Where has the middle class gone in Boston?

Leave it to the Globe Magazine to substitute to give its view of middle class flight. Our header is what the Globe should have put to make the article more accurate.

Boston has made a paradigm shift within the past two decades. What hasn't changed is prejudice and mistrust between the classes and races. One neighborhood fears declining property values (sketchy people, groups of kids acting up); another neighborhood fears gentrification (big luxury condos, luxury stores and restaurants) and commercialization (big box stores). In the twain are people who have lived in their neighborhoods for decades, paying higher property taxes - sometimes overriden over the 2-1/2% limit - for what is purported for education and health care, but ends up elsewhere, like the general fund or for pork projects.

The middle class in Boston is existent - but it is not as obvious as it once was. In the 1960s, Blue Hill Avenue used to be a enclave for the Boston Jewry. By 1970, it became mostly Afro-American. You have to travel to the far-flung borders of Boston to see a thriving middle class. Hyde Park, West Roxbury, Roslindale, and other parts of the city are good examples where the middle class has not been shoved out and force to flee to a better middle class climate.

What really ruins the dream of the middle class living in the Athens of America is what has oiled the cogs of Boston for centuries - corruption in politics, sky-high housing prices, elitism, a transit system that constantly begs for more money from riders and spends them on vanity projects, and a smug attitude of "we are the best," even contrary to the fact (viz. The Big Dig) . People who have never been to this city or have toured the city only see the surface of what Boston really is, and if the tourist trolley companies had an all-Boston tour, it would certainly take the Athens of America moniker and turn it into the Most Dysfunctional City of America.

The middle class notices this with a gimlet eye for BS. They are taking a look around in their areas, don't like what they see, and plan to leave the area, and quite frankly, I don't blame them.

Update: Here's a different take. There's also the attitude in the suburbs that "if we were like Boston, we'd be successful too, bringing in all that revenue and taxes so we can have better things." Building multi-million dollar condos in Newton will come after they shove a camel through the eye of a needle.