You're not kiddin'! As far as I can see in Suffolk Co. MA the pattern has been since the 50's (when they took the old West End -- Italian immigrant neighborhood, but apparently as rumor has it without the protection of organized crime the North End had -- and replaced all that low- to moderate-housing with gov't building and a crappy "office park." Destroyed more to build that appalling Convention Center union boondoggle, took by eminent domain the currently named "Seaport District", once small businesses and low-income housing, now hotels (obviously the Convention Center needs hotels) insurance, financial services and law firms (to be near the new Federal Courthouse), raising housing and rental prices to stratospheric highs in nearby neighborhoods.
The unions get work, the developers make it hand over fist, the politicians stuff their pockets -- see Win-Win-Win! (I don't need the /s surely. . .)
And special bonus -- having destroyed lots of perfectly adequate low- to moderate-income housing, the politicians (such souls of honor and compassion) scream piteously for more money -- for low-income housing!
God help us all!
The West End was raised to increase the tax base. The make-up of that neighborhood was 1/3 Italian, 1/3 Jewish and 1/3 Irish. Leonard Nemoy, a West Ender, did a documentary about the neighborhood. The Seaport District was mostly empty lots, parking lots and empty warehouses. Virtually no housing in that area what so ever. Prior to being empty lots and parking it was a vast rail yard going back decades. Truth be told rents have increased in South Boston but the vast housing projects on the west side still exist and the rents have not increased.