Boston College Professor of History Marilynn S. Johnson examines the historical confluence of recent immigration and urban transformation in greater Bo

ston, a region that underwent dramatic decline after World War II. Since the 1980s, the Boston area has experienced an astounding renaissance—a development, she argues, to which immigrants have contributed in numerous ways.  Like the older Irish and other European immigrant groups whose labor once powered the region’s industrial economy, these newer migrants have been crucial in re-building the population, labor force, and metropolitan landscape of the New Boston.