Economy of Boston

Finance and industry

During the 19th century, industrial textile mills and shipbuilding concerns augmented the shipping and commerce that had dominated Boston’s colonial economy. Investments in banking and railroads provided additional sources of wealth, while shipping lost importance during the mid-19th century. Railroad investments and the textile industry dominated the regional economy until the Great Depression of the 1930s, when textile factories moved to the South in search of cheaper labour and raw materials. During World War II Boston’s universities provided a source of scientific and technological talent to war-related industries, and Boston changed from “mill-based” to “mind-based” industries, with major corporations dominating electronics, telecommunications, and digital research. Later, Boston firms took the lead in software design, computer architecture, data processing, and biomedical technologies. Boston banks created high-technology investment companies connected with global financial institutions that made the city a world leader in equity fund management. Boston’s universities remained an important part of the city’s economy, and their medical schools and hospitals gave the city an especially robust health care sector.

Transportation

The Boston Post Road, consisting of three routes, was one of the most heavily traveled of the early roadways. It opened to mail delivery between Boston and New York City in 1673. Today the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority maintains a network of public subway, elevated, and surface lines. The subway system, begun in 1897, was the first in the country.

Some of the Boston region’s other transportation facilities are under state control. The Massachusetts Port Authority, for example, operates Logan International Airport in East Boston—a busy centre for overseas as well as domestic flights—along with several regional airports. The Massachusetts Turnpike Authority supervises the operations of Interstate 90, the highway extending westward from Boston to New York state. The Metropolitan District Commission manages a system of regional parks and roadways.

Boston has not easily accommodated the growth of private automobile and truck traffic, which increasingly chokes the city, especially the narrow and winding downtown streets laid out in colonial times. For decades one of the city’s weakest points in terms of traffic flow was the Central Artery, a six-lane elevated highway opened in 1959 that cut through downtown and isolated neighbourhoods. Increasingly, it became clear that the Central Artery was becoming unable to cope with continually growing vehicular traffic, and a major construction project—the Central Artery/Tunnel Project, commonly called the Big Dig—was begun in 1991. The task involved replacing the elevated highway through the city with an 8-to-10-lane underground expressway, rebuilding bridges, and boring a new tunnel under the harbour; the need to do so without crippling the city’s essential functions and day-to-day life made it one of the most-challenging infrastructure projects ever undertaken in the United States. Major construction on the Big Dig was completed in 2006, providing greater access to the formerly undeveloped South Boston waterfront area. There a newly created Seaport District featured a large convention centre, an international trade centre, the Institute of Contemporary Art, and a series of hotels, restaurants, and residential buildings.

Government

Throughout the colonial period Boston was governed by a town meeting to which representatives of the community were regularly elected. In 1822, after a popular referendum, Boston became a city and acquired a city government. All “fiscal, prudential, and municipal concerns” of the city were vested in the mayor, a committee of eight persons called the Board of Aldermen, and a Common Council of 48 members elected from the various wards of the city.

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Massachusetts

That system endured until 1909, when a new city charter was approved. The Board of Aldermen was abolished, and the council was reduced in size to nine at-large members. Mayoral elections were put on a nonpartisan basis, and the office of mayor was greatly strengthened by giving the incumbent a four-year term. With minor variations, the system continues to operate.

Boston is unique among the cities in the Bay State for the restrictions that have been placed on its power to manage its own finances and control its own regulatory agencies. In 1909, fearing municipal corruption, the Republican-controlled state legislature placed severe restrictions on local rule. The state created an independent finance commission to oversee the city’s management and budget as well as to control the appointment of the city’s police commissioner and members of the licensing board. Perhaps the most-influential local authority in later years has been the Boston Redevelopment Authority, which directed major urban development projects during the 1960s and ’70s.

Municipal services

During the 19th century Boston organized its fire and police departments, established municipal services to centralize water supplies and safeguard public health, and authorized a public works department to lay out streets and construct roads and bridges. In the 20th century, however, with the rapid expansion of the city and its surrounding urban communities, the Greater Boston area came to depend on various state authorities, commissions, and quasi-public agencies for many vital resources. The Massachusetts Water Resources Authority, for example, coordinates the sewer and waterworks system that supplies more than 60 cities and towns in eastern Massachusetts.

Education and health

Universities, colleges, and schools of every kind fill several pages in the classified section of the Boston telephone directory. Boston University (founded 1869), Northeastern University (1898), Suffolk University (1906), and the Boston campus (1964) of the University of Massachusetts, as well as Simmons (1899), Emmanuel (1919), and Emerson (1880) colleges, are based within the city, as are the Harvard University faculties of medicine, dentistry, public health, and business administration.

The rest of Harvard (1636) and Radcliffe College (1879; now the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University) and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT; 1861) are just across the Charles River in Cambridge. Boston College (1863), a Jesuit institution that is a university in everything except name, was founded in Boston proper but is now in the Chestnut Hill neighbourhood of Newton, only a step beyond the city limits. Tufts University (1852), although based in Medford, has its medical school in Boston. Massachusetts General, among the oldest of hospitals in the United States, is joined by, among others, Beth Israel Deaconess, Children’s, and Brigham and Women’s hospitals and the New England Medical Center.