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BRA
P R O F I L E
The Boston Redevelopment Authority recently rebranded to the Boston Planning and Development Agency, but locals aren’t convinced the heavy-handed bureaucracy will truly change.
A Boston rebrand Beantown’s tarnished redevelopment agency comes up with a new name, a new logo, and a new mission, but locals aren’t convinced it’ll do any good.
By RICHARD MASSEY Managing Editor
While the laundry list of the BPDA’s aspirations is long, it essentially comes down to one big point – to actually do urban planning so that Boston’s quilt work of neighborhoods is not destroyed by real es- tate development, much of it in the form of office and residential towers. To do that, according to Boston Mayor Martin Walsh and agency director Brian Golden, the BPDA will seek more input from residents and community groups. “This was an effort to redefine what we do, why we do it and how we do it.” “We expect to host conversations in the neigh- borhoods to have BPDA explain itself holistical- ly,” Golden said at the time the rebranding was an- nounced. And that’s where the skepticism, much of it harsh,
T he Boston Redevelopment Authority may have rebranded itself to the Boston Planning and Development Agency, but in a town where mem- ories die hard, a new name and a new logo might not be enough to dispel the scorn heaped on the department for decades. Perhaps known best for its decision to scrape off the West End “slums” back in the 1960s, displac- ing thousands in the process, the agency former- ly known as the BRA has also overseen the current construction and development boom that has en- croached on neighborhoods across the city. To explain the rebranding, the BPDA, as it’s now known, issued this simple statement in its market- ing collateral: “This was an effort to redefine what we do, why we do it, and how we do it.”
Boston Mayor Martin Walsh
Brian Golden, Director, BPDA
THE ZWEIG LETTER Nove
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