Progress without Displacement

From the WBUR podcast The Common comes the encouraging story of Upham's Corner, a Boston neighborhood within the bigger Boston neighborhood of Dorchester. A national study suggests that Uphams Corner (the apostrophe has become optional) is achieving what is often an elusive balance: developing economically without displacing it residents or losing its character. That is, it is experiencing improvement without gentrification. 

The podcast episode is a conversation between journalist Darryl C. Murphy and researcher Rohit Acharya of Common Good Labs. The discussion draws on "Reducing poverty without community displacement: Indicators of inclusive prosperity in U.S. neighborhoods," a 2022 study that Acharya wrote with Rhett Morris for the Brookings Institution. 

Photo: Metropolitan Area Planning Council

The conversation is national in scope, but with a rich local example. That part of the conversation draws on "The neighborhood that got it right," a 2023 Boston Globe article by journalist David Scharfenberg. The combination of academic analysis and journalistic storytelling is a great way to explore this important topic.