Rawson`s Eden on The Charles- Ch3&4

The flight of the middle and upper class to surrounding suburbs was an elaborate attempt to evade the tax burden.  The erosion of the tax base encouraged Boston to consider annexation to the surrounding suburbs. Motivated by the environmental services that Boston could provide, namely adequate water and sewage systems, in 1868 Roxbury had joined Boston doubling the territory overnight.                   West Roxbury on the other hand was not so quick to unite with the big city.  Anti-annexationists of West Roxbury were holding onto the ‘primeval town’ Arthur Austin envisioned it to be.  It wasn’t until the working-class Irish immigrants registered to vote in mass numbers for the annexation of West Roxbury did they finally unite with Boston.                   After annexation West Roxbury went from this rural estate farmland to a more unregulated development.   “Street car owners advanced their tracks into undeveloped areas, and real estate speculators bought up adjacent land and divided it into lots.  Until Boston established a Board of Survey in 1891, the city did not involve itself in the layout of new streets at all… Construction was a piecemeal and progressed with no overarching plan.” (Rawson 2010)                 Though the town of West Roxbury suffered some urbanization effects after annexation the city of Boston greatly benefited.  Boston was running out of undeveloped space on its peninsula to devote to public green space.  Acquiring West Roxbury gave Fredrick Law Olmsted large amounts of rural land to incorporate into his design within municipal borders.   Franklin Park which was the center piece of Olmsted’s finished plan now harbors the 2nd oldest golf course in the United States.                   Rawson mentions the town of Brookline developed a unique concept that would later trend all over the United States. The Country Club promoted ‘rural’ activities that wealthy Bostonians could not participate in the cluster of the city.  Horseback riding and lawn tennis to name a few attracted some of the more affluent families of Boston.  The country club redefined what it meant to be upper class and was the driving force behind these institution.                  This institution developed by the town of Brookline was the first of its kind in the United States.  “It quickly inspired other country clubs around the nation, marking Brookline’s innovation as a singular act of creation that produced one of the defining social and environmental institutions of the affluent American suburb for the next century.” (Rawson 2010)  Home to the Brookline Country Club golf course, this club went on to become one of the most famous country club in the United States.  The Brookline Country Club has held 4 US Opens and a Ryder Cup.  In 2022 The Country Club will hold it’s 5th US Open. 

Suburbanization

Rawson's chapter on suburbanization actually opened my eyes to things about boston suburbs that standing from the point of someone who has always lived in them and accepted them as natural would have never realized. the thought of brookline and roxbury having a rural environment was hard to picture and the efforts of the people who lived there to keep it that way seemed funny to me. It did make sense though when the people who lived in brookline wanted to annex themselves from Boston to avoid public spending on municipal services like paved roads and sewers that catered more towards poorer immigrant classes. I live in Quincy, which is touches Dorchester and I knew that Quincy used to be part of Braintree a long time ago. I am not sure of the exact reason of the split but after reading about roxbury and west roxbury the thought occured to me that to this day Quincy is more considered a city and is closer to Boston like Roxbury, and Braintree is more considered a suburb dominated by residential homes in place of commercial businesses like west roxbury.

I also thought it was funny that the word "suburb" had negative connotations of immigrant shanty towns outside of major cities. I know it is still held in a similar view in some places like France. I think what really made the word what it is today is the combination of nature and municipal services like sewege, water and roads. I think Brookline did a good job of managing that balance. I liked its description of a "landscape garden" with winding landes and quaint cottages. there arent many places that look like it in america and I think its a tribute to the roots of the town that once stood there.

I grew up on the water and the enigma of what went on beneath the waves had always persisted in my mind. its no suprise to me that it took such a long time to describe the characteristics of Boston's hydraulic cycle. I am no engineer but the Harbor Comissioner's understanding of tidal scour in an attempt to prevent further shoaling made sense to me at first. Last summer I worked at the consitution marina in charles town which is just before the charles river locks. I  always noticed how much the current sped up when the locks were opened. The marina was about 50 feet deep at high tide because of the dredging but I always assumed that the occasional velocity of the open lock current had something to do with keeping it that deep considering the fact that it was at the end of the harbor and the current would be going the opposite way most of the time.

After I persisted reading Freeman's rejection of Tidal scouring it started to make more sense to me. Its like any other river, the wide parts are usually shallow and slow moving whereas rapids are usually narrow and deep broken up by large rocks that break a steady stream. "constricting of the river mouths through filling and their obstruction by bridge piles had increased the velocity of water flowing through them." which inevtiably lead to waters enhanced force and excavation and redistribution of so much material. This combined with the extraction of trees and large rocks explained to me the withering away of some islands. Like Nix's Mate for example, had always been a small pyramid in the middle of the harbor to me, I was shocked to learn that it was origianlly 12 acres.

I think that the Harbor Commissioners were doing what they thought was right. I don't think they were trying to prevent landfilling for any personal gain even though many had ties to the navy and coast guard. I think they were just looking out for public interest by maintaining the availability of sea commerce. Although the Police power reminded me of communistic countries a little bit. Like the Tewksbury case and how the governement tried to take shirleys point from him without compensation on the grounds of protecting the Harbor. despite the fact that he did eventually reclaim compensation and resources after several years of fighting for it the story reminded me of a friend of my fathers who lived in china. He built a big house on a nice plot of land and one day the government showed up to his house and evicted him as well as his neighbors so that they could build farmland there instead.

These two chapters were a classic argument in governance between public and private interests. Was the moral country lifestyle of wealthier bostonians more important than simple public services for their poorer neighbors? was the room for rail roads and commercial properties more important than sea commerce? I think this argument goes on today in the trump administration as national parks are losing a battle for capitalistic gain like timber and oil.