"Two Decades of Change Have Boston Sparkling" is the headline over a New York Times news article that makes Boston sound like some kind of paradise: "one of the most successful urban renaissance stories in modern American history." The newspaper claims, inaccurately, that "The blight that afflicts many urban areas is absent here."
The Times article describes Boston in 1993 as "limping its way out of a recession and still reeling from the crisis over school busing." That's just nonsense. It doesn't take anything away from Mayor Menino's considerable accomplishments to say that Boston in 1993 was pretty nice, not the cesspool that the Times depicts.
The Times credits Mayor Menino, the "big dig' public works project, and the environmental cleanup of Boston harbor for the city's prosperity. Entirely unmentioned by the Times is the fact that Mr. Menino's 20-year mayoralty overlapped with 16 years of Republican governors — Weld, Cellucci, Swift, and Romney — who held the state's taxes and spending in relative restraint and pursued generally business-friendly policies. Where were the Times articles depicting Boston as a blight-free successful urban renaissance story back when Mr. Romney was running for president?
Now, one can say that the credit belongs to Mr. Menino rather than Mr. Romney or Mr. Weld because Boston is prospering while other Massachusetts cities such as New Bedford and Fall River and Pittsfield are struggling. But there are differences between Boston and those cities other than who is the mayor that may account for some of the different outcomes.