Emerald Necklace Wealth and Education – Hailey Traut and Zara Abbas

ARCH 1370

Emerald Necklace Transect – Wealth and Education Disparity 

The Emerald Necklace highlights the education disparities amongst different Boston neighborhoods in relation to racial inequality. Many of the surrounding areas of Boston’s Emerald Necklace also reflect the growing inequalities between white communities and communities of color, specifically in terms of access to education and wealth inequality. Neighborhoods of color face drastic differences between neighborhoods consisting of primarily white residents and it is heavily influenced through city planning, parks and recreation, and access to public amenities such as transportation. Through the construction and gentrification of the city, communities of color face additional disparities such as a large health and wealth gap in comparison to predominantly white communities. We are planning to analyze the Emerald Necklace by looking at its various neighborhoods throughout the city, starting from the Boston Commons to the Arnold Arboretum. Some of the other key sites we will be exploring include: Fenway, Franklin Park, and the Boston Public Garden. We want to dissect how racial and financial demographics amongst different Boston neighborhoods have impacted education inequality amongst communities of color.  

We were inspired by the video and personal anecdotes from the workshop, which illustrated how Boston’s landscape has changed over time, and personal observations of the shifts from poor to wealthy neighborhoods, both in our local neighborhoods and throughout the whole city of Boston, regarding accessibility to a good education and the influence family wealth has on it. We plan to demonstrate the large disparity in wealth and education through a map organizing the poorer and wealthier sectors in Boston, which will also emphasize disparity in education between these poorer and wealthier families. Additionally, through our map we will demonstrate how the construction of parks and greenery in the Emerald Necklace was often used as a tactic by local governments to further gentrify and segregate communities of color from upper class, typically white, neighborhoods. 

Throughout our tour we touch upon key themes found in our readings, especially from the Boston Globe’ Spotlight Series. An example of this is how the city’s apprehension to desegregate Boston in the mid 20th century has additionally contributed to education disparity in higher education amongst African American students from White students. As said in the Globe spotlight series “During the 1970s and 1980s, the city’s history — the mayhem surrounding court-ordered school desegregation — was reason enough for many black graduates and professionals to settle elsewhere. Boston’s black middle class stagnated, providing little incentive for the next round of graduates to stay in Boston. And so a cycle, or perhaps a spiral, began.” (Globe). Parents of young children of color in many Boston cities are forced to sacrifice their own finances to ensure their children are receiving a fair education to their white peers. “[A Randolph resident] decided the Stoughton public schools weren’t the best fit for her children, now 12 and 15. She eventually chose private schools, which vastly expanded her children’s world view but forced them to contend with being in classes where they were often one of the few black students.” (Globe)

The racial disparity in Boston acts as a trickle down effect. It begins through the construction of public spaces and how they are adorned with nature which later leads to construction of Universities and Hospitals which are two major factors of gentrification. As many of the documentaries and readings we have seen this semester addressed, having a neighborhood with large patches of greenery accessible to the public allowed for property value and land value to drastically increase, but also attract white families who will evidently take over the neighborhood. While this proves to be beneficial to the city’s economy, it forces communities of color to migrate to cheaper living environments and ultimately lower their standards of living. It has been proven that in neighborhoods with well maintained, green parks, those residing there face fewer health conditions, financial, and educational disparities, and the benefits of having access to public greenery are present in the long run of child development, as well as life expectancy. Those who have been raised in neighborhoods with large parks which are taken care of by the city are more likely in life to move on to attend college and move into another financially successful community. Additionally the schools in these communities tend to be better funded and prove to have better academic results than those in poorer communities. 

We plan to include a large variety of personal and historical narratives from individuals residing in neighboring communities to our focal points of the Emerald Necklace. Narratives can be expressed through a multitude of different mediums. Some chose to tell their story through painting or photography while others chose to write their story for future generations. Not only do we want to represent different mediums of expression, but we want to exhibit a diverse age group to capture the effects of the Emerald Necklace over time. Specifically, we plan to include narratives from younger ages, to further highlight the effects of wealth disparity on child education and childhood development. Although personal narratives are critical in understanding the effects of the racialization of land in Boston, it is also critical to take from official sources to represent communities as a whole rather than one individual experience.   

Throughout our tour, as we continue to present various anecdotes and information relevant to these areas, our stories will align to give an impression of what life is like in these neighborhoods surrounding our sites of the Emerald Necklace. Our research, which include perspectives from both white communities and communities of color, and illustrate the interconnectedness of lives in Boston, and how they’ve been shaped by the history of the city. Each included narrative or statistic will provide a unique and personal history of Boston. These unique perspectives will give the reader a better understanding of the complicated integration of urban racial segregation within the city of Boston’s landscape. 

The landscaping of the city of Boston along with the construction of the Emerald Necklace has greatly impacted the education disparity amongst communities of color from primarily white upper class communities. These disparities root from the development of parks as a method of gentrification which has contributed to the growing disparities of wealth, health, and education in Boston. These findings will be clearly illustrated throughout the interactive map, which will highlight specific sites along Boston’s Emerald Necklace.