The High School and Social Mobility in a Streetcar Suburb: Somerville, Massachusetts, 1870-1910

Streetcars and Recovery

“…Stop spacings are generally a quarter-mile (400 m) or less, with schedule speeds in the 10-12 mph (16-20 km/h) range (Phraner 1992). The Boston streetcar system contributed to an increasingly diversified population in the large Boston suburb of Sommerville, Massachusetts, between 1870 and 1910 (Ueda 1984). The Philadelphia streetcar system in the 1880s was found to flatten residential bid-rent gradients and reverse the relative bid-rents of high-and low-wage workers, with high-wage workers moving from the city center to the metropolitan fringe (Gin and Sonstelie 1992).…”

“…The Philadelphia streetcar system in the 1880s was found to flatten residential bid-rent gradients and reverse the relative bid-rents of high- and low-wage workers, with high-wage workers moving from the city center to the metropolitan fringe (Gin and Sonstelie 1992). The Boston streetcar system contributed to an increasingly diversified population in the large Boston suburb of Sommerville, Massachusetts, between 1870 and 1910 (Ueda 1984). According to Muller, streetcars had an impact far from serving a circulator function in downtown business districts: “The most dramatic impact of the Electric Streetcar Era was the swift residential development of those urban fringes” (Muller 2004).…”