Boston Spirit

“I was looking for a change from the student atmosphere around Harvard,” Aditya says adding, “so I decided to move across the river to Boston.” As I wondered how Harvard was not in Boston in the first place, he continued: “The whole of Cambridge empties out in December anyway; it becomes a ghost town.”

Aditya Sawant, a good friend and urban design graduate of the Graduate School of Design at Harvard, was introducing me to my new home: Boston. Having lived in the area for almost three years, he eased me into the geographic lingo. I learnt that when one talks about the city of Boston, they refer only to the area contained by an unchanging boundary, with a population of around just 640,000. That makes Boston a small city, about a 20th as populous as Mumbai.

CITY OF CITIES

Studying at Harvard therefore, Aditya toiled, worked and studied in Cambridge, home to both Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. With a high student density and transient population, the buzz in the air at Cambridge is unrivalled. There are other urban and suburban towns surrounding Boston like Somerville, Brookline, Belmont, Watertown, Chelsea, Newton, Winthrop, each demonstrating a unique fabric and way of life. Together they form the ‘Metro Boston’ area, while suburban areas extend further seamlessly, collectively called the ‘Greater Boston’ area, now home to 47,00,000 people.

Boston is situated along the north-eastern Atlantic coast of the United States. Due to its geographical location, the area experiences four distinct seasons including unforgiving winters with much snow and hot summers of up to 38°C. Undeterred by the heat, Bostonians head outdoors in the summer to enjoy open air concerts and Independence Day celebrations on July 4. The famous fiery red fall foliage is a spectacular sight; a colorful goodbye that turns into the muted white of winter. Short days with afternoon darkness bring decorations in store windows, tree lighting and ice sculptures around the holiday season.

One of the oldest cities in the United States, Boston was founded in 1630 by colonists from England. It was here, in the most important city of the 13 British colonies that ideas for independence were nurtured and the American Revolution was born. It was the scene of several key events such as the Boston Massacre, the Boston Tea Party, the Battle of Bunker Hill and the Siege of Boston. Since American Independence from Great Britain in 1776, the city continues to be an important port and a center for education and culture.

A COMPETITIVE SPIRIT

The history of the region is incomplete without mention of Harvard University, which, established in 1636, calls itself the oldest institution of higher education in the United States. 

Contrary to popular opinion, it was not founded by John Harvard, who was its first benefactor two years after it was established as ‘New College’. 

While Harvard University has traditionally been known as a center of excellence in the humanities and social sciences, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) – founded almost 200 years later – represents the epitome of merit in technology and engineering sciences. It was founded in response to increased industrialization of the country and its early emphasis on applied technology has led to close cooperation with industry.

With two very different philosophies and just one mile of ground between them, MIT and Harvard have long demonstrated opposing views. Walking through the Harvard campus, I sense the air hanging thick with tradition and grandeur, very unlike the business-like urgency on display around MIT corridors. “There is no rivalry between the two really, because Harvard’s easy-going climate is no match for the serious work happening at MIT,” says Dr. Saurabh Shahane, a post-doctoral scientist at MIT’s department of chemical engineering. While this competitive spirit adds color to the character of the area, it is a lesser-known fact that multiple attempts were made by presidents of both institutes to merge in 1904-1905. The proposal nearly became a reality – in spite of enthusiastic opposition from MIT faculty and alumni – but fell through because of unworkable real estate sale under merger terms.

GEEK CHIC

Being nerdy seems the norm – a rather cool one, too – around Cambridge, with its elitist student population and trendy cafés. Most fascinating is the Miracle of Science Bar, proclaiming to ‘stand strong as the leader in geek-chic’, with a hand-written menu in the form of a periodic table. The place is usually packed with diverse crowds making it “just the kind of place that Boston sorely needs!” as reported by the Boston Phoenix.

Harvard and MIT might be the most famous educational institutes in the greater Boston area, but they certainly aren’t the only ones. Over 100 colleges and universities are located in the region, including Boston University, Tufts University, Wellesley College, Suffolk University and Northeastern University. Reputation differs with level of study: the popular undergraduate programme at Northeastern University, with its co-op five-year course that includes industry experience, gives graduates an edge in job markets. Graduate programmes, on the other hand, are more popular in universities with substantial funding and infrastructure for research.

BUILT TO EDUCATE

Observing Massachusetts Avenue – a major thoroughfare in the area – Richa Shukla, Urban Design Research Associate at Harvard, notes: “Mass. Avenue acts like the educational spine of the region, cutting through Arlington, Somerville, Cambridge and Boston – with several universities pegged on either side.” More than 250,000 students attend college in Boston and Cambridge alone – and this massive student body brings college town charms to each host neighborhood.

The vast college crowd affects city residents in surprising ways: most rental lease agreements are dictated by the university calendar, even in areas not dominated by students. A September-to-September cycle means a mass migration on the first of the month descends on all modes of transport, resulting in a chaotic federal holiday. The Christmas holiday season presents a stark contrast: a collective vacation exodus leaves behind a bare campus – the ghost town my friend Aditya was referring to. Across the frozen river in downtown Boston, life goes on as usual with festivities around the historic Quincy Market and Faneuil Hall and ice-skating at the Frog pond.

Intellectual pursuits are regarded highly in the area, with Massachusetts having a greater percentage of college graduates than any other state in the country. The importance of education proliferates down to the school level: the city’s school dropout rate is a low 4.5%, and has been dropping for the last eight years. A vast number of assistance programmes available in the public-school system help and encourage students to finish high school. One such initiative at the Public Schools Re-engagement Centre provides online classes with flexibility and extra time to graduate, along with educational opportunities even for dropouts. The city uses data to identify at-risk students as early as eighth grade, who are then offered enrolment into the center, eventually supporting hundreds of students every year.

INNOVATION CITY

With such emphasis on learning and excellence, innovation is but a natural progression. Boston is consistently named one of the most innovative cities in the world. “No other city in America has been such a wellspring of innovation for so long,” author Scott Kirsner writes, reflecting on the history of technological innovation in the region. For over 300 years, the Boston area has been a cradle for breakthrough inventions: Alexander Graham Bell’s telephone, the guidance system for Apollo II, first use of general anesthesia, radar equipment that helped win World War II, the microwave, the Polaroid camera, the first four nodes of the ARPANET that eventually spawned the internet as well as the first waves of the Biotech start-ups with Biogen.

The gravitational pull of world-class universities lures students and professors alike and the generously funded environment promotes a start-up scene, thriving under cutting edge research and development.

Several years ago, design and innovation firm IDEO shifted their local office from the suburb of Lexington to Cambridge in an attempt to better connect with the buzz. Through their ‘Start-up in Residence’ programme, IDEO collaborates with start-ups like Melon and PillPack to further develop offerings through a human-centered design approach. 

The Cambridge Innovation Center, epicenter of the start-up scene, supports entrepreneurial zest by offering young ventures with an innovation eco system through office space management. A staggering 1400 companies have passed through its doors since inception in 1999, with a venture capital of over $1.8 billion being raised.

The healthcare and bio-tech industry have taken off alongside the tech scene and it is no coincidence that major corporations like Amgen, Merck, Novartis and Pfizer have invested in the region along with setting up R&D facilities. With the Mayor of Boston Thomas Menino’s ‘Innovation District’ initiative, 1000 acres of the South Boston waterfront is preparing itself as an innovation and entrepreneurship environment.

While the Boston area does well at bringing technologies out of the lab and into the marketplace, it doesn’t seem able to spawn industry giants like Intel, Apple, Oracle or eBay as readily as the San Francisco Bay Area. “I think that the two are on equal footing in terms of creativeness and inventiveness,” says Howard Berke, who has managed companies on both coasts. He adds, “But in Boston invention is more revered; we appreciate academic pursuits here. In Silicon Valley, commercial success is what is prized.” This attitude, it seems, most considerably informs the culture of the region.

Innovation is fostered also through work culture and office environments and a reimagining of the workplace seems to be underway. ‘Workbar’, a network of co-working office spaces that provide an interactive atmosphere and access to a diverse community is just one of many creative ways of igniting passion and productivity.  With a high concentration of talent from local universities, connections between colleagues are made easily – but for those from beyond the state or country, shaking off the ‘outsider’ feeling may prove tricky. “Localities seem to come with certain baggage,” explains Elangovan Govindan, an urban designer who moved from New York City to Cambridge for a job, “with a predetermined value system associated with local schools and an existing network. Breaking in is tedious but essential.”

AN OUTSIDER IN BOSTON

For someone who lands abruptly in the area, applying for a job means direct competition with local graduates. Not only does hiring follow the university calendar – internships during summer and full-time opportunities in early autumn – but it perhaps also favors the familiar. As an applicant with a degree from faraway London, I am measured up against graduates from Harvard and MIT. Once through the job search though, an inspiring group of peers awaits; being surrounded by self-driven high achievers is a luxury Bostonians can afford.

Another prominent challenge upon moving to the United States is grasping the idea of a suburb: a wholly residential area with a seemingly endless matrix of houses and no relief except convenience stores located every mile or so. Cars dominate the sprawling network, with scarce public transportation and vacant pavements. Concord, Belmont and Burlington have historically been the affluent suburban towns around Boston – with over 90% white population. Racial segregations were intentional back in the 1930s – coined ‘redlining’ – referring to a practice of marking a red line on a map to delineate the area where banks would not invest.

Today, property prices in suburban neighborhoods are largely driven by quality of the local public school, with students being enrolled largely from local environs. With an almost bidding-like culture for property sale, homebuyers pay well over the asking price in direct competition with other offers. The better the neighborhood school, the higher the prices go up. Absolute value of the physical structure seems beside the point, with particleboard houses costing over $1 million. Prices in Somerville, the hipster student town just north of Cambridge, are affected by accessible grocery stores – in the densest town in the state, walkability is crucial for the young population.

The pursuit of academic excellence indisputably informs a Bostonian’s life – whether at school, college or graduate level – in planning where to live, when to rent, what to study, who to work with and how to raise funds. In this noble city, it seems one cannot escape the culture of excellence – but then again, who would want to?