Boston Mayor Hopes to Shield Residents Amid Surging Growth

BOSTON (AP) Boston Mayor Michelle Wu said Wednesday that she wants to set the city on a path to reach its former peak population while guarding against trends that are already putting pressure on residents because of soaring housing costs.

Wu, who in 2021 became the first woman and first Asian American elected mayor of Boston, said she hopes to manage the city's surging growth while avoiding some of the urban renewal efforts of the last century that ended up displacing thousands of working class, immigrant, and Black and brown residents.

Our vision is for Boston to sustainably reach our peak population of 800,000 residents with the housing and schools, parks and public transit to support that growth, the Democrat said in her State of the City address, referring to the citys historic peak population around 1950, when the number of residents topped 801,000.