By Jim Newman
Written by Jim Newman.
What resources do we put in to make the city more resilient?
Boston is an old city. Over 50% of Boston’s housing units were built before 1940 (MAPC, 2008, p . 3), with the highest proportion of pre-WWII housing among the major cities in the U.S. (Cox, 2013). Commercial buildings, on the other hand, saw a major surge of new construction after 1960 with over 25 million square feet added between 1960 and 1998.
The majority of buildings within the city are small-scale residential buildings. Large commercial and residential buildings are mostly clustered downtown, with mid-rise buildings distributed in neighborhood centers around the city.
The table below shows the distribution of building types by total floor area in greater Boston.
