James Howard Kunstler

A writer who specializes in the new urbanism, Kunstler is the author of Home from Nowhere: Remaking Our Everyday World for the 21st Century (Simon & Schuster, 1996). Kunstler lived in Greater Boston from 1972 to '73, and wrote for the Boston Phoenix.

One of the great blunders that we made in American urbanism in the 20th century was to bring the limited-access freeway into the heart of the city. It should never have happened. I would take the freeways out of the city and replace them with truly urban avenues and boulevards. Boston has a network of limited-access freeways imposed over it -- not just the Central Artery but many others, including Storrow Drive and Memorial Drive. All of these need to be re-civilized; that is, re-integrated into the fabric of the city. They need to be pedestrianized, they need to be reconnected to the neighborhoods that they run along rather than be isolated and disconnected from them, especially in the case of Storrow Drive.

The well-off and even the rich still live in the city of Boston. This is not the case in the majority of other cities. And it's important that the rich and the well-off be made to feel welcome in the city. It's important to make provisions for all classes of society in the city, not just the poor. I would propose that the city do all it can to encourage even wealthy suburbanites to re-inhabit the city.

In any case, the American automobile suburb does not have much of a future. We're going to need to re-inhabit and rehabilitate our cities and our urban neighborhoods whether we like it or not. Because the suburbs are bankrupting our culture, economically, ecologically, socially, and spiritually. And the future simply will not support the continuation of it.

The decision to bury the Central Artery was a brave and far-seeing choice to make because I think it will have the effect of really bringing the oldest part of Boston back to a condition of excellence that we haven't seen in generations. Boston actually accomplished the restoration of its commuter-rail service. Boston rehabilitated its train stations. Boston still has lively neighborhoods like the Back Bay, where people can live and work and shop and enjoy themselves.

Boston may actually end up being a more habitable and more civilized town in the 21st century than most other cities in America. You can count on one hand the cities that are really worth anything -- Boston, San Francisco, Charleston, Savannah, Annapolis, and from there on, we can only name a few neighborhoods in different cities. Boston is in a position to become an exemplar of an urban life complete with cultural amenities, to become a model for other places and other cities in the country.

True urban life without having to be enslaved by car ownership is being recognized as a possibility in Boston.

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