Curbed Cup Elite 8: (7) Upper South End vs. (2) Assembly Row

Few neighborhoods in Greater Boston are changing faster than the South End. Development in the neighborhood's northern reaches is driving much of that change, so much so that we think the area north of Mass. Ave. and east of Shawmut Avenue should perhaps have its own name. For now, we're calling it, rather laboriously, the Upper South End. It's there that projects such as the Ink Block (and its Sepia and Siena), the Lucas and the 575 Albany Street conversion are adding thousands of residences and, invariably, thousands of residents to fill them. Many of these projects were either announced in 2015, finished or got under way.

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Somerville's Assembly Row neighborhood-in-the-making started the year as one area to definitely watch and it did not disappoint. There were details by May about the addition to Assembly Row of 447 luxury apartments and 117 luxury condos (luxury!) as well as a 115-room boutique hotel and tens of thousands of square feet of retail. And! In September, the new 100,000-square-foot complex at 450 Artisan Way was certified as Somerville's first-ever LEED Gold office building. Not bad for a mini-neighborhood that pretty much didn't exist five years ago.