O’Connor, Thomas H. Building a New Boston: Politics and Urban Renewal 1950 to 1970.

Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1993. The book documents the city’s attempt, led by Mayor John Hynes and John Collins, to regenerate itself by means of its physical redevelopment. In it, O’Connor writes, “No American city had ever committed so much cash to urban renewal at one time. Yet the question, Collins insisted, was not whether Boston could afford to spend the money, but whether it could afford not to.”