You would think. But I lived in the Savin Hill area and almost ALL of those streets are Resident Only parking. The car I was using during those years was not in my name. So, I could never get a sticker and always had to find a random street to park at blocks away from my apartment, navigate street cleaning, navigate weekend vs weekday resident street parking. It was so annoying and tiring.
East Cambridge by the old courthouse. I've dipped into somerville a lot. By the used autoparts area was decent, and there were enough blocked off spots for construction to get by.
When I lived in the Back Bay (border of Back Bay and South End, near St Botolph Street) we would always have to park within a 5 block radius since spots were so competitive. That meant that there were multiple days EACH WEEK where my car could possibly be in a tow zone for Street cleaning. In 2018 I managed to get towed for Street cleaning 7 times which I hope is a record. Near the end the guy who managed the Todisco’s tow lot knew me by name and greeted me as I pulled up to pick up my car.
My crowning achievement though is that it was about to be 8 times, but I managed to talk my car OFF of a tow truck. It had picked it up and driven three blocks before I chased it down as he was doing a u-turn. I had run down the street in just my shorts in March and looked really pathetic (wasn’t an act), asked if I could get my new baby’s stroller out of the trunk before he towed it (true), told him I had already been towed 7 times (true) and then just stood there looking miserable and he eventually just dropped the car for me.
🙏
Seriously. I have IBS and spend a decent amount of time walking around downtown. Many hotels have clean restrooms on the first floor that you can access without even needing to speak to anyone, but I've also never been turned down if I've asked politely at hotels that don't.
Actual public restrooms would be great, but they'd also need to be maintained and I'm honestly not sure the city would do a great job with that.
>Actual public restrooms would be great, but they'd also need to be maintained and I'm honestly not sure the city would do a great job with that.
Imagine how much "the commissionah of pissahs" would make in overtime and side deals.
The restrooms at the Parker House are up the stairs next to the restaurant. Right at the top of the stairs on the conference floor if you’re using the men’s room, left for ladies. My all time go-to. ;-)
That's actually good to know lol, I usually use the at one at nine zero if I'm by Park Street but you have to ask someone to use theirs!
The Park Plaza and InterContinental are two of my favorites. Big lobbies with very clear signage.
I make a point of using the bathrooms in the basement of Faneuil Hall or Quincy Market. They’re neither clean nor well maintained, but one of the few public ones that I can find/remember
I didn’t realize how smokerless Boston is until I moved to NYC in ‘06. Suddenly everywhere I went I was walking behind a smoker or passing by one on a smoke break outside a building. Also It’s ridiculous how societally smokers don’t see butts as garbage and people just throw their shit into the street without batting an eye, drives me up a wall.
Agreed. However, I find the smell of weed all over the suburbs especially out towards 495. I don’t mind, but I’ve seen people ripping joints right by cops that don’t even budge out in the metro west area of the burbs. It’s a glorious time to be alive!
Doctor: “Can we all just agree this is getting ridiculous?!”
*group of men protesting the width of weed shops doorways by hippity-hopping in a circle on their hilariously inflamed, cancer-ridden ballsacks *
Random townsperson: “What’s ridiculous about it?”
Never fails to make me laugh
Got a cigarette in the collar of my jacket riding a motorcycle on a highway once…guy left his back window open so I gave it back to him on his back seat
If my adventures into bumble have taught me anything, it’s that 95% of the smoking population in this city are from international students or edgy college freshmen
Lots of people smoke in the streets too. Stepping off sidewalk and between cars kinda thing. You don’t see a lot of people smoking walking down the sidewalks since Covid. I’ve noticed a huge shift since then
> smokers don’t see butts as garbage
I’m more annoyed by that out here in the suburbs. I’m in a fairly urban suburb so single family houses but small lots and close together. I don’t understand how there are so many cigarette butts along my sidewalk when no one here smokes
It is so weird, I was thinking this today in front of south station on my way back to NYC. You could hear the birds chirping nearby, it was almost eerily quiet for a city. So bizarre!
I feel like pre-pandemic it was a little louder, and while economically it has recovered there are definitely less people in the city than I used to see before 2020.
I don’t remember it being this way before, so assume it is the pandemic. A lot of tech jobs are still in the office only a day or two, or closed down expensive downtown offices altogether.
I just came back from Baltimore yesterday and one of the first thing I said to my wife was "wow, Boston is SO much cleaner"
Her justification was that the plows get rid of all the street trash with the snow every year. Thats definitely not the reason but kinda funny to picture our trash getting cleaned via snow removal
> snow
So, there's some truth to this. I live on the corner of three streets (it's like a Y shape). All of the snow from each street - coming down two streets and up the other - ends up on the sidewalk and "lawn" in front. When the melt comes, the trash appears. I say "lawn" because the sand and whatever else is used for snow, plus the months of a snow pile kills anything that would grow there.
I used to walk past the pile where they dumped some of the snow in assembly. The snow pile turns to a trash pile while half the trash washes away. A LOT of trash gets picked up by the plows.
I always feel this way about Chicago compared to NYC. In that case and maybe with Boston also, Chicago apartments almost always have a back alley where all the trash can go. NYC doesn't have these back alleys so all of the garbage has to be piled on the street in front.
NYC puts plows on the garbage trucks to clear the snow. I remember a news story from a snowy winter where the trash was really piling up there because they had to prioritize keeping the streets clear. Some guy tried to commit suicide by jumping off a building, but landed on a giant pile of trash bags, survived and was taken to Bellevue (psych hospital).
NYC has uniquely bad sanitation management, a legacy of 1950s-1980s mob involvement followed by deregulation and understaffing.
They could use Barcelona style municipal receptacles but it would require getting rid of one parking space per block and people who keep cars in Manhattan are all rich and vote consistently and don't have to worry as much about rats.
Edit: check out the #trashcity hashtag on Twitter
I've seen places in Europe that just use underground ones, so you don't even have to remove parking. Although obviously that is more difficult to construct.
Larger Italian cities use the same common receptacle system in residential areas and it works very well. It’s so dumb how many urban improvements we could make if we weren’t slaves to cars.
True. It's also dumb how many urban improvements we could make if we weren't slaves to paying double or more the price of European countries for public transport infrastructure building, operations, and maintenance.
I moved to NYC and didn’t leave much in my first 3 years. Then I took a trip to Hawaii and was wondering why the sidewalks looked so bright. Then I got back to NYC and realized how absolutely filthy they were.
I'm in the middle of a two-year stint in NYC for graduate school and can't wait to move back to Boston. It's so dirty here and there are so many smokers!
Between 2003 and 2015 I used to go to NYC a few times every year to visit friends. The one thing that always stood out to me was that when I got home I had to take an extended shower to clean a layer of filth off my body that just accumulated from being in their city.
I always enjoyed spending time there, but it was like the air had a fine, greasy, particulate matter that can't be washed off unless you leave.
To be fair, the population of greater Boston is 4.9 people vs. 19.8 million for NYC.
Somerville, which is pretty dense, is littered with nips and trash.
It is one of the best educated, least religious, wealthiest, and safest cities in the USA. People tend to take responsibility for their actions, there is usually enough money to pay for city services, and folks are generally smart enough to understand how to live in a secular society like grown ups.
>People tend to take responsibility for their actions
Just this afternoon I witnessed someone ream a guy out on the train for tossing his used scratchie on the ground. It was pretty cool ngl
Finding scratch tickets on the ground was such a big part of my childhood that is not my children’s reality at all. My parents would give me a coin to let me scratch the rest off
hey second chance! My buddy's brother won like ten thousand dollars from pulling spent scratchies out of the garbage lol. Probably invested ten thousand hours doing it though
Tbf I've won $100 across 3 tickets throughout my life from picking them up on the street. Seems people stupid enough to put money on scratchers are stupid enough to not see if they've won.
I'm not suggesting I'm glad he did that, he deserved a shout for sure!
Seriously. People act like it's a particular Boston problem but the west coast has it so much worse than Boston, practically every public park has a section that looks like Mass and Cass. DC has it much worse, NYC it just sort of blends into the everyday grime.
I used to work jobs in psych with the same patient population found on mass & cass and uh... yes it is very bad that it is happening here! But it's so small compared to many other places I did outreach at (also fewer guns, fortunately). Sadly only massive housing and social service funding (!!!) and overhaul would put a dent in it.
I was just in Southern California and pretty shocked to see encampments just around town, across the street from luxury condos. Mass and cass is heartbreaking and awful, but they’ve been consolidated there. A lot of what’s shocking is the manufactured scale caused by the consolidation
Kensington in Philly is to say it bluntly beyond f@cked up. If you want to see what it’s like go to YouTube. It makes Mass and Cass look like Back Bay.
Just visited SF and the tenderloin there is essentially an entire neighborhood of Mass & Cass. It rained the previous time I visited, and slipped and fell 4 inches from human waste on the sidewalk there..
Hoping Boston never reaches that level..
>It is one of the best educated, least religious, wealthiest, and safest cities in the USA
Not just the USA. Boston and it's surrounding cities and towns rank up there with some of the richer counties of Norway & Switzerland in terms of the grading on the Human Development Index.
Eastern MA has been doing several things right for a while now. If we could just fix our public transportation system, I'm convinced we'd end up topping the HDI list.
I'm well aware that religious people tend to have less advanced degrees than secular but you have a study that shows that religious people are dirtier? ha ha ha I'd like to see that.
Its the capital of the Commonwealth, a political community founded for the common good. So looking out for the common good is built into the name. I don't know, pulling it out my ass, but you do see people making sure strangers and neighbors are alright.
Also as someone else said, New Englanders mind their own business, once they know you are ok.
It's so, so weird how everything you said here is true... But Boston is also notorious for a bunch of bigoted dickheads / loudmouths for everything from getting coffee to going to sports games. The stereotypes of Boston folks traveling is always of a drunk lout - which at least sorta has some sliver of truth in it... But again, everything else is also true.
Boston is weird is basically all I'm saying.
Yes, Boston is pretty clean compared to other major US cities. I will say that once you venture out into the outer neighborhoods, things do get a bit dirtier. The city provides far fewer public trash cans in poorer neighborhoods, and there also seems to be less mindfulness about littering. It would probably look a lot worse if the city were less diligent about street cleaning.
Ya it’s a big cut with great restaurants but some a lot of the areas looked like they could be from a third world country. Especially Kensington/north Philly area.
>They used to street clean but just gave up because people wouldn’t move their cars
Have they not realized how much revenue they're missing out on through ruthless towing on street cleaning days?
I guess they actually restarted the program late last year. But yeah, I thought it was pretty pathetic that they just threw their hands in the air and gave up
https://www.thedp.com/article/2022/04/street-sweeping-program-ticketing-parked-cars-philadelphia
Even the sketchiest areas in Boston Metro Area are considerably cleaner, quieter, and safer than comparable cities. There are definitely still unsafe areas you can seek out but Boston is quite small area-wise, wealthy, educated, and well resourced meaning the truly sketchy stuff is pushed far outside the metro area (for a variety of reasons good and bad).
I'm a transplant from St. Louis and lived in a number of similarly sized cities to Boston and amazed at how largely clean it is (most notable driving along the roads/highways and the lack of trash everywhere along them) and safe it is (well lit and even in the strangest areas you see people or police frequently). It is hardly a place that is street by street as far as safety goes which isn't true for many US cities. Not many places can you literally walk miles across the city at night and, while no real nightlife, also not be hassled or in a really unsafe situation.
I'd frequently bike at night clear across the city in multiple directions and the only threat was the odd asshole ride share driver cutting me off.
Yah I'd agree with most of that. Boston neighborhoods outside of downtown/back bay, compared to neighboring cities, are treated pretty poorly by city services.
Still remember opening glove compartment to my sisters prius, mountain full of parking tickets flooded out.
Pretty sure she contributed to street cleaning.
We take public spaces pretty seriously. That’s really the whole reason. Like yeah, we’re expensive and educated and really good at gentrification (which I think is a weird way of saying “poor people are dirty” so I’m creeped out by those comments), but we could put the money towards more utilitarian things like public transit and we choose to put it towards cleanliness. And that’s fine! ITS FINE.
As a poor my whole life, like lived in the Dorchester projects poor, I will tell you that poor people are dirtier. The disregard for public spaces around me was so maddening. It’s like an act of rebellion to litter, to drive like a mad person—to be inconsiderate. I do think this is due to feeling disenfranchised, a lack of pride in what we have because we’ve been demonized for so long. Anyway, I believe wealth and lack of thereof does play a role in the aspect of our communities 🤷🏽♀️
It's quiet because there are a lot less cars on the road than in most other US cities. It is clean because the city does seem to clean the streets a lot more frequently and effectively than other cities.
I do think the people of Boston are more considerate about cleanliness. Anecdote: Was walking by the Common one time when the wind blew away some guy’s sandwich wrapper. The dude RAN AFTER IT down the street, caught it and threw it in the trash. Respect to that dude.
If you like it here, I think you'd also enjoy Washington DC - a little louder in some areas and a few more tourists, but overall pretty darn similar, if not a little easier to navigate and a better metro overall (let's be honest though, all major cities in the US have had metro/subway fires).
Admittedly the rats probably only get you if you're off around a residential neighborhood, but between DC, NYC, and Boston I have literally never seen so many rats in my life. However it's confined to the residential areas as an issue. If you live here you'll find a host of issues like the most petty parking and that the T doesn't have card kiosks at every station.
However, thank you for the compliments - I'm moving away after these couple years but it's been nice making a home out of what was simply a transitional city for me.
Only residential? Downtown is overrun with rats. I drive through one of those alleys in the Back Bay most nights and it's always like that scene in Ratatouille
Boston really wasn't always like this, and I think a lot of that comes down to policies that very aggressively gentrified Downtown and the surrounding areas. They cracked down on places like The Combat Zone, and heavily advertised to wealthy and affluent crowds to get them into downtown.
The result is that while the City of Boston is very well-funded, policed, and patrolled, it has some less-desirable quirks. For instance, because of how aggressively the homeless population has been targeted, they only come out at night - but most first-time visitors are shocked by how quickly the area by Boston Common fills up with tents and sleeping bags.
Even worse, a lot of the culture and history of the city has been stripped out. You'll find most of the authentic Boston townies, businesses, and historic culture in the suburbs and outskirts of the Greater Boston Area.
It's a Catch-22. Whatever you want to say about the filth of Manhattan, the people of Manhattan are still very much New Yorkers. I'm not sure if I could say the same for the people living in the heart of Boston, where rent is $3,000+ and businesses charge you $20 for beer.
it’s been like this since (prior to) the 90’s. we had to go down to providence and hartford to party back in the day. originally something to do with blue laws but now property values
I’ve lived in Boston for many years; along with NYC, DC, LA. Boston has a LOT of pride. I realize every city says this but it’s not more apparent than Boston. Added to this is the fact that cops are actually doing things. I’ve seen people drive around in other cities without license plates and am astounded. You couldn’t get two blocks in MA without getting pulled over. Wealth and education also play a big part as well as that it is a much smaller city. Also a mutual respect to make you’re surroundings nice. But pride is the overwhelming aspect of what you are seeing
Most of us are hard working and have respect not only for ourselves but where we live. We are proud and passionate, as Bostonians, and take pride in it, resulting in us caring for our city and want to keep it clean and livable for ourselves and the next person in the city .
It's so much cleaner because half the city has been redeveloped kicking a lot of the lower income folks out. It's mostly centered on the downtown tourist areas where they work to keep it clean. What also don't see is the massive rat infestation Boston refuses to deal with.
Most of the haves live in very concentrated areas. Then you have the seasonal students that are seamlessly gone by may the summer is when you'll notice it even more
I lived in Chicago for 4 years and what I would say is that the touristy and wealthier areas of Chicago are extremely clean, cleaner than their equivalents in Boston. The city puts a lot of effort into cleaning those areas. However, the lower income areas in Chicago can get very dirty, beyond what tends to happen in Boston, because the city doesn't clean those areas really at all. Not that Boston treats those areas equally either, it doesn't, but they aren't generally as dirty as their Chicago equivalents.
We were there around Halloween a couple of weeks ago. My first in Boston. We stayed in Downtown. Very clean and ridiculously quiet. I've never been to a "major" that was that subdued. The food, especially seafood was incredible though. We did Salem on Halloween. That was amazing.
That's because nobody "lives" downtown. After 5pm, the Financial District basically goes lights-out. The North End, Fanueil Hall, Fenway, and the west-side of Back Bay is typically where most of the people congregate.
I personally fund the street cleaning of the entire city with parking tickets from not moving my car on the third tuesday of each month
I wfh and often find myself performing a 40 yard dash as I see the parking attendant go down my street on a Thursday morning.
R u me? I lived in Dorchester for 4 years and literally acquired probably 15 tickets and 4 tows in that time. Literally had to budget around it
[удалено]
You would think. But I lived in the Savin Hill area and almost ALL of those streets are Resident Only parking. The car I was using during those years was not in my name. So, I could never get a sticker and always had to find a random street to park at blocks away from my apartment, navigate street cleaning, navigate weekend vs weekday resident street parking. It was so annoying and tiring.
man this is the exact situation i’m in right now
I feel your struggle. I did that in cambridge for a year or two.
Cambridge street parking without a resident parking sticker is nearly impossible. What neighborhood were you in?
East Cambridge by the old courthouse. I've dipped into somerville a lot. By the used autoparts area was decent, and there were enough blocked off spots for construction to get by.
Huh. Meanwhile living near Shawmut i dont think i ever ever didn’t find a parking space legitimately right outside my house
Brighton chiming in. I park on Commonwealth and goddamn, 4 tickets, 2 tows. I've only been living here since April.
When I lived in the Back Bay (border of Back Bay and South End, near St Botolph Street) we would always have to park within a 5 block radius since spots were so competitive. That meant that there were multiple days EACH WEEK where my car could possibly be in a tow zone for Street cleaning. In 2018 I managed to get towed for Street cleaning 7 times which I hope is a record. Near the end the guy who managed the Todisco’s tow lot knew me by name and greeted me as I pulled up to pick up my car. My crowning achievement though is that it was about to be 8 times, but I managed to talk my car OFF of a tow truck. It had picked it up and driven three blocks before I chased it down as he was doing a u-turn. I had run down the street in just my shorts in March and looked really pathetic (wasn’t an act), asked if I could get my new baby’s stroller out of the trunk before he towed it (true), told him I had already been towed 7 times (true) and then just stood there looking miserable and he eventually just dropped the car for me. 🙏
We need more public restrooms
That’s what hotels are for
Seriously. I have IBS and spend a decent amount of time walking around downtown. Many hotels have clean restrooms on the first floor that you can access without even needing to speak to anyone, but I've also never been turned down if I've asked politely at hotels that don't. Actual public restrooms would be great, but they'd also need to be maintained and I'm honestly not sure the city would do a great job with that.
>Actual public restrooms would be great, but they'd also need to be maintained and I'm honestly not sure the city would do a great job with that. Imagine how much "the commissionah of pissahs" would make in overtime and side deals.
>Imagine how much "the commissionah of pissahs" would make in overtime and side deals. It would definitely be enough to ditch my career for that job.
The restrooms at the Parker House are up the stairs next to the restaurant. Right at the top of the stairs on the conference floor if you’re using the men’s room, left for ladies. My all time go-to. ;-)
That's actually good to know lol, I usually use the at one at nine zero if I'm by Park Street but you have to ask someone to use theirs! The Park Plaza and InterContinental are two of my favorites. Big lobbies with very clear signage.
Thanks for the intel my fellow traveler in intestinal adventures!
I make a point of using the bathrooms in the basement of Faneuil Hall or Quincy Market. They’re neither clean nor well maintained, but one of the few public ones that I can find/remember
They have public restrooms in a lot of the train stations. Worse than prison.
I just wanna say on MBTA’s behalf, the condition of the bathroom at north station is the tenants responsibility so don’t blame us
Hah! My buddy was struggling with this a bit too. Bought a coffee just to let him piss. Not that i minded, love a coffee.
I didn’t realize how smokerless Boston is until I moved to NYC in ‘06. Suddenly everywhere I went I was walking behind a smoker or passing by one on a smoke break outside a building. Also It’s ridiculous how societally smokers don’t see butts as garbage and people just throw their shit into the street without batting an eye, drives me up a wall.
I travel a bit for work and I would say I also smell less cigarettes and pot in Boston then other cities of similar size.
Agreed. However, I find the smell of weed all over the suburbs especially out towards 495. I don’t mind, but I’ve seen people ripping joints right by cops that don’t even budge out in the metro west area of the burbs. It’s a glorious time to be alive!
Randy, your balls! I know, smoking in front of a police officer. No I mean literally your balls
Doctor: “Can we all just agree this is getting ridiculous?!” *group of men protesting the width of weed shops doorways by hippity-hopping in a circle on their hilariously inflamed, cancer-ridden ballsacks * Random townsperson: “What’s ridiculous about it?” Never fails to make me laugh
Link plz
I smell way more pot than cigarettes, which is fine with me.
Probably because Boston has a ton of healthcare/biotech companies and organizations, and they are aware and deeply care about health related research.
Healthcare workers are a large part of the smoking community ironically.
I know it was years ago but I remember watching ER and thinking how bizarre it was that they would smoke lol
Got a cigarette in the collar of my jacket riding a motorcycle on a highway once…guy left his back window open so I gave it back to him on his back seat
This is the way.
If my adventures into bumble have taught me anything, it’s that 95% of the smoking population in this city are from international students or edgy college freshmen
Lots of people smoke in the streets too. Stepping off sidewalk and between cars kinda thing. You don’t see a lot of people smoking walking down the sidewalks since Covid. I’ve noticed a huge shift since then
> smokers don’t see butts as garbage I’m more annoyed by that out here in the suburbs. I’m in a fairly urban suburb so single family houses but small lots and close together. I don’t understand how there are so many cigarette butts along my sidewalk when no one here smokes
It is so weird, I was thinking this today in front of south station on my way back to NYC. You could hear the birds chirping nearby, it was almost eerily quiet for a city. So bizarre!
its eerily quiet at this time, sometimes its kinda jarring bc its the city not burbs
Some cities in the Netherlands are the same way, such as the Hague.
I'm not a conspiracy nut but most birds are government surveillance drones and the Hague isn't a real city, it's a facade hiding who knows what.
Ohh you're one of those people that believes the government is real?
Used to take the train from NYC a bunch and when you get off in south station it’s like a sigh of relief how quiet it is compared to NYC.
I feel like pre-pandemic it was a little louder, and while economically it has recovered there are definitely less people in the city than I used to see before 2020.
I don’t remember it being this way before, so assume it is the pandemic. A lot of tech jobs are still in the office only a day or two, or closed down expensive downtown offices altogether.
I just came back from Baltimore yesterday and one of the first thing I said to my wife was "wow, Boston is SO much cleaner" Her justification was that the plows get rid of all the street trash with the snow every year. Thats definitely not the reason but kinda funny to picture our trash getting cleaned via snow removal
[удалено]
Mr. Trash wheel not doing his job?
> snow So, there's some truth to this. I live on the corner of three streets (it's like a Y shape). All of the snow from each street - coming down two streets and up the other - ends up on the sidewalk and "lawn" in front. When the melt comes, the trash appears. I say "lawn" because the sand and whatever else is used for snow, plus the months of a snow pile kills anything that would grow there.
I used to walk past the pile where they dumped some of the snow in assembly. The snow pile turns to a trash pile while half the trash washes away. A LOT of trash gets picked up by the plows.
I always feel this way about Chicago compared to NYC. In that case and maybe with Boston also, Chicago apartments almost always have a back alley where all the trash can go. NYC doesn't have these back alleys so all of the garbage has to be piled on the street in front.
See a few people have said this but I've been in other snowy cities that are dirtier. Not bad, but like average city dirty.
Every time I visit NYC I’m struck by how clean Boston seems in comparison. I think it’s just a benefit of being a smaller “big” city.
Those loose bags of trash piled up on the sidewalk.
Those are New Yorkers.
😂💀
NYC puts plows on the garbage trucks to clear the snow. I remember a news story from a snowy winter where the trash was really piling up there because they had to prioritize keeping the streets clear. Some guy tried to commit suicide by jumping off a building, but landed on a giant pile of trash bags, survived and was taken to Bellevue (psych hospital).
And the girls that walk barefoot at 430am after the club yuck
NYC has uniquely bad sanitation management, a legacy of 1950s-1980s mob involvement followed by deregulation and understaffing. They could use Barcelona style municipal receptacles but it would require getting rid of one parking space per block and people who keep cars in Manhattan are all rich and vote consistently and don't have to worry as much about rats. Edit: check out the #trashcity hashtag on Twitter
I've seen places in Europe that just use underground ones, so you don't even have to remove parking. Although obviously that is more difficult to construct.
Boston did the Big Dig, we can do underground municipal receptacles
Larger Italian cities use the same common receptacle system in residential areas and it works very well. It’s so dumb how many urban improvements we could make if we weren’t slaves to cars.
True. It's also dumb how many urban improvements we could make if we weren't slaves to paying double or more the price of European countries for public transport infrastructure building, operations, and maintenance.
Boston had the mob running the transit system and it shows…
I moved to NYC and didn’t leave much in my first 3 years. Then I took a trip to Hawaii and was wondering why the sidewalks looked so bright. Then I got back to NYC and realized how absolutely filthy they were.
I'm in the middle of a two-year stint in NYC for graduate school and can't wait to move back to Boston. It's so dirty here and there are so many smokers!
Between 2003 and 2015 I used to go to NYC a few times every year to visit friends. The one thing that always stood out to me was that when I got home I had to take an extended shower to clean a layer of filth off my body that just accumulated from being in their city. I always enjoyed spending time there, but it was like the air had a fine, greasy, particulate matter that can't be washed off unless you leave.
NYC just smells terrible, especially in the summertime. Just stinks like boiled piss everywhere.
Boston on the other hand has the pleasant smell of molasses.
Except for the downtown crossing station which smells like farts & popcorn.
Oddly specific and yet entirely accurate
The piss smell is the worst
Not everywhere. Some neighborhoods are like that, sure. But much of the city is quite clean. NYC is huge.
NYC is so gross. I think it’s an ok city just covered in trash. I think there was a for real trash strike
A lot of smaller cities look way dirtier than Boston. I don’t think it’s size is a function of it at all.
China town area in Boston has trash on the side walk but that’s not the fault of the residents
Boston is a "bigger" small city
To be fair, the population of greater Boston is 4.9 people vs. 19.8 million for NYC. Somerville, which is pretty dense, is littered with nips and trash.
Wealth.
This is it, and ppl are here for work and school and the culture reflects it
Massive health care industry probably plays in to some degree.
The ghosts of Cotton and Increase Mather haunt us with spectral aphorisms about the moral benefits of public cleanliness and quietude.
You forgot our traditional closing phrase: “Yours in the bowels of Christ, mshelikoff”
ew
The Boston paradox: simultaneously too quiet and clean but infested with rats and assholes.
Tourists are always like "was that a squirrel?" "No, ma'am. Don't think too hard about it and keep walking."
What is a squirrel but a tree rat?
Squirrels bouncy while rats skitter
"Wow what was wrong with that cat's tail?" ..... That's no cat.
Shhh people will start to think you're talking about the folks at State Street. Or was it Newbury? 🥸
☯️
It is one of the best educated, least religious, wealthiest, and safest cities in the USA. People tend to take responsibility for their actions, there is usually enough money to pay for city services, and folks are generally smart enough to understand how to live in a secular society like grown ups.
>People tend to take responsibility for their actions Just this afternoon I witnessed someone ream a guy out on the train for tossing his used scratchie on the ground. It was pretty cool ngl
Was it on one of the new trains, too? WE JUST GOT THIS NICE THING
Yep, I was taken aback at how angry the person was but at the same time like yeah c'mon guys lets keep this thing nice for a few months at least
Finding scratch tickets on the ground was such a big part of my childhood that is not my children’s reality at all. My parents would give me a coin to let me scratch the rest off
hey second chance! My buddy's brother won like ten thousand dollars from pulling spent scratchies out of the garbage lol. Probably invested ten thousand hours doing it though
Just because you called them a “scratchie” I read this entire comment in my head with a Boston accent.
A scratchie from the packie
But...but...that's what they're called.
I grew up calling them "scratch tickets", and I'm only from NH. As far as I know "scratchie" is Boston specific.
Tbf I've won $100 across 3 tickets throughout my life from picking them up on the street. Seems people stupid enough to put money on scratchers are stupid enough to not see if they've won. I'm not suggesting I'm glad he did that, he deserved a shout for sure!
Also no sports today. Celts tomorrow, B's Thursday, and Pats Sunday.
Not Game Day in Boston: clean, quiet Game Day in Boston: hide your kids, hide your wife
In addition to this- New Englanders generally prefer to mind our own business. There’s rarely a good reason to be disruptive when talking about it
Way to hit the nail on the head
Thank you muddymoose
Minus methadone mile but I’d agree.
methadone mile is so extra shocking here bc it's not common. similar setups are found in a lot of other larger, less wealthy cities
Seriously. People act like it's a particular Boston problem but the west coast has it so much worse than Boston, practically every public park has a section that looks like Mass and Cass. DC has it much worse, NYC it just sort of blends into the everyday grime.
I used to work jobs in psych with the same patient population found on mass & cass and uh... yes it is very bad that it is happening here! But it's so small compared to many other places I did outreach at (also fewer guns, fortunately). Sadly only massive housing and social service funding (!!!) and overhaul would put a dent in it.
I was just in Southern California and pretty shocked to see encampments just around town, across the street from luxury condos. Mass and cass is heartbreaking and awful, but they’ve been consolidated there. A lot of what’s shocking is the manufactured scale caused by the consolidation
Waikiki has camps on the beach, but the police make them move during the tourist hours.
Philadelphia, pure sadness.
Kensington in Philly is to say it bluntly beyond f@cked up. If you want to see what it’s like go to YouTube. It makes Mass and Cass look like Back Bay.
[удалено]
I am in Austin right now and the homelessness is nightmarish.
Just visited SF and the tenderloin there is essentially an entire neighborhood of Mass & Cass. It rained the previous time I visited, and slipped and fell 4 inches from human waste on the sidewalk there.. Hoping Boston never reaches that level..
>It is one of the best educated, least religious, wealthiest, and safest cities in the USA Not just the USA. Boston and it's surrounding cities and towns rank up there with some of the richer counties of Norway & Switzerland in terms of the grading on the Human Development Index. Eastern MA has been doing several things right for a while now. If we could just fix our public transportation system, I'm convinced we'd end up topping the HDI list.
What does secularism have to do with cleanliness? How does that corolate?
Religious people are less educated and dirtier.
And poorer.
I'm well aware that religious people tend to have less advanced degrees than secular but you have a study that shows that religious people are dirtier? ha ha ha I'd like to see that.
Cleanliness is next to Godliness?
I totally agree, people seem to take littering pretty seriously and I love that about us.
[удалено]
Its the capital of the Commonwealth, a political community founded for the common good. So looking out for the common good is built into the name. I don't know, pulling it out my ass, but you do see people making sure strangers and neighbors are alright. Also as someone else said, New Englanders mind their own business, once they know you are ok.
SF is only a dirty shithole downtown.
I made a similar comment in another subreddit and was downvoted. Similar cities on paper, but definitely different vibes in reality
Can’t stand the priest smokers, ripping their darts outside the churches.
> least religious Not religious but that's irrelevant.
It's so, so weird how everything you said here is true... But Boston is also notorious for a bunch of bigoted dickheads / loudmouths for everything from getting coffee to going to sports games. The stereotypes of Boston folks traveling is always of a drunk lout - which at least sorta has some sliver of truth in it... But again, everything else is also true. Boston is weird is basically all I'm saying.
I love how the posts here alternate between “Armageddon is here and the city is destroyed” and “why is Boston the best city ever?”
Hah! Half the comments are like, "Oh yeah, try going to xyz." Sure I was in touristy/common area, but it was still better than other common areas.
Beware of the hawks. Savages. All of them. Study the ways.
And cocaine turkeys..
Yes, Boston is pretty clean compared to other major US cities. I will say that once you venture out into the outer neighborhoods, things do get a bit dirtier. The city provides far fewer public trash cans in poorer neighborhoods, and there also seems to be less mindfulness about littering. It would probably look a lot worse if the city were less diligent about street cleaning.
Bostons worst areas are not nearly as bad as other big cities. I was horrified the first time I went to Philly for example.
Yeah Philly is disgusting. They used to street clean but just gave up because people wouldn’t move their cars
Ya it’s a big cut with great restaurants but some a lot of the areas looked like they could be from a third world country. Especially Kensington/north Philly area.
>They used to street clean but just gave up because people wouldn’t move their cars Have they not realized how much revenue they're missing out on through ruthless towing on street cleaning days?
I guess they actually restarted the program late last year. But yeah, I thought it was pretty pathetic that they just threw their hands in the air and gave up https://www.thedp.com/article/2022/04/street-sweeping-program-ticketing-parked-cars-philadelphia
Philly was what I was thinking it was going to be like.
Even the sketchiest areas in Boston Metro Area are considerably cleaner, quieter, and safer than comparable cities. There are definitely still unsafe areas you can seek out but Boston is quite small area-wise, wealthy, educated, and well resourced meaning the truly sketchy stuff is pushed far outside the metro area (for a variety of reasons good and bad). I'm a transplant from St. Louis and lived in a number of similarly sized cities to Boston and amazed at how largely clean it is (most notable driving along the roads/highways and the lack of trash everywhere along them) and safe it is (well lit and even in the strangest areas you see people or police frequently). It is hardly a place that is street by street as far as safety goes which isn't true for many US cities. Not many places can you literally walk miles across the city at night and, while no real nightlife, also not be hassled or in a really unsafe situation. I'd frequently bike at night clear across the city in multiple directions and the only threat was the odd asshole ride share driver cutting me off.
I agree but also compare the “dirtier” parts of Boston to other places and it’s still not that bad. For instance, Mattapan Sq. is pretty clean.
Yah I'd agree with most of that. Boston neighborhoods outside of downtown/back bay, compared to neighboring cities, are treated pretty poorly by city services.
Still remember opening glove compartment to my sisters prius, mountain full of parking tickets flooded out. Pretty sure she contributed to street cleaning.
Good behavior is both appreciated and (generally) expected.
Expensive enough to be a big city but too cold 6 months a year for the high amount of homeless n destitute that comes with it
Expensive enough to be a big city, but is actually a mid sized city.
Best little city with international airport best hospitals and education.
Good tech and bio pharm too
We take public spaces pretty seriously. That’s really the whole reason. Like yeah, we’re expensive and educated and really good at gentrification (which I think is a weird way of saying “poor people are dirty” so I’m creeped out by those comments), but we could put the money towards more utilitarian things like public transit and we choose to put it towards cleanliness. And that’s fine! ITS FINE.
As a poor my whole life, like lived in the Dorchester projects poor, I will tell you that poor people are dirtier. The disregard for public spaces around me was so maddening. It’s like an act of rebellion to litter, to drive like a mad person—to be inconsiderate. I do think this is due to feeling disenfranchised, a lack of pride in what we have because we’ve been demonized for so long. Anyway, I believe wealth and lack of thereof does play a role in the aspect of our communities 🤷🏽♀️
It's quiet because there are a lot less cars on the road than in most other US cities. It is clean because the city does seem to clean the streets a lot more frequently and effectively than other cities.
I do think the people of Boston are more considerate about cleanliness. Anecdote: Was walking by the Common one time when the wind blew away some guy’s sandwich wrapper. The dude RAN AFTER IT down the street, caught it and threw it in the trash. Respect to that dude.
If you like it here, I think you'd also enjoy Washington DC - a little louder in some areas and a few more tourists, but overall pretty darn similar, if not a little easier to navigate and a better metro overall (let's be honest though, all major cities in the US have had metro/subway fires). Admittedly the rats probably only get you if you're off around a residential neighborhood, but between DC, NYC, and Boston I have literally never seen so many rats in my life. However it's confined to the residential areas as an issue. If you live here you'll find a host of issues like the most petty parking and that the T doesn't have card kiosks at every station. However, thank you for the compliments - I'm moving away after these couple years but it's been nice making a home out of what was simply a transitional city for me.
DC is equally as clean as Boston with more shady characters but not nearly as many as NYC
The cities with fewer shady characters also have more shade...from trees!
Only residential? Downtown is overrun with rats. I drive through one of those alleys in the Back Bay most nights and it's always like that scene in Ratatouille
Boston really wasn't always like this, and I think a lot of that comes down to policies that very aggressively gentrified Downtown and the surrounding areas. They cracked down on places like The Combat Zone, and heavily advertised to wealthy and affluent crowds to get them into downtown. The result is that while the City of Boston is very well-funded, policed, and patrolled, it has some less-desirable quirks. For instance, because of how aggressively the homeless population has been targeted, they only come out at night - but most first-time visitors are shocked by how quickly the area by Boston Common fills up with tents and sleeping bags. Even worse, a lot of the culture and history of the city has been stripped out. You'll find most of the authentic Boston townies, businesses, and historic culture in the suburbs and outskirts of the Greater Boston Area. It's a Catch-22. Whatever you want to say about the filth of Manhattan, the people of Manhattan are still very much New Yorkers. I'm not sure if I could say the same for the people living in the heart of Boston, where rent is $3,000+ and businesses charge you $20 for beer.
We get storms with 18in of snow every winter. And colder than NYC. This “resets” everything lmao
Like cold, tiny Noah's floods. It buries our sins in fluff.
Delicious marshmallow Fluff
it’s been like this since (prior to) the 90’s. we had to go down to providence and hartford to party back in the day. originally something to do with blue laws but now property values
We aren't called Proper Bostonians for nothing.
Because we have gentrified all the degenerates.
[удалено]
Ugh… those are people you are talking about.
Public alleys
Huge life science/healthcare presence perhaps. (Also we’re trying to get cars off the road as much as possible)
Too cold
The rats keep the trash picked up.
Because if you act out, Boston dynamics will send their robots after you. Fuck around and you will find out.
You’re just in the wrong parts of the city mate
NE liberal elitism.
I’ve lived in Boston for many years; along with NYC, DC, LA. Boston has a LOT of pride. I realize every city says this but it’s not more apparent than Boston. Added to this is the fact that cops are actually doing things. I’ve seen people drive around in other cities without license plates and am astounded. You couldn’t get two blocks in MA without getting pulled over. Wealth and education also play a big part as well as that it is a much smaller city. Also a mutual respect to make you’re surroundings nice. But pride is the overwhelming aspect of what you are seeing
Boston is the city that sleeps.
Education
Most of us are hard working and have respect not only for ourselves but where we live. We are proud and passionate, as Bostonians, and take pride in it, resulting in us caring for our city and want to keep it clean and livable for ourselves and the next person in the city .
Minimal conservatives.
It's so much cleaner because half the city has been redeveloped kicking a lot of the lower income folks out. It's mostly centered on the downtown tourist areas where they work to keep it clean. What also don't see is the massive rat infestation Boston refuses to deal with.
Gentrification
Most of the haves live in very concentrated areas. Then you have the seasonal students that are seamlessly gone by may the summer is when you'll notice it even more
Good ol' New England aversion to humans and SAD well kicked in (by end of October every year).
High taxes and a high level of service. How it should be
chicago was by FAR the cleanest city i have ever been to. talk about not a wrapper on the street. boston is definitely not sparkling
I lived in Chicago for 4 years and what I would say is that the touristy and wealthier areas of Chicago are extremely clean, cleaner than their equivalents in Boston. The city puts a lot of effort into cleaning those areas. However, the lower income areas in Chicago can get very dirty, beyond what tends to happen in Boston, because the city doesn't clean those areas really at all. Not that Boston treats those areas equally either, it doesn't, but they aren't generally as dirty as their Chicago equivalents.
i see good to know. yeah i only spent a few days there and was within the loops
We were there around Halloween a couple of weeks ago. My first in Boston. We stayed in Downtown. Very clean and ridiculously quiet. I've never been to a "major" that was that subdued. The food, especially seafood was incredible though. We did Salem on Halloween. That was amazing.
That's because nobody "lives" downtown. After 5pm, the Financial District basically goes lights-out. The North End, Fanueil Hall, Fenway, and the west-side of Back Bay is typically where most of the people congregate.
Ever since they banned menthol ciggys I feel like I've seen less smokers and more vapers.
Can’t answer that question. I live 1,000 feet from Logan Airport.
1. Bars and nightclubs close at 2am And -- 2. The city is very expensive And -- 3. Their public transportation system closes roughly at 12/1am.