The Boston area’s 10 most important neighborhoods of the decade, explained

Some neighborhoods in the Boston area were more important than others in terms of the amount of change they experienced this decade and the potential they have for more in the next. These 10 stand out for how they evolved, for better or worse, during the 2010s.

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East Boston

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Eastie entered the decade as a literal and figurative outlier, with ambitious private- and public-sector plans to develop its waterfront in particular and to better connect the neighborhood via ferry to the rest of the region.

The waterfront development very much came to be—as did a lot of development in the interior—though the ferry connections did not. Eastie exits the 2010s with more change on the horizon, not least in its northeastern edge, where the 161-acre Suffolk Downs awaits a massive redevelopment.

The Seaport District

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The Seaport basically became a neighborhood in the 2010s. Developers transformed what were vast parking lots and other underutilized acres into shiny modern condo, apartment, and office buildings, with pricey retail and modern public spaces throughout. And remember the Innovation District? It arose in the Seaport this decade too.

The massive change, though, appeared to come at an intangible cost. The condos in particular have helped pay for a bevy of goodies throughout Boston, including more affordable housing and parkland improvements.

But the Seaport remains a bastion of the more affluent, and critics have said it stands as a major missed opportunity to craft a more dynamic and inclusive neighborhood from the ground up—an opportunity that Boston is unlikely to ever get again.

The South End

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The South End’s upper reaches changed dramatically during the decade as large-scale developments—one after another after another—added thousands of condos and apartments as well as hundreds of thousands of square feet of office, land, and retail space to the neighborhood.

And there is really no sign that the pace of change in the South End will ebb in the 2020s. The neighborhood became one of the region’s more desirable this decade. Just look at the prices and the rents—some of the highest in Boston despite all that new supply.

Kendall Square

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The Cambridge enclave exits the decade as probably the top U.S. technology-biotechnology hub east of the California coast (sorry, Manhattan). Kendall had a lot going for it to begin with, not least a dominant tenant in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which itself was busy this decade planning and erecting more buildings.

Kendall’s popularity with companies—both startups and more established firms such as Biogen, Novartis, IBM, Microsoft, Google, and Facebook—and its location along the Red Line and right between Cambridge and Boston also led this decade to skyrocketing land prices, never mind earnest doubts over whether the neighborhood’s infrastructure can handle the growth.

Downtown Crossing

Downtown Crossing entered the decade with one ginormous question mark dangling over it: Might the neighborhood ever become a 24/7 one or would it remain a largely 9-to-5 shopping destination that people otherwise hustled through on their way to somewhere else?

The decade answered the question via new developments such as Millennium Place and Millennium Tower (pictured), which added hundreds of residents to the neighborhood, and via new stores such as Roche Bros., which continue to draw visitors at pretty much all hours save late at night.

What’s more, the rest of the region appears to have caught up with Downtown Crossing’s conceit. It has long been the most prominent car-free zone in Boston. Car-free zones—and car-free city lives—are catching on as the decade closes.

Union Square

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The once-sleepy Somerville neighborhood is in the midst of a major transformation into what could become that city’s first proper downtown. This is due largely to two things: new development and a Green Line stop that’s supposed to open in Union Square in 2021.

In 2014, Somerville officials awarded a Chicago-based developer the rights to oversee more than 15 acres of new development. Those plans now include 2.4 million square feet of projects and some 3.5 acres of open space. There are other smaller developments slated for the neighborhood too.

None of this is coming without disruption, of course. Union Square, like much of Somerville itself, entered the decade as one of the region’s more affordable areas both residentially and commercially. It leaves the 2010s pivoting in a whole new direction—that 15-acre development, for instance, is due to include up to 990 new residences as well as a 93,000-square-foot hotel.

Allston

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Like Union Square, Allston came into the decade as a less expensive area to live in—a reputation that its heavy student population testified to. It’s leaving the decade still relatively affordable compared with much of the rest of Boston—and neighboring Cambridge, for that matter.

Still, the change really piled up in Allston as the years ticked away. Major projects such as Harvard’s expanding satellite campus (above), Allston Square, and Allston Yards added thousands of new residences—and residents—and hundreds of thousands of square feet of office, lab, and other commercial space.

Along the way, those projects also create or are expected to create changes such as new open spaces and transit options. Allston might exit the 2020s, in fact, unrecognizable to people who knew it in 2010.

Roxbury

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Debate over whether and by how much Roxbury might change dominated the neighborhood as it entered the 2010s. Debate over whether and by how much Roxbury might change dominates the neighborhood as it exits the 2010s.

In between, there have been some notable additions to the Boston enclave, particularly to its Dudley Square area. These include the capacious Bolling Building, one of the more architecturally interesting projects of the decade, and a revamped Boston Public Library branch in Dudley, work on which started in 2017 and which is expected to wrap next year.

Now, as the 2020s dawn, there is that talk again of the potential for change in Roxbury, for better or worse. The city is studying changes for a long stretch of Blue Hill Avenue, and the plans for Dudley’s largest development site are once more up in the air. Plus, the Benjamin Franklin Institute of Technology is planning to relocate to the neighborhood.

The West End

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The West End has certainly seen its share of change historically. Officials razed much of the Boston neighborhood in the late 1950s and early 1960s in the name of urban renewal, replacing a dense neighborhood of winding streets that had arisen largely organically with one of planned superblocks with straighter thoroughfares. (In 2015, Brian Golden, Boston’s planning czar, apologized for razing the West End’s residential portions.)

This past decade, the story of the neighborhood has had more to do with what’s been added than with what’s been taken away. The West End has been the site of some of the most ambitious development in the region, not least the more than 1.8 million-square-foot Hub on Causeway project on and around TD Garden.

And, speaking of TD Garden itself, it recently wrapped its biggest overhaul since it opened in 1995, including the addition of 50,000 square feet. The 2010s, in fact, might’ve been the busiest in the West End in terms of construction since the aftermath of that urban renewal.

Assembly Row

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Simply put, this Somerville neighborhood didn’t really exist in 2010. Now it’s home to thousands of people, and hosts the workplaces and favorite shopping destinations of thousands more.

Assembly Row started opening in mid-decade, filling in the Mystic River site of a former Ford factory. It brought not only dozens of outlet stores and other retailers to the previously barren expanse, but hundreds of apartments and condos, never mind a Legoland and an Orange Line stop—the first new Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority station in 27 years.

It was probably a little bit of understandable hyperbole when Somerville Mayor Joe Curtatone said in 2011 that his city and private developer Federal Realty Properties were “building the best brand-new neighborhood on the Eastern Seaboard.” But Assembly Row really did turn out to be a multifaceted and expansive new neighborhood.