Boston and the Making of a Global City

In the late twentieth century the American and global economy shifted from manufacturing toward a knowledge industry. Following an economic low point several decades earlier, the city of Boston took advantage of the new era of globalization, fueled by dramatic advances in telecommunications, computer power, and air and sea travel, as well as its own impressive intellectual capital.

Boston and the Making of a Global City pulls together scholarship, media stories, personal interviews, and city planning documents to tell the story of Boston’s historical trajectory, as it quickly became a competitive global hub. Starting with its role as a colonial port and nineteenth-century maritime power, but moving quickly forward, the book describes how Boston capitalized on its strengths in higher education and such innovation sectors as life sciences, healthcare, information technology, and finance. Author James O’Connell traces the historical sweep of global flows--trade and supply chains, innovation and the dissemination of knowledge, investment, transportation, tourism, telecommunications, and immigration--that have shaped the city and region’s development. This volume also addresses the economic, social, and environmental challenges that Boston currently faces and how it is strategically positioned to confront them going forward.

James C. O’Connell is adjunct professor of city planning-urban affairs at Boston University. He also guides walking tours of Boston related to urban planning. He has taught at the Boston Architectural College and University of Massachusetts Amherst. For over fifteen years, he was planner for the Boston office of the U.S. National Park Service. He is the author of The Hub’s Metropolis: The Suburbanization of Boston, 1800-2010; Dining Out in Boston: A Culinary History; and Becoming Cape Cod: Creating a Seaside Resort. Other writing has appeared in the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of American History, and the Creating Cape Cod exhibit catalog published by Heritage Museums & Gardens.