For much of the 20th century, Boston was known for its high-stakes politics, warfare, tight ethnic enclaves and racial divisiveness. In the 1970s, in response to the searing experience on all sides of school desegregation and the devastating effects of racial violence, something began to change. Three decades of intense community development in Boston’s neighborhoods, a shift to New Economy jobs, a wave of immigrants from all corners of the world and new civic and political leadership merged in the 1990s to create a more harmonious and hopeful city.

OVERVIEW

Boston entered the 21st century with a new spirit, and the 2000 US Census reflected a changed city. Boston today is one of the most ethnically and culturally diverse cities in the nation by any number of measures.

More than 100 ethnicities are represented in Boston’s neighborhoods and 140 languages are spoken in Boston’s homes. Boston is more than 50% people of color overall. Almost 75% of its teenagers are of color, as are 86% of the children and youth in Boston’s public schools.

Empty nesters and baby boomers are among Boston’s fastest-growing population segments — as are seniors over 85. The city has a large gay and lesbian population. And about 125,000 students, many of them from other nations, are enrolled in Boston’s colleges and universities, adding their youth, diversity and dynamism to Boston’s cultural mosaic.

While residents of Irish and Italian ancestry are still the city’s largest ethnic groups, the next are English and German, then Puerto Rican and West Indian, and then Bostonians who describe themselves as of Sub-Saharan African and Chinese descent.  So Boston’s population today truly represents the descendants of people from every continent and corner of the world.

In 2000, for the first time in more than 60 years — three generations — Boston’s population was more than 25% foreign born. In fact, if it had not been for new immigrants, Boston would have lost population between 1990 and 2000.

All told, Boston’s population today represents a great array of ethnicities, ages, races, cultures and traditions. As Mayor Thomas M. Menino has said:  “Boston represents America’s past and future. We’re the birthplace of American democracy, and we’re growing into a city rich in diversity. We have resolved to make that diversity our greatest strength.”  Mayor Menino’s call to make Boston’s newfound racial, ethnic and cultural diversity its greatest strength is also arguably the city’s greatest challenge — a challenge increasingly shared by every American city and every nation. 

The capacity of a community to build its future on common ground is best measured by a quality that has come to be called “social capital.”  Although old in practice, the term was first used by researchers in the 1980s and popularized in the 1990s through the work of Harvard Professor Robert Putnam, author of Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. 

Social capital refers to networks built on trust, respect, cooperation, and the capacity for collaboration and mobilization that either do or do not exist in a family or community – rendering them either resilient or brittle in the face of pressure. It is the invisible “civic glue” that holds people, families, communities and nations together. With it, all things can seem possible – and often are. Without it, a community can fail to respond to key challenges or become mired in conflict or stagnation.

This is important today, because, since 2001, the residents of Boston, the region and the Commonwealth — and in fact, people the world over — have entered a difficult period. A stalled economy and a state fiscal crisis following in  the wake of the tragic events of 9/11 are presenting Bostonians with unexpected and daunting challenges. Deep state budget cuts threaten recent gains in education and public health. Homelessness and hunger are increasing. And the city is still vulnerable to both terrorist attack and continuing economic contraction.

Boston’s future lies in its capacity to draw strength from its diversity. In order to thrive, it must nurture, attract and retain the creative innovators and entrepreneurs — social as well as commercial — who will set the agenda in the 21st century.  In this context, the city’s civic health is more important than ever. It will determine how well Bostonians — old and new, young and old — can work together to turn the city’s greatest challenges into its most innovative, exciting and effective solutions. 

WHAT HAS CHANGED SINCE 2000?

The successful bid to bring the Democratic National Convention to Boston in 2004 required collaboration across all sectors and racial/ethnic communities. Following an intense campaign by Mayor Thomas M. Menino and US Senator Edward M. Kennedy, the Democratic National Committee announced its decision to come to Boston in 2004. The convention is expected to attract 35,000 people to the city for a week and an estimated $150 million to the local economy. It also will provide opportunities to highlight the beauties of the region and Boston’s many attractions — downtown as well as in its neighborhoods — to national and international audiences. In assessing Boston as a site, DNC members questioned whether Boston’s civic culture was sufficiently diverse. The answer from many leaders of color in Boston was a strong yes, but the city must now plan to highlight its recent progress. A number of corporations and foundations also contributed to the collaborative effort.

A "perfect storm" for non-profit organizations. The confluence of a deepening recession with the tragic events of 9/11 created a “perfect storm” of cuts in funding and increases in need. Local donations were already declining in 2001 in response to the recession. After 9/11, donations were redirected to the tragedy centered in New York. Subsequently, the state’s tax revenues fell precipitously in fiscal 2001 and 2002, and even further in 2003. The severe drop in tax revenues, even after a delay in a planned tax cut, has led in turn to deep cuts in state-funded programs and lay-offs of state workers. Unanticipated reductions have been hitting non-profit organizations hard as they work to offer support to people already affected by the economic slowdown. With rising fuel and housing costs in a still-anemic economic recovery, the level of need is rising while local non-profit organizations struggle to stay afloat in a gathering storm.

The 2002 general election marked a small, but important, revolution in Greater Boston’s communities of color. A collaborative effort to increase voter registration and voter participation, the Civic Engagement Initiative, was initiated by groups such as Boston Vote, Dunk the Vote and the Greater Boston Interfaith Organization, and funded by a consortium of local foundations, with the Boston Foundation in the lead. In addition, the Mayor’s Office for New Bostonians worked hard to increase voter registration rates in newcomer immigrant communities in Boston. All told, the collaborative effort resulted in unprecedented rates of voter participation in many Boston neighborhoods. 

The year 2002 marked a turning point in Metro Boston’s elected Latino political representation. The largest “minority” group in Massachusetts since the 1990 census (comprising 6.8% of the state’s population and 14.4% of Boston’s population in 2000), Latinos historically have been greatly underrepresented at all levels of government in Metro Boston.  In 2002, the state’s first Latino senator was elected to represent Cambridge and Chelsea, Everett, Allston/Brighton, Somerville, Charlestown, Revere and Saugus. A Latino was elected to the Massachusetts House of Representatives, serving precincts in Jamaica Plain, Mission Hill, Fort Hill and Brookline.  And finally, Boston’s 13-member City Council welcomes its first Latino member, At-Large City Councilor Felix Arroyo.

A remarkable number of local institutions have new leaders — and new opportunities for collaboration and innovation. New leadership has been installed at the Boston Globe, Harvard University, Tufts University, the University of Massachusetts, The Boston Foundation and the American Red Cross of Massachusetts Bay. The state had its first female acting governor and first female candidate in a final gubernatorial election. Suffolk County has a new district attorney and its first African-American and female sheriff.  The State Senate elected a new president, and the MBTA Police has a new chief, for the first time an African-American.  And Massachusetts’ new governor, Mitt Romney, is appointing scores of new leaders.

CHALLENGES

Reflecting national trends, income inequality in Massachusetts, the Metro region  and the city of Boston is deepening.  According to a report entitled  “The State of the American Dream in Massachusetts, 2002” by MassINC, a nonpartisan think tank, and the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University, income inequality has increased in Massachusetts over the past two decades.  According to the report, “… in 1979, the most affluent households earned nine times as much as the poorest.  By 1998-99, they earned nearly 12 times as much… In 1998-99, nearly 31% of Massachusetts households had incomes under $25,000, an increase of almost 5 percentage points from 10 years earlier.”  The report concludes that “income inequality is greater in Massachusetts than in the nation, and the Northeast is the most unequal region of the nation.”

Lack of demographically representative leadership across all sectors.  Massachusetts is home to more than 1,150,600 residents of color, and as of the 2000 US Census, Boston, Chelsea and Lawrence now rank as cities more than 50% of color. But Metro Boston lags in reflecting changing demographics in leadership — whether in politics, civic institutions or corporate board rooms. This is leading some promising young entrepreneurs and civic leaders of color to abandon Greater Boston and the Bay State for more welcoming and nurturing parts of the nation.

Metro Boston, the region and the state are becoming more racially and ethnically diverse but progress is slow in residential integration. While the 2000 US Census shows higher percentages of people of color in many municipalities, racial and ethnic residential integration is occurring only slowly or not at all. Most people of color live in only a few municipalities in the region, with very high concentrations of people of color in a small number of Boston neighborhoods. Many communities and some Boston neighborhoods remain overwhelmingly white.

INNOVATION

Family strengthening small grants sponsored by the Riley and Annie E. Casey Foundations in Greater Dudley. The Small Grants Fund gives funds to resident volunteers in the Greater Dudley neighborhood who propose activities or events they believe will strengthen family and community life. Grants have been awarded to residents volunteers to organize a youth conference, sewing and cooking classes, and single-parent workshops, as well as for restoration of the Cape Verdean radio station Nha Terra, family-fun nights at the Grove Hall Mothers’ Club, the Titans baseball team and costumes to preserve a traditional form of Afro-Centric Puerto Rican dance. The most innovative aspect of this program is the way in which the proposals are solicited and reviewed — by a rotating committee of residents of the community.  

The Metropolitan Mayors Coalition is a model of cooperation in a region of historically fragmented municipal planning. Founded in the spring of 2001 and facilitated by the Metropolitan Area Planning Council, seven mayors and two city managers met together for the first time to reflect on shared opportunities and challenges. The Metropolitan Mayors Coalition, chaired by Somerville Mayor Dorothy Kelly Gay, includes the Chief Executive Officers of Boston, Cambridge, Chelsea, Everett, Malden, Melrose, Quincy, Revere and Somerville. The municipal leaders meet regularly to focus on such things as emergency preparedness, health insurance costs, energy policies, economic opportunity and youth violence.  Working groups of the cities’ personnel directors, finance directors, emergency management directors, chief procurement officers also foster coordination. The MMC is also building a shared capacity to store, manage and distribute regional data.

The Black Church Capacity Building Program is a collaboration of African-American churches, faith-based organizations and funders that builds on the historic role of faith-based organizations in the health and well being of African-American communities. A program of the Black Ministerial Alliance, it provides technical assistance grants, organizes workshops on such issues as financial management, facilities planning and sponsors community forums. Awarded a $3 million grant from the new federal Compassion Capital Fund of the US Department of Health and Human Services, the group plans to expand its youth-based programming in Dorchester, Jamaica Plain, Mattapan, Roxbury and the South End over the next three years. The group will regrant some of its federal resources to other faith-based organizations — not limited to African- American churches — seeking to strengthen youth programs in these neighborhoods.

Adaptive Environments, a Boston-based non-profit, takes an innovative and proactive approach to promoting accessibility and universal design.  In 2002, it co-sponsored the International Conference for Universal Design in Japan — attracting 500 global participants to consider universal design principles in everything from urban design to information technologies. Applying universal design principles makes places and resources more accessible to everyone from seniors to children to people with physical disabilities. Adaptive Environments also kicked off a new collaboration with the US Department of Housing and Urban Development, serving as the Design and Construction Resource Center for the new Fair Housing Accessibility First Program. 

Leadership programs are growing in number and impact in Boston. A few of the most well established include: the Center for Immigrant and Refugee Community Leadership and Empowerment (CIRCLE) at UMass/Boston, supporting and connecting leaders from Massachusetts’ immigrant communities; the LINCS program for newcomer neighborhood leaders run by the Allston-Brighton Healthy Boston program, with an emphasis in skills building; the Partnership Inc.’s program to support professionals of color in Metro Boston; LEAD Boston, a program for  diverse professionals across sectors sponsored by the National Conference for Community and Justice/Greater Boston; the Center for Collaborative Leadership at UMass/Boston, for young leaders in metropolitan Boston; the nationally acclaimed Roberto Clemente Curriculum, offered locally at the Codman Square Health Center to build participants’ critical thinking skills; the Boston Community Building Curriculum for emerging grassroots leaders coordinated by the Interaction Institute for Social Change; and the City to City Leadership Exchange Program sponsored by the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce, which takes leaders from Boston on trips to look at best practices in other cities.

COMPETITION

Boston’s primary competition in the area of civic health comes from cities and regions that are moving more quickly to offer advancement and leadership opportunities to young people and people of color. Combined with lower tuition costs at public institutions of higher education, lower housing prices, and a good job, these “intangibles” can become a powerful fulcrum in a young person’s life.  In the 1990s, competitor cities in Leading Technology States, such as Austin, Atlanta and Raleigh-Durham, gained young people from the ages of 20 - 35 while Boston lost them. If this trend continues, Boston may lose the chance to develop a full range of dynamic young leaders, impoverishing the region’s social capital and its future prospects.

LINKS

Mayor's Office of New Bostonians
A City of Boston agency that addresses the needs of the immigrant and newcomer community. Website provides new resident information in pdf format and to order in many different languages.

The Mauricio Gastón Institute for Latino Community Development and Public Policy
An institute at UMASS/Boston that informs policy makers about issues vital to the Commonwealth's growing Latino community and provides this community with information and analysis necessary for effective participation in public policy development. Website lists publications, research activities, and events.

The Institute for Asian American Studies
An institute at UMASS/Boston whose mission is to conduct research on Asian Americans, to strengthen and further Asian American involvement in political, economic, social, and cultural life, and to improve opportunities and campus life for Asian American faculty, staff, and students and for those interested in Asian Americans.

The William Monroe Trotter Institute
An institute at UMASS/Boston whose mission is to address the needs and concerns of the Black community and other communities of color in Boston and Massachusetts through research, technical assistance, and public service.

Boston VOTE
Grassroots organization that increases voter participation in underrepresented neighborhoods. Website provides downloadable and html voter information, mailing list, links and FAQ’s. Some site information in Spanish.

Boston Resource Net
A joint project of the City of Boston and Action for Boston Community Development; online guide to human services.

Boston Public Library
Serving the city with 27 branches and more than 6 million books. Website provides library locator and information, online library catalog and reservation service, and links.

Boston Cares
A nonprofit organization that creates and facilitates volunteer opportunities. Website provides program and contact information.

WGBH Forum Network
Information about forums for public education and dialogue. Website provides and archive of audio and video lectures and Forum calendar.

The Partnership
A nonprofit organization devoted to the development and retention of professionals of color in Boston. Website provides event and program information.

The Civil Rights Project at Harvard University
An organization devoted to civil rights research. Website provides pdf and order information on research reports, and policy studies, and event and program information. Includes studies of Boston by Guy Stuart and Nancy McArdle.

New England Press Association
Trade organization for New England community newspapers. Website provides bulletin archives and ordering information for a directory of New England community newspapers.

Guidestar
The national database of non-profit organizations, providing information about the operations and finances of NPOs.

Foundation Center
Statistics on grantmaking organizations in the USA.

FairVote - The Center for Voting and Democracy
Non-profit organization dedicated to fair elections where every vote counts and all voters are represented. Website includes information in major issue areas related to democracy and an online library of materials.

Action Without Borders
Information portal on international nonprofits. Website provides data on nonprofits, job bank, and relevant news and events.