Neighborhood Activism; The 1970s and Beyond
Jamaica Plain has a rich and diverse history of neighborhood activism. In the early 1970s plans to extend I-95 from Canton north into downtown Boston, threatened to bring I-95 through the center of Jamaica Plain essentially dividing the community in half. Many elements of the community together with residents of Roxbury and Hyde Park, rallied to stop the building of the highway. Eventually community pressure forced then-Governor Francis W. Sargent to halt the interstate project, but by that time many houses and commercial buildings had already been demolished, leaving a livid scar, a virtual no man's land straight through the center of the community.
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Famous quotes containing the word neighborhood:
“We are now a nation of people in daily contact with strangers. Thanks to mass transportation, school administrators and teachers often live many miles from the neighborhood schoolhouse. They are no longer in daily informal contact with parents, ministers, and other institution leaders . . . [and are] no longer a natural extension of parental authority.”
—James P. Comer (20th century)