BOSTON – Immigrants are more central than ever to Boston's economy. They make up more than a quarter of city residents and spend around $4 billion annually, which accounts for almost 26,000 jobs and generates $1.3 billion in tax revenue, according to the Boston Redevelopment Authority.
But one of the major influences in the development of Boston – which is home to the sixth-largest proportion of foreign-born residents among U.S. cities – over the past several decades is immigration, argues Marilynn Johnson, who teaches history at Boston College.
BOSTON – Hundreds of tenant advocates and wary property owners crammed into a Boston City Council public hearing Monday to weigh in on a proposal that has the two groups at odds: Renters say it would create safeguards against eviction; landlords say it would slap them with thinly disguised rent controls.
"Any way you look at it, this is rent control," Skip Schloming, of the Small Properties Owners Association, said in an interview just before the hearing started.
