South Shore (Massachusetts)
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The South Shore of Massachusetts is a geographic region stretching south and east from Boston along the shore of Massachusetts Bay toward Cape Cod. It includes cities and towns in Norfolk and Plymouth counties.
Composed of a mix of bedroom communities, mid-sized industrial cities and (formerly) rural towns, the South Shore is known for being a popular destination of those who have engaged in white flight from the city of Boston, particularly Irish-Americans. Today, Massachusetts' heaviest concentration of residents descended from Ireland is on the South Shore,[1] and six of the United States' ten most Irish towns are located on the South Shore.[2] For this reason the South Shore is sometimes jocularly known as the "Irish Riviera".
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[edit] Geography
The South Shore Coalition of the Metropolitan Area Planning Council comprises representatives from thirteen communities considered the heart of the South Shore:[3]
Local residents disagree whether the South Shore extends north, south and inland from this core. Some would consider three communities north and northwest of the above list, members of the Boston-centered Inner Core Committee, to be "South Shore": Milton, Quincy and Randolph. Property values of the South Shore are higher than the Boston-centered Inner Core Committee,[citation needed] leading many Randolph residents to define their town as being a south shore member. Rather than arbitrarily assigning a town as a south shore constituent, many Massachusetts residents are calling for the state to define the area by the town's distance from the ocean.[citation needed]
Some towns and cities inland from Pembroke and south of Duxbury are also often included in definitions of the South Shore. These communities, chiefly located in Plymouth County, include:
Some maintain that the South Shore, and the "Irish Riviera," include all or parts of Cape Cod; still others say the Plymouth area is part of Cape Cod, not the South Shore. In some cases, the competing definitions depend on whether Cape Cod Bay is considered to be part of Massachusetts Bay.
The South Shore is distinct from Massachusetts' similarly named South Coast, which is actually the northwest shoreline of Buzzards Bay.
[edit] Education
There are three institutions of higher education on the South Shore. All are in municipalities officially part of the Inner Core Committee rather than the South Shore Coalition, and two are in a city with a seaside location.
- Curry College, a private liberal arts-based college in Milton
- Eastern Nazarene College, a private college of the liberal arts and sciences in the Wollaston Park neighborhood of Quincy
- Quincy College, a two-year community college in the Quincy Center neighborhood of Quincy
[edit] Miscellany
- Many of the place names on the South Shore come from England, hinting at the area's colonial ties to that country. The Pilgrims settled on the South Shore, and Plimoth Plantation, the first permanent European settlement in New England, is located there.
- John Hancock and U.S. Presidents John Adams and John Quincy Adams were from what is now Quincy, as was Abigail Adams and her predecessors from the prominent Quincy family.
- The South Shore gave the world Howard Johnson's (from Wollaston in Quincy) and Dunkin Donuts (also from Quincy), Ocean Spray (from Hanson), and Toll House cookies (from Whitman).
- Route 3, known as the Pilgrim Highway, is a major highway serving the South Shore.
- Most of the members of Aerosmith, including lead singer Steven Tyler, have primary residences in the South Shore.
- Four different The Daily Show cast members have connections to the South Shore. Rob Corddry and younger brother Nate Corddry were born and raised in Weymouth. Nancy Walls is originally from Cohasset, and she with husband Steve Carell live part of the time in Marshfield as of 2006.
- Celtic punk band Dropkick Murphys started in the Wollaston neighborhood of Quincy.
- Kate Bosworth is a notable Cohasset resident.
- Cohasset is home to one of the Kennedy estates. Jerusalem Road in Cohasset is home to some of the "brahmins" of the South Shore.
[edit] See also
[edit] Footnotes
- ^ Schworm, Peter. "Digging Their Celtic Roots." The Boston Globe, June 19, 2005
- ^ ePodunk Irish Index
- ^ "MAPC - South Shore Coalition:". Metropolitan Area Planning Council. http://www.mapc.org/metro_area/ssc.html. Retrieved on 2009-05-17.
