Imagine Boston 2030 Goal 1: Provide quality of life in accessible neighborhoods
We envision a future where people of diverse backgrounds and income levels thrive in all of Boston’s neighborhoods and where all residents are safe on Boston’s streets.
To ensure quality of life in accessible neighborhoods, Imagine Boston will preserve and enhance our community fabric by guiding investments in housing, main streets, transportation and community spaces. We will identify places where we can build new housing at a variety of income levels, reducing strain on the housing market and ensuring that a diverse array of Bostonians can continue to call our city home.
How can we achieve this goal? Our emerging strategies to provide quality of life in neighborhoods are:
- Build and preserve housing that is affordable to Bostonians at a variety of income levels
- Create complete neighborhoods where all Bostonians are safe and have access to quality transit, healthy food, vibrant main streets and community spaces
Why are we setting this goal? This goal responds to Boston’s challenges and builds on its strengths:
- Boston has vibrant neighborhoods with mature, thriving physical fabric and strong communities that Imagine Boston will work to preserve and enhance.
- These neighborhoods, and Boston’s vibrant economy, are assets as Boston continues to attract the diverse workforce needed to be a global city in a talent-driven economy.
- However, recent growth in housing prices spurred by insufficient housing supply has made it harder for Bostonians to remain in their neighborhoods and for our neighborhoods to fully reflect Boston’s diversity.
We need to guide our growth to create complete neighborhoods with housing that is affordable to Bostonians.
Want to provide feedback on these strategies or add your ideas about how Boston can guide growth? Please weigh in now on where Boston should grow.
[1] U.S. Census Bureau 2009-2013 American Community Survey; BRA Research Division Analysis; Mass GIS