You know a protest movement is serious when it gets its own song

You are decades behind the times - that term was abandoned years ago as a bad concept of urban design (that legally can't be built). Even the BRA tries to avoid it but slips up from time to time - granted, they are poster children for bad planning because they don't do any.

Like I said - I'm not 100% opposed to this particular project, but there are a lot of very concerning issues. The problem is that there is no planning - nobody thinks of what is "good" for Boston as Henry suggests except that downtown is an ATM for the city. We need another $10 million - let's build another building in the Back Bay for the taxes (or the union jobs to get the officials reelected). Then they see what they can get away with - that's the extent of thinking that goes on. Personally, like MANY other Bostonians I like the human scale of Boston and nothing says inhuman like a 600 plus foot residential building. There are lots of spectacular cities our size and bigger that are spectacular exactly because they have no or few tall buildings - but with good planning - Singapore, Jerusalem and DC come to mind - examples of ancient, historic and modern cities that have adapted to brand their cities primarily with compact, high density, medium and low rise buildings.

I was going to make a list of buildings that were approved by the BRA that violate either zoning or longstanding agreements with the neighborhood - but when I got over a dozen and figured I was at best half way there and it was too long. Again - I could go either way on this project. There are a lot of small positives, but also a few very large negatives.

I love all the people who come in and say "It's a city, we need the taxes, we need the jobs, just approve it" (the jobs and taxes thing is BS, that will happen anyway, but for another time). That's what they probably used to say in Southie and Allston Brighton and other parts of the city that are now being run over by the BRA. Keep saying that, and when they come for you there will be nobody left to speak up.

Keep in mind the neighborhoods have an extremely good track record of being right, unfortunately often well after the fact when it's too late. Without those willing to speak up the Back Bay would look like the West End and this project wouldn't even be under discussion, the Boston Public garden would be in shade 9 months of the year, the Old South Church and the library wouldn't have been significantly damaged during recent construction (the elevators would have simply been moved about 100 feet in each case). The Mandarin - ooohh the Mandarin - need I say more about the second ugliest building in Boston. They are not perfect - but the track record in distant hindsight is very strong, far too strong to ignore.

The problem is that the process is broken. If they came to the neighborhood and said - here's the installed real estate base, let's make a 20 year plan to grow it 2% a year (twice the rate of Boston as a whole) for the next 20 years and revisit it every 5 years - that puts the onus rightly on the neighborhood to participate and be responsible for needed growth, but probably without the constant angst over every single project. That's a proper and sustainable process. Making an exception to everything for financial expediency is no way to build a city for the long haul.