The D Street projects, built in 1949 as the West Broadway Housing Development, are a

housing project Public housing is a form of housing tenure in which the property is usually owned by a government authorities, government authority, either central or local. Although the common goal of public housing is to provide affordable housing, the d ...

located in

South Boston South Boston is a densely populated neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts, located south and east of the Fort Point Channel and abutting Dorchester Bay. South Boston, colloquially known as Southie, has undergone several demographic transformati ...

Massachusetts Massachusetts (Massachusett language, Massachusett: ''Muhsachuweesut assachusett writing systems, məhswatʃəwiːsət'' English: , ), officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is the most populous U.S. state, state in the New England ...

. The D Street projects stretch 4 city blocks from West Broadway to West Seventh street and 3 city blocks from B street to D street, forming a perfect square. The land for the West Broadway Housing Development was cleared in 1941, and the project opened in 1949 with 972 units intended for white veteran families only. In 1962, upon receipt of a lawsuit filed by a civil rights group, the

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

city government under

Mayor In many countries, a mayor is the highest-ranking official in a municipal government such as that of a city or a town. Worldwide, there is a wide variance in local laws and customs regarding the powers and responsibilities of a mayor as well a ...

John F. Collins (1960–1968) desegregated the project. It was the first state development under Chapter 200 of the Massachusetts legislature's Acts and Resolves of 1948 to open and the only one built on a

slum clearance Slum clearance, slum eviction or slum removal is an urban renewal strategy used to transform low income settlements with poor reputation into another type of development or housing. This has long been a strategy for redeveloping urban communities; ...

site, having originally been planned as a privately financed project in 1934. It was one of the Boston projects which remained predominantly white well into the 1990s, despite a largely non-white waiting list for public housing. By the early 1980s, it was one of the most troubled projects in the city, and when Lewis "Harry" Spence was appointed receiver of the

Boston Housing Authority The Boston Housing Authority (BHA) is a public agency of the city of Boston, Massachusetts that provides subsidized public housing to low- and moderate-income families and individuals. In the federal government model of the United States Depart ...

, was chosen as one of the three demonstration projects for renovations. The plan, which won urban design awards, involved breaking up the 27-acre (11-hectare) development into seven "villages" containing 675 apartments, reintroducing the street grid and replacing the original landscaping with courtyard spaces, and transforming the architecture by adding design elements such as pitched roofs, at a total estimated cost of over $60 million. Although the project is in a rough neighborhood, South Boston was rapidly

gentrifying Gentrification is the process of changing the character of a neighborhood through the influx of more affluent residents and businesses. It is a common and controversial topic in urban politics and planning. Gentrification often increases the ec ...

, and in 2000 the remaining quarter of the housing was instead turned over to redevelopment for

mixed-income housing The definition of mixed-income housing is broad and encompasses many types of dwellings and neighborhoods. Following Brophy and Smith, the following will discuss “non-organic” examples of mixed-income housing, meaning “a deliberate effort to ...

and businesses.Vale, p. 357.

References

Further reading