Harvard's Allston Expansion

As Harvard University and its partners pursue ambitious development projects in Allston, Massachusetts,, residents fear that their neighborhood—which they describe as uniquely hospitable to families, immigrants, and artists—will come to look a lot like Boston’s Seaport district: a sterile landscape of laboratory buildings and luxury housing that skews wealthy and white. Wary as they are of a Seaport imitation, area residents see great potential in the hundreds of acres Harvard is poised to transform: “It’s a blank canvas: the envy of any urban planner,” Tim McHale said. “The dreamscape is here in front of us.” Residents just don’t want the opportunity to be squandered: according to Jessica Robertson, “We have one chance to get it right. And so with this huge opportunity, there’s also huge stakes.”

Read more in the article, "Seeing Allston Whole," by Juliet Isselbacher: https://www.harvardmagazine.com/2021/...