Boston Impression
So I have moved to Boston for more than a month and have explored different places in town. Boston is somewhat similar to Columbus in the way that both the cities are the capital of the state, respectively. Both have a financial district centered in downtown area, embraced by college campuses, with a river running through it.
However, there are more differences between the two cities than their similarities. The biggest difference Boston has compared to other cities is its non-grid street layout. Many of the nation’s cities use grid street plans. A much older city itself, Boston’s city layout is more complicated. Many streets can be observed on the map as radius of a circle centered at certain historical points. Some roads go above or underneath across others, with lots of tunnels and bridges, making the city a maze which even GPS’ would scratch their heads at.
Boston is not large (not referring to the great Boston area), only one half the size of Columbus. With a population density four times of Columbus’, nevertheless, along with other factors, Boston is truly a metropolis. The bad news is, the living index matches, too. I have been missing food prices from Columbus. $1.90 per gallon milk is normal in Columbus, but in Boston you don’t even get half gallon with that price. I still remember when corn was in season, supermarkets in Columbus sell 12 ears for $2. The price freaked me out in Boston when I arrived in June—with 2 dollars you get only 4 ears of corns. Of course the differences are not always to that extreme as I observed through a longer period, but goods are sold at higher prices in general in Boston.
One more difference I noticed in Boston is a fashion style inherited from the New England origin. This observation is not obvious and hard to illustrate, but I could sense the difference as I walk through crowds in the public. This simple but elegant New England trend adds a perfect blend of the two sides of the city, historic and modern.
But sometimes I miss the days when I can easily locate people in scarlet and gray Ohio State clothing at any corner. When I see anyone wearing an Ohio State T-shirt, I smile.