Roxbury, Mission Hill and Jamaica Plain

3 guides on the high ground of the old town of Roxbury, annexed by Boston in 1868. Roxbury is the geographic center of the city and the historic center of its Black community. Mission Hill is a steep hill of three-deckers between the Longwood hospitals and Roxbury. Jamaica Plain is a streetcar suburb wrapped around a kettle pond and the Arnold Arboretum.

This is where Boston's land policy is most visible. The City owns a good deal of vacant land in Roxbury and disposes of it under its own published rules, so what gets built here is argued in public in a way it is not in the Back Bay. Jamaica Plain has had the longest running argument about rent and displacement of anywhere in the city. Mission Hill's floors are competed for by students out of the medical schools and by families, which shows up directly in what a three-decker sells for. Several architectural conservation districts cover parts of this ground, Highland Park and Mission Hill Triangle among them, so check whether a specific address sits inside one.