Neighborhoods

After my critique of the Improper's Best of Boston list, which noted the publication's lack of geographic and ethnic diversity, it was a pleasant surprise to see Roxbury's Merengue restaurant prominently featured on page 7 at the beginning of the Imperatives section. It's also encouraging to see that the accompanying article does a great job at highlighting the restaurant, the owners, and their passion for the community. The article could have easily been one of those "diamond-in-the-rough" pieces of crap that often gets foisted onto some neighborhoods; thankfully this one didn't go there.

But is this the Neighborhoods issue? Maybe my expectations of the Improper are unusually high, but I was expecting this issue to feature something about all of Boston's neighborhoods...or as many as possible. Instead they dedicate four pages to a scavenger hunt done on a Bustonian through downtown and South Boston. Could they have played it any safer? At least the Best of Boston list involved some type of competition. This article feels like a report on something college freshmen do during new student orientation.

Maybe we need to bring in Bill Clinton to promote Boston's other neighborhoods. If he can do it in Harlem, why not here? Of course, we can thank the folks over at El Planeta for their recently released Lo Mejor list. Although it's derived from a particular cultural/linguistic perspective, the list is refreshing in its recommendations.

Then again, maybe it's me. If Stuff can come up with a "pictorial journey through the bloodstream of Boston" that considers this to be "Boston," maybe I need to rethink my relationship to the city (or its media).