Under The Mcas, Jie Chen, Thomas Ferguson

New England Journal of Public Policy

Education reform has spawned efforts to test learning across the nation. This paper analyzes the determinants of Massachusetts’ school district test scores under the state’s high stakes testing program, MCAS. The study is the first to demonstrate direct links between improvements in MCAS scores and state aid to school districts. The authors estimate “value added” for each school district in the state. The list of schools with high value added produces real surprises — while some affluent districts do well, others rank at the very bottom. Additionally, the study analyzes how teacher maximum salaries, district superintendent salaries, per capita income, …

Race, Poverty And Education In The 21st Century, Joan Wallace-Benjamin

Trotter Review

I am here as the president of the Urban League of Eastern Massachusetts. I am here as a woman. I am here as a partner in the struggle for equal opportunity and access for - women, men, young people, the elderly, Black, white, Latino and Asian, who are not able to fully enjoy the educational, economic and social benefits of our American society. I am here as a colleague of Mary's, [Mary Lassen, Executive Director, Women's Educational and Industrial Union] who works with commitment and passion on these same issues and with whom I have collaborated and will continue to …

The Sargent Governorship: Leader And Legacy, Richard A. Hogarty

New England Journal of Public Policy

Following in the long line of succession of his predecessors, Francis W. Sargent served as the sixty-third governor of Massachusetts. A lifelong Republican, he was a man of character and sterling Yankee blue-blood lineage with the stature of a political independent. Grappling with a series of hot political issues and braving the passions and divisions spawned by the war in Vietnam, he was one of the ablest and most intriguing men ever to be governor. He worked hard at knowing his constituents and their concerns, but he did not always provide them with easy answers. Several new ideas were transformed …

The Repeal Of Rent Control In Cambridge, Robert P. Moncreiff

New England Journal of Public Policy

In the November 8, 1994, state election, Massachusetts voters approved a question placed on the ballot by initiative petition passing a law that effectively outlawed rent control throughout the commonwealth. This law had its most dramatic effect in Cambridge, where a stringent rent control system had been in effect since 1970. The success of the petition was realized primarily through the grassroots efforts of a coalition of small-property owners in Cambridge who felt aggrieved by the city's rent control system. The use of a statewide vote on an initiative petition to enact a law with predominantly local effect created for …

Access To Capital And Technical Assistance, Richard J. Ward

New England Journal of Public Policy

This article summarizes and analyzes the views of select leaders in business, labor, banking, the government, and academia with regard to the constraints, obstacles, and recommendations to achieve economic growth in Massachusetts. The role of the state government in addressing these issues receives special attention. Access to capital and technical assistance had been regarded by many as the key constraint, particularly during the recession of the early 1990s. The author analyzes inconvenient government systems, bottlenecks, and bureaucracy as throttling the flow of capital to small-business entrepreneurs. The analysis concludes, however, that unless the state cum federal government finds ways to …

The Economy And The Regulatory Environment: In Search Of A New Paradigm, Zenia Kotval, John Mullin

New England Journal of Public Policy

This article focuses on the economy and the regulatory environment. The economic downturn over the past six years has taken its toll on Massachusetts. At the same time, there is immense pressure on the part of the electorate to ensure that our quality of life is protected and enhanced. It is clear that the business community, citizens, and our elected officials are searching for a new paradigm. The concept of a policy of sustainable development is emerging —political and corporate actions that produce well-paying jobs, that create a competitive business climate and improve life within the context of our existing …

Economic Growth Issues In Massachusetts Rural Areas And Small Cities, Nancy Goff

New England Journal of Public Policy

In developing a strategy for economic development, state government must consider the special needs of its small cities and rural areas. Well-meaning policies crafted for metropolitan areas have unintended and often negative consequences when applied statewide. This article is a revision of the author's topical discussion paper for the August 6, 1992, Conference on Rural and Small City Development at Mount Wachusett Community College, Gardner. It was used by the Massachusetts Executive Office of Economic Affairs and the University of Massachusetts in developing a statewide economic development strategy.

Naep State Reports In Mathematics: Valuable Information For Monitoring Education Reform, Ronald K. Hambleton, Sharon F. Cadman

New England Journal of Public Policy

The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), a congressionally mandated program, can provide valuable data to educational policymakers in Massachusetts and other New England states about the status of their educational reform initiatives and their performance standards. The three purposes of this article are to describe NAEP and its goals and structure, to present some of the results of the 1992 Mathematics NAEP Assessment as an example of the utility of this national assessment program, and to highlight ways in which background data collected by NAEP can be helpful in interpreting assessment results and monitoring educational reform. The six New …

The School Improvement Industry: A Case Study Of Framingham, Abigail Jurist Levy

New England Journal of Public Policy

This study looked at school improvement in the Framingham public schools from three perspectives. We were interested in finding out if the administration and school committee, local businesses with an interest in education, and agencies that provide training and technical assistance to schools have similar ideas regarding how the Framingham schools should improve. We conducted interviews with administrators and members of the school committee, local businesses and businesses involved in school/business partnerships, and six agencies that provide training and technical support to schools in the Greater Boston area. We found that although all groups shared many interests, the businesses and …

Providing Quality Leadership In Roxbury: A Profile Of Leon T. Nelson, Harold Horton

Trotter Review

Poor leadership is often the cause for the inept functioning and eventual collapse of an organization or agency. This is because the leader sets the tone and to a great extent determines whether or not an organization will be viable. Leon T. Nelson, president of the Greater Roxbury Chamber of Commerce, has done his utmost to live up to the organization's motto, "Quod facis bene fac," which means doing whatever you do as well as you possibly can.

In a community that underwent drastic demographic changes during the 1970s and 1980s, when numerous businesses led the "white flight" to suburbia, …

Education And Community Development Among Nineteenth-Century Irish And Contemporary Cambodians In Lowell, Massachusetts, Peter N. Kiang

New England Journal of Public Policy

As cities undergo dramatic demographic changes, schools become important sites of conflict between the interests of established and emerging communities. This article presents a case study of Lowell, Massachusetts, where the second largest Irish community in the country resided during the 1850s, and which is now home to the second largest Cambodian community in the United States. Analysis of nineteenth-century Irish community dynamics, particularly in relation to issues of public education in Lowell, reveals the significance of religious institutions and middle-class entrepreneurs in the process of immigrant community development and highlights important relationships to ethnicity, electoral politics, and economic development. …

The Homeless Of Massachusetts: An Analysis Of The 1990 U.S. Census S-Night Data, Christopher G. Hudson

New England Journal of Public Policy

This article, which examines epidemiological and policy correlates of homeless populations in 351 Massachusetts towns and cities, is based on an analysis of data from the 1990 U.S. census. It reviews the reliability of the most recent census data, reports findings on the distribution and characteristics of homeless persons in Massachusetts, and presents preliminary correlational findings on the impact of key demographic conditions and policies.

The report includes a meta-analysis of several studies that monitored the Census Bureaus street counts. It is estimated that 42.6 percent of the homeless on the streets in selected urban areas were counted by the …

State Strategy For Developing Base Industries: A Massachusetts Case Study, Chris Tilly

New England Journal of Public Policy

In developing strategies for economic development, state governments must target base industries that bring income into the state and drive the rest of the economy. This article presents a case study of industry analysis and development strategy for Massachusetts, focusing on the state's base industries. Particular attention is paid to the role of industry clusters — groups of industries linked through customer, supplier, or other relationships, and typically concentrated geographically as well. After assessing strengths and weaknesses of the state's economy, the author concludes that despite the current severe recession, the state possesses the basis for renewed growth. Policy implications …