A Neighborhood a Highway Would Destroy

Abstract

The composite picture of the residents shows them divided into two groups: about a quarter are young, unattached, or for other reasons have a more mobile orientation; but the large majority— perhaps two-thirds—are what we might call "territorial." Their location, their society, their work, their lives, are interwoven in a complex network of which their homes and their neighborhood are the base. Although their limited income, education, and mobility tend to isolate such people from the affluence of the larger society, their lives are not drab and empty; on the contrary, within the limitations and restrictions against which they must cope, many low-income, high-school educated Brookline-Elm residents lead full, productive lives.

The urban lower-middle classes should not be rhapsodized, but one must also understand that their way of life—although it is not the same as the upper-middle-class patterns—is often of value to them. Herbert Gans, in his study of Boston's West End, called people like those studied here "urban villagers," a highly appropri ate term. For, like rural villagers, they are tied to their locations by friends and family, work and recreation, background and general life style.