Boston could've been the 6th largest city in the world.

The world was a lot smaller in 1912.

Yesterday I came across a 1912 NY Times article (28KB pdf) about a bill filed by Representative Daniel Kiley which would have added 339 square miles to the City of Boston by annexing every city and town within 10 miles of the Statehouse (basically everything within Route 128 plus a little more). For comparison, that would have made the new Boston slightly bigger in area than New York City. Interestingly, the population of Boston was larger in 1912 than what it is now (670,000 vs. 590,000), and the larger Boston would have had a population of 1.5 million. New York City was already approaching 5 million residents in 1910, in roughly the same land area.

Unfortunately, the article doesn't explain why Rep. Kiley wanted to expand the size of Boston. I also haven't come across any follow up articles explaining why the bill didn't become law, although I suspect that old school machine politics scared off the other communities. Still, imagine how different Boston would be now if it had become a much larger city back then. Issues related to busing, school desegregation, housing patterns, and transportation would probably have been decided in completely different ways. Or, if it happened today, would people be fighting over relatively small parcels of land in Allston or tunnels through downtown when the overall city would be much, much bigger? Would Kiley's bill have increased efficiencies by eliminating duplication of services or would there just be a big blob of bureaucracy spread across eastern Masasachusetts?

Comments

[adamg]

Interesting. I wonder if the bill had passed if we'd have wound up with a map that looks like a piece of Swiss cheese. The bill required a yes vote in towns for annexation, and Brookline had already turned Boston down once (about the time West Roxbury was voting to become part of Boston, I think).

[MarkB]

Many of the communities surrounding Boston were founded in the same era as Boston was, and thus had an independent identity and history. Dedham, Cambridge, Medford, Salem and Chelsea were all founded in the early Colonial years, and were used to governing themselves, unlike the areas around cities to the west, where annexation was basically absorbing old pasture land or prairie. By 1912, Boston had been absorbing immigrants for decades and was losing jobs to the mid-west and south. All those suburban legislators would hardly find annexation by Boston to be an inviting future.

[3D]

MarkB, I see your point. But considering that other former cities and towns - Roxbury, Dorchester, Brighton, and West Roxbury - had colonial beginnings and self-governance, I suspect there was more to their refusal than history. Those neighborhoods annexed themselves to Boston less than 50 years before that article was written.

Chelsea, like East Boston, had an immigrant Jewish population in the late 1800s/early 1900s. I believe East Cambridge and Somerville had their fair shares of Irish and German immigrants thanks to the factories and breweries. Demographically, the city and the inner suburbs shared similar populations.

My guess is that old school machine politics scared off the other towns. Wasn't that happening in a lot of big cities shortly before Prohibition?

[Can-Can]

Interesting. You never know what you'll come up with when you start sleuthing.