Homeowners In Boston: A Case Study
Drawing on a combination of data, this paper aims to identify how second homeowners in Boston make their locational choices and how they engage in Boston, its neighborhoods, and its institutions. Over the past 10 years, second homeownership has increased by almost 92% across the city and is heavily concentrated in central city neighborhoods. While popular media has drawn considerable attention to this phenomenon, the growing presence of second homeowners and their corresponding role in urban change has receive little systematic analytic attention. This analysis seeks to begin to rectify this neglect by documenting two waves of second homeowners in Boston—city speculators and city specters—who maintain diverging orientations to and engagements
with the city. While the former, who purchased second homes between 1980-1999, engaged in city-building projects through direct civic and political participation, the latter, who purchased second homes after 2000, more inconspicuously work to shape the contours of urban life through their donations to and participation in elite, high-cultural institutions. Together, these findings begin to shed light on the form and function of increasingly affluent central cities, the new challenges they face, and the groups of people who are constitutive of these challenges.
with the city. While the former, who purchased second homes between 1980-1999, engaged in city-building projects through direct civic and political participation, the latter, who purchased second homes after 2000, more inconspicuously work to shape the contours of urban life through their donations to and participation in elite, high-cultural institutions. Together, these findings begin to shed light on the form and function of increasingly affluent central cities, the new challenges they face, and the groups of people who are constitutive of these challenges.