The Middle Class Exodus of Boston

The Boston Globe reports:

It wasn't that long ago that alarm over the exodus of middle-class families loomed large in Boston's civic dialogue. With crime soaring, the public schools flagging, and families fleeing, it was the central issue framing the 1993 race for mayor. ''If you are somebody who's thinking of giving up on your neighborhood and moving out, I want you to know, it matters to me personally," Mayor Thomas Menino declared in his first inaugural address.

Just how ephemeral has Boston become since Menino made his personal plea? The 2000 census revealed that nonfamily households-made up of those living alone or with unrelated adults-were now in the majority in Boston for the first time. The city's public schools have experienced an enrollment decline of more than 5,000 students since 2000, and are serving an increasingly poor population, with the percentage of students eligible for free or reduced-price lunch rising from 62 percent in 1994 to about 75 percent a decade later.

At the same time, as the Globe recently reported, just two of the state's 10 largest publicly held companies are now based in Boston, and six of them are based outside Route 128, highlighting the continued shift of economic might to the suburbs. Meanwhile, neighborhoods from Charlestown to South Boston-longtime ethnic holdouts-have gone from townie to tony. Alvaro Lima, the Boston Redevelopment Authority research director, calls it ''the South End thing," a patchwork of subsidized housing for low-income residents alongside million-dollar condos.

Some might call it Europe's disease or John Kenneth Galbraith's disease.Boston used to be America's 10th largest city with 800,000 people in 1950.Now with less than 600,000 people, Boston is the 24th largest city.Boston 's middle class has voted with their feet.