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Somebody's very interested in how South Boston residents feel about the parade - and next year's mayoral election
By adamg on Sun, 03/13/2016 - 9:22am
Eileen Murphy and Kenny Jervis report getting calls from pollsters yesterday asking their feelings on the city shortening the route of this year's St. Patrick's Day parade - and if they'd vote for Marty Walsh next year.
Jervis says he actually got two calls - one that started out with the parade question, one that asked him about Boston schools (bonus for him, since he's co-chair of the Citywide Parents Council).
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Comments
I didn't get a call.
I wish I did. I would have stated my support for shortening the parade route and cancelling it all together.
The question about voting for the Mayor again doesn't make sense. Does the mayor really need the vote of the people that care if the parade route is shortened?
I think the callers are just using the parade to collect more info.
Yes!
I totally agree. Let's just get rid of a 100+ year tradition because some yuppie snob who for some strange reason refers to "Southie" as "Sobo" says so. Ironically enough, it wasn't until "yuppies" starting moving into the Southie by the thousands that the parade turned into a drinking-fest for kids in their 20s.
St Patricks day parades,
St Patricks day parades, especially the one in southie, have been boozefests for decades.
Yep.
i deeply care about quality of life issues in my community and care about my neighbors.
move the parade to bolyston street!
and its not just yuppies that feel this way:
http://www.caughtinsouthie.com/features/i-hate-st-patricks-day-parade/
YEAH BUT
The parade was never an issue UNTIL Yuppies moved in.
Yes, It was.
Stop with the "Southie was a garden of eden before the yuppies moved in."
It was actually a crap hole with drugs, murders, racism, violence...etc. ..and the parade was and still is an extension of all that.
the parade serves two demographics: (1) townies that were priced out and no longer live here (2) yuppies that were priced out and live in dorchester or yuppies from the burbs.
Both demographics do not live here.
move the parade closer to the people that actually enjoy it: somewhere on the south shore!
- The Original SoBo Yuppie
You'd find locals who love the parade
If you ever deigned to actually talk to South Boston townies.
I did talk to them.
They are all leaving town that day.
Ha
Doubt it. Every townie I know in Southie looks forward to the parade all year long. "It's like Townie Christmas"
Yes But..
This has caused crime to flow from the cities to the suburbs....take a look at Quincy, parts of Braintree, and Randolph now. There was a drug related murder in Norwood just last night! Christ, at this rate of gentrification in 50 years every neighborhood in Boston will be incredibly safe and the immediate suburbs of Boston will all be sh**holes. The suburbs should be the safe outlets for families to thrive, NOT places where heroin and synthetic marijuana are as easy to get as candy.
So what you're saying is ...
The suburbs now have to deal with their own homegrown drug users/criminals instead of just having them shunted off into Boston?
What I'm saying
(And this comes from personal experience), is that lower and lower-middle class families (who are more likely to have their hands dipped into crime) are being priced out of Southie and Dorchester at a rapid rate. Weymouth, Quincy, and Braintree are three towns a good chunk of the families from those neighborhoods have moved to. Look at the crazy increase in crime in those three towns over the past 5-10 years. I'm willing to bet that the people who moved their families to those three suburbs 10-15+ years ago did so with the thought that THESE ARE THE SUBURBS, NOT THE INNER CITY, and we shouldn't have to be worrying about petty-theft criminals and an explosive heroin epidemic. SO in other words, the gentrification in Boston has made many neighborhoods safer (for short term residents in their 20s) and the suburbs more dangerous (for long term residents and often families). That should not be the case.
Why should Boston get all the crime?
Sorry, Charlie, but drugs and violence belong in the suburbs, safely away from us in the city.
HA!
Said no one ever!
Pretty sure Waquiot just said it right there.
Bet a lot of Bostonians would agree. I know I certainly resent that many, maybe even most, of the people nicked for dealing in this area are coming in from out of town.
What if
The plurality of your neighbors want the parade?
That's a big if.
Of the 30,000+ residents of South Boston I doubt a significant number want the parade.
For real?
Respect "your" cities culture and tradition or leave. You sound better suited for Manhattan or San Fran.
Respect my neighborhood...
...and don't piss and puke all over it.
I don't do it in yours.
I'm willing to bet
They didn't shoot you a call because the opinions of most young-urban professionals (Yuppies) are completely irrelevant considering the majority of them contribute very little to the community and generally only stay in the neighborhood for a couple years. Not putting you specifically on blast, for often times this is true.
Maybe if it was 2005..
..but its not. It's 2016. We are here to stay.
we pay property taxes and we vote in local elections.
Funny
Because I GUARANTEE you're not there to stay. You'll live in SOUTHIE (NOT Sobo) for maybe 3-5 more years then move back out to the suburbs like EVERY OTHER yuppie does. It's a ridiculous cycle. That's why yuppie's are so disrespected. I don't care if you're from Roslindale, Duxbury, Medfield, or even Oklahoma, but if you don't ever plan on making Boston your actual home then you'll never be considered an actual "Bostonian".
Here in Southie 10 years....
No plans to leave. So your "GUARANTEE" is lost on me. I used to love the parade but I just don't anymore. It's turned into a giant frat party for outsiders - and I don't mean yuppies. I mean people who do not live in Southie. The neighborhood is overrun with people who don't respect it - the puke, the piss, the fights, the green beads and solo cups littering the street - it's gross.
And since I've been living here for a decade, I have made a decent amount of OFS friends, and unless they're lying to me for no good reason, they all disklike what the parade has become and could care less about its continued existence in Southie. That being said, I'm not staging a protest to have it moved, I'm more apathetic about it than offended.
But you don't vote:
Given that 85% of Southie residents have lived there less than ten years, it is pretty obvious new residents don't vote in local elections. Either that or Bill Linehan and Michael Flaherty have the Southie yuppie vote on lock.
Anyone remember the last mayor
Who messed with the parade? He never won an election in Southie.
You mean Ray Flynn?
Yeah, whatever happened to him? OK, he wasn't mayor at the time, but assuming you're talking about somebody who came after him, I dunno, five straight citywide wins might suggest the vaunted South Boston vote didn't have much of an impact.
No impact
But despite Menino putting a boatload of Southie people on the payroll, he went to his grave pissed that he never got the support of the neighborhood. Proving that Southie voters couldn't be bought.
Who cares how southie votes
Who cares how southie votes, its no longer relevant who they want as mayor, the mayor serves the whole city now, not just southie/irish catholics. And of course Menino didnt win southie, he wasnt a bigot like Flynn, Linnehan, Bulger or Kelly. South boston has 35,000 people as of 2010 census, when the city was over 600,000 people. Its a small (but very vocal and demanding) part of the city that is best to ignore.
Waaaah, the government wont
Waaaah, the government wont let me have the parade I want, waaaaaah. Im going to tell mommy.
Shortening the parade route is an outrage.
It restricts the places suburban kids can toss their green lunch and doorways they can pee in. A push poll regarding the same tells me the payor is a blow in.