The coming decade will bring more change
During the next nine years, this neighborhood is going to change dramatically, again.
Throughout the decades of this neighborhood’s modern era, it has been the example of change.
The greatest changes over the years have been with regard to the East Boston demographic.
Nothing here changes more than that.
In the next nine years, more and more old people from longtime families will die or move away. The organic community, so long a mainstay of culture and East Boston society and a power in its own right because of its numbers, will be vastly reduced.
Although it is impossible to predict, the local population will undergo another revolution.
Where the next wave of new immigrants will come from is anyone’s guess – but they will come, and they will come here because this is an open community, a welcoming neighborhood that still operates under the belief that East Boston is the American Melting Pot, which, indeed, it is.
During the end part of the first decade of the New Century, the arrival in East Boston of newcomers seeking artists lofts or apartments and condominiums in old buildings that were rehabbed aided in changing the face of this neighborhood.
This growth will continue – and we see it everywhere where older buildings are being rehabbed with their storefronts being made modern and frankly, being made to look positively nice – as is the case with more than a few storefronts on Chelsea Street recently.
From corner to corner and street to street this place is changing all the time.
What does the future hold?
By 2020, East Boston will be a changed place, again.
The waterfront will likely be the catalyst for the next great step in making the neighborhood new, again.
New construction and residential housing on the waterfront will transform East Boston, again.
Thousands more new residents will be brought here – and they will augment the demographic with higher incomes and more expendable income.
At no time during the next 9 years will this neighborhood become totally gentrified or be made totally anything for that matter.
The history of the place is sturdy and ongoing.
It is a mixed place with all kinds, a caldron of struggling humanity and non-English speaking people mixing with the oldtimers.
Together, we are all facing a new East Boston – and frankly, that’s exciting.