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Passage 1 The changing profile of a city in the United States is apparent in the shifting definitions used by the United States Bureau of the Census. In 1870 the census officially distinguished the nation’s "urban" from its "rural" population for the first time. "Urban population" was defined as persons living in towns of 8,000 inhabitants or more. But after 1900 it meant persons living in incorporated places having 2,500 or more inhabitants. Then, in 1950 the Census Bureau radically changed its definition of "urban" to take account of the new vagueness of city boundaries. In addition to persons living in incorporated units of 2,500 or more, the census now included those who lived in unincorporated units of that size, and also all persons living in the densely settled urban fringe, including both incorporated and unincorporated areas located around cities of 50,000 inhabitants or more. Each such unit, conceived as an integrated economic and social unit with a large population nucleus, was named a Standard Metropolitan Statistical Area (SMSA). Each SMSA would contain at least (a) one central city with 50,000 inhabitants or more or (b) two cities having shared boundaries and constituting, for general economic and social purposes, a single community with a combined population of at least 50,000, the smaller of which must have a population of at least 15,000. Such an area included the county in which the central city is located, and adjacent counties that are found to be metropolitan in character and economically and socially integrated with the county of the central city. By 1970, about two-third of the population of the United States was living in these urbanized areas, and of that figure more than half were living outside the central cities. With the Census Bureau and the United States government used the term SMSA (by 1969 there were 233 of them), social scientists were also using new terms to describe the elusive, vaguely defined areas reaching out from what used to be simple "towns" and "cities". A host of terms came into use: "metropolitan regions", "polynucleared population groups", "metropolitan clusters", and so on. What does the passage mainly discuss
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Passage 2 Boston is a tiny place. Even when inner urban suburbs such as Cambridge, Brookline, Somerville, and Chelsea are included, Greater Boston is still unusually small in scale for a major population center. That gives Boston much of its special flavor. Unfortunately, during times of great prosperity it also creates special challenges. Perhaps the most pressing of these challenges is housing. As the Phoenix’s special package on housing shows, the apartment shortage in Greater Boston has reached crisis proportions. Since the mid 1990s, rents have gone up by 50 percent or more in some neighborhoods. And even at these grossly inflated prices, apartments are still nearly impossible to come by. Nevertheless, some modest steps can be taken. It’s the old not-in-my-backyard syndrome: everyone knows there’s a housing shortage, but no one wants to see new housing come into his or her own neighborhood. Such opposition can be eased by involving local residents in planning for new housing. The lesson is that bottom-up solutions invariably work better than top-down edicts. Boston University, Boston College, Northeastern University, and MIT have taken major steps toward building housing for their students on their own campuses. During the 1960s and 70s, student housing spread into neighborhoods such as the Fenway (near Northeastern) and Audubon Circle (near BU). Students kept such neighborhoods alive during those difficult years. But as neighborhoods become able to "thrive on their own" , universities should be encouraged, wherever possible, to pull back, thus opening up neighborhood housing to long-term residents. In his State of the City address in January, Mayor Tom Menino identified the housing crisis as his number-one priority, and named a respected legislator, Charlotte Richie, as his housing czar. In a recently published interview, Boston Redevelopment Authority head Tom O’ Brien spoke of the need to preserve the diversity of Boston’s neighborhoods, and identified the city’s residential character as one of its saving graces. Yet the city has been missing in action. At the very least. Menino should make a concerted effort to ease the housing shortage in neighborhoods where the problem is particularly acute. More important, Menino has to realize that he cannot deal with housing as an "in box" mayor, taking on an issue here, an issue there as they come up. He should work with officials in surrounding communities and convene a housing summit to consider a wide range of ideas. The author’s suggestion to the Mayor is ______.
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