| Mattapan |
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| neighborhoods in boston | |
| african americans | |
| streetcar suburbs | |
| united states communities with african american majority populations | |
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Mattapan also has a significant amount of open space, including Franklin Park , the Franklin Park Zoo , and the historic Forest Hills Cemetery . DEMOGRAPHIC CHANGE In the 1960's and 70's Mattapan went through a major change in the makeup of its population. It changed from a predominantly white Jewish neighborhood to one that is almost entirely African American .The years between 1968 and 1970 was the most dramatic period of ethnic transition. According to Levine and Harmon in their book ''Death of an American Jewish Community'', by Redlining the area, blockbusting, and creating fear in neighborhood residents by real estate agents bring about panic selling and White Flight . The banking consortium Boston Banks Urban Renewal Group (B-BURG) allegedly drove the Jewish community out of Mattapan and are claimed to bear partial responsibility for the deterioration of the neighborhood, especially along the Blue Hill Avenue corridor. Again, according to Levine and Harmon, the reason behind this orchestrated attack on the community was to lower market values to buy property, sell the housing with federally guaranteed loans at inflated prices to black families who couldn't afford it, and to get the white community to buy property owned by the banks in the suburbs. Today Mattapan is seeing another major population shift, albeit a natural turn over of housing, as a large number of Haitian immigrants move in. Mattapan now has the largest Haitian community in Massachusetts. Mattapan, Dorchester, and Roxbury make up Boston's roughest and toughest neighborhoods with over 80% over Boston's homicides occurring in those neighborhoods. TRANSPORTATION The Mattapan-Ashmont Trolley line of the MBTA serves Mattapan as well as several bus routes. The Fairmont branch of the MBTA's commuter rail line also serves Mattapan at Morton Street providing locomotive service to Downtown Boston and the suburbs. In the near future an additional station at Blue Hill Avenue will be added. Plans for the reconstruction of Mattapan station have been approved and construction should begin in late 2006. LINKS
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