The Good City Writers Explore 21st-century Boston

by Hiestand, Emily; Zellman, Ande

• ISBN13: 9780807071434
• ISBN10: 0807071439
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2004-07-30
• Publisher: Beacon Press

Summary

The Good City presents a vivid new profile of Boston through the work of fifteen of the city's finest writers. Robert Campbell and Jane Holtz Kay on Boston's embrace of lively urban densityJames Miller on the city's intellectual historyJack Beatty on Boston's colorful political past and presentPatricia Powell on the literary landscape and the immigrant experienceSusan Orlean on the city she left and now lovesJohn Hanson Mitchell on how nature revives the metropolisAnita Diamant on Boston as a spiritual home Scott Kirsner on Boston as a powerhouse of scientific and technological innovationAlan Chong on the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum and the arts in BostonLynda Morgenroth on the city's neighborhoodsMichael Patrick MacDonald on gentrification and what it means to old neighborhoods like SouthieDerrick Jackson on Boston as a laboratory for advancing race relationsHoward Bryant on the city's obsession with sportsIrene Smalls on seeing the city through the eyes of a child.

Author Biography

Emily Hiestand is a writer, artist, and creative director of Elements Commmunications for Positive Change. The author of three books, including The Very Rich Hours and Angela the Upside Down Girl, her literary honors include The Whiting Award and The National Magazine Award for Essays and Criticism.

Ande Zellman is a media and publishing consultant and has held senior positions at Newsweek and the Boston Globe, including editor-in-chief of the Boston Globe Magazine. Dozens of awards have been won under her leadership including a Pulitzer Prize, Headliner, Livingston, and George Foster Peabody Awards.

Table of Contents

Paul S. Grogan
Introduction: The Comeback City	1	(11)
Susan Orlean
Hooked on Boston: A Love Story	12	(4)
John Hanson Mitchell
An Eden of Sorts: An Unnatural History of the Shawmut Peninsula	16	(14)
Derrick Z. Jackson
A Racial Lab for the Twenty-first Century	30	(13)
Patricia Powell
A Literary Landscape: From Jamaica to Boston	43	(15)
Scott Kirsner
Innovation City	58	(16)
Robert Campbell
A Mixing Chamber	74	(3)
Jane Holtz Kay
On Location: Place and Politics in a Changing City	77	(8)
Lynda Morgenroth
An Intimate Geography: Boston Neighborhoods	85	(13)
Michael Patrick MacDonald
There Goes the Neighborhood	98	(11)
Jack Beatty
Whose City, Whose Hill? The Tradition of Exclusivity in Boston Politics	109	(12)
Alan Chong
Isabella Stewart Gardner's Museum: A Legacy for America	121	(13)
James Miller
A Splendid Anachronism	134	(7)
Irene Smalls
Boston's Children and the Power of Play	141	(11)
Howard Bryant
Good Sports, Bad Sports	152	(11)
Anita Diamant
Bridging Difference: We're All Here Now	163	(6)
Acknowledgments	169	(4)
Contributors	173