Downtown Boston
vibrant. historic. resilient.
We’re committed to engaging, informing, and empowering Downtown Boston neighborhood residents, students, workers, businesses, and stakeholders.
Formed in 2014, the Downtown Boston Neighborhood Association is an independent organization with 1,200+ members, run exclusively by volunteer leaders from the neighborhood.
We create forums for discussion and debate on a wide range of topics related to quality of life and the ongoing development of the neighborhood, including public safety, transportation, planning and zoning, and economic development.
Public safety remains a top priority for the Neighborhood Association
Several initiatives are underway to address public safety challenges and related quality of life issues in Downtown Boston. Learn more about the One Downtown Task Force here.
The following data was presented at a Boston City Council hearing on November 26, 2024. Additional information can be found here.
Nearly 71% of respondents reported feeling less safe in Downtown Boston / Boston Common today compared to the beginning of the year.
92% of respondents feel that public safety is an urgent issue facing Downtown Boston.
93% of respondents feel that public safety is an urgent issue facing the Boston Common.
The majority of survey respondents identified as Residents, Parents of Nursery School Students, Workers, and Business / Property Owners in Downtown Boston.
Survey respondents identified as being 25 - 65+ years-old, with good representation across all age bands within this range.
Downtown Boston Residents
15,826
and we’re welcoming more every day!
Renters Downtown
62.7%
of occupied units
Residential Housing Units
6,543
total as of 2022
PLAN: Downtown
The PLAN: Downtown planning process, the first major master planning effort for Downtown Boston since 1989, is intended to inform how the neighborhood is developed and shaped for decades to come. The PLAN: Downtown Advisory Group worked with the City of Boston to come up with a thoughtful master plan, which was adopted in December 2023. The City was then tasked with coming up with appropriate zoning and design guidelines to codify these plans. On January 15th, 2025, the City’s Planning Department introduced a dramatically different set of plans and zoning that calls for the development of towers that are up to 500 feet in height (instead of 155 feet) along the entirety of Washington Street and other parts of the neighborhood.
On May 29, 2025, the City’s Planning Department released its final draft zoning proposal. This proposal, once again, disregards community feedback and envisions 700-foot towers in historic areas of the neighborhood. A broad coalition of stakeholders released this statement, which outlines why this proposal is ill-informed and lacks community support.
Following public backlash, Mayor Wu and Kairos Shen, Chief of Planning, met with the coalition of stakeholders on July 10, 2025. The coalition presented a robust set of solutions in the spirit of reaching compromise. Following weeks of inaction and radio silence, the City scheduled an abrupt meeting on August 29, 2025, involving area developers and coalition members - attendees were informed by Mayor Wu that none of the coalition’s proposed solutions had been accepted and that the City intends to seek BPDA Board approval (on September 18, 2025) for its latest zoning proposal, which codifies PDAs and spot zoning into the master plan and once again sets the height limit to 500 feet (up from 155 feet) along key areas on and around Washington Street. The coalition has issued the statement below to Mayor Wu.