CNU XV Blog, Part 4: BosTroit

At one of the NextGen small group sessions, I heard a wonderful phrase describing what's going on in Philadelphia and some other cities: "BosTroit"- like Boston downtown (i.e. walkable, prosperous) and like Detroit in most of the outer neighborhoods between downtown and suburbia (i.e. poor, losing population).

For example, Philadelphia has a very strong downtown (like Boston) but is not quite as prosperous in the rest of the city, except for neighborhoods like Chestnut Hill just a mile or two from the city limits- thus, it is a "BosTroit" city.

By contrast, Buffalo exemplifies another postwar model: a weak downtown, and a city that gradually gets more and more prosperous (at least in one direction) the further from downtown you get.