The Hub’s Metropolis: Greater Boston’s Development from Railroad Suburbs to Smart Growth (MIT Press)

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The evolution of the Boston metropolitan area, from country villages and streetcar suburbs to exurban sprawl and “smart growth.”

Boston’s metropolitan landscape has been two hundred years in the making. From its proto-suburban village centers of 1800 to its far-flung, automobile-centric exurbs of these days, Boston has been a national pacesetter for suburbanization. In The Hub’s Metropolis, James O’Connell charts the evolution of Boston’s suburban development.

The city of Boston is compact and consolidated — famously, “the Hub.” Greater Boston, then again, stretches over 1,736 square miles and ranks as the world’s sixth largest metropolitan area. Boston suburbs started to develop after 1820, when rich city dwellers built country estates that were only a short carriage ride away from their homes in the city. Then, as transportation became more efficient and reasonably priced, the map of the suburbs expanded. The Metropolitan Park Commission’s park-and-parkway system, developed in the 1890s, created a template for suburbanization that represents the country’s first example of regional planning.

O’Connell identifies nine layers of Boston’s suburban development, Every of which has left its imprint at the landscape: traditional villages; country retreats; railroad suburbs; streetcar suburbs (the first electric streetcar boulevard, Beacon Street in Brookline, used to be designed by Frederic Law Olmsted); parkway suburbs, which emphasized public greenspace but also encouraged commuting by automobile; mill towns, with housing for workers; upscale and middle-class suburbs accessible by outer-belt highways like Route 128; exurban, McMansion-dotted sprawl; and smart growth. Still a pacesetter, Greater Boston has pioneered antisprawl initiatives that encourage compact, mixed-use development in existing neighborhoods near railroad and transit stations.

O’Connell reminds us that these nine layers of suburban infrastructure are still woven into the fabric of the metropolis. Every chapter suggests sites to talk over with, from Waltham country estates to Cambridge triple-deckers.

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