So You Want to Live in Dorchester – Boston Magazine

by MADELINE BILIS· 5/22/2018, 1:00 p.m.

Dorchester is a cultural and architectural melting pot, with rich history and excellent restaurants sprinkled in. At six square miles, Dorchester is also Boston’s largest neighborhood. It’s divided into more than a dozen pocket neighborhoods, each with its own distinct personality. (Count ’em: Uphams Corner, Savin Hill, Fields Corner, Jones Hill, Codman Square, Ashmont, Adams Village, Peabody Square, Cedar Grove, Lower Mills, Meeting House Hill, Harbor Point, Franklin Field, Neponset, Popes Hill, Port Norfolk, Four Corners, and Mount Bowdoin.) Together, though, these districts make up one big, diverse neighborhood. There’s a sizable Vietnamese community in Fields Corner, for example, as well as an Irish population in Savin Hill, a Cape Verdean one in Uphams Corner, and others.

Before Dorchester was founded in 1630, it was home to the Neponset tribe. The town was annexed to Boston in 1870, but didn’t see its population swell until the 1920s, when newly installed streetcar lines changed the fabric of the neighborhood, spurring growth of all kinds.

via So You Want to Live in Dorchester – Boston Magazine