Constructing the waterfront: property, state power, and the making of Boston since the nineteenth century
Embargo Date
2028-06-04
OA Version
Citation
Abstract
“Constructing the Waterfront: Property, State Power, and the Making of Boston since the Nineteenth Century” argues that multiple phases of capitalism and urban growth relied upon and produced environmental stability on the city’s waterfront. By examining state laws, private property, and the built environment that transformed Boston’s tidelands, this dissertation addresses three gaps in urban history. First, historians sometimes consider property as a static legal category or a neutral backdrop for urban growth. “Constructing the Waterfront” shows that the waterfront’s boundaries, capacity for expansion, and viability for built investments were historically produced, especially through legal permissions, surveying, property appraisal, mapping, and landmaking. Second, previous works sometimes assume that the state’s role in urban development oscillated between nineteenth century laissez-faire “statelessness,” post-World War II investment and growth, and then late twentieth century “neoliberal” retreat. This dissertation demonstrates how the state of Massachusetts consistently operated through laws, regulation practices, contracts, and direct property ownership that encouraged particular forms of property development on Boston’s waterfront. Third, historians sometimes divide waterfront histories into periods defined by maritime, industrial, civic, and postindustrial activity. I show that even though the forms of capitalism changed, property owners, state authorities, and other proprietors continuously constructed the shoreline as valuable property. These interventions reframe Boston’s waterfront as a landscape shaped by a persistent, though historically changing, development logic that produced the contemporary shoreline. This dissertation draws on legal and property records, visual evidence, corporate archives, state and municipal documents, and community activism materials, and additionally utilizes spatial analysis of historical maps. Through case studies in Charlestown, East Boston, South Boston, and the downtown Boston waterfront, this dissertation historicizes certain difficulties of adapting Boston’s waterfront in the future. Especially because property owners and state authorities own the waterfront as pieces and parcels, and many proprietors have little incentive to invest in large-scale adaptations, while planners have inherited a waterfront legally and structurally built for fixed physical forms. These patterns challenge comprehensive resilience to climate change, as adaptation relies upon material flexibility and priorities beyond immediate economic value.
Description
2026