The present study is the latest in a series of annual updates of the original report, Changing Patterns: Mortgage Lending in Boston, 1990-1993. Beginning in 1998, the reports’ geographic scope was expanded to include an examination of mortgage lending patterns in 27 cities and towns surrounding the city of Boston. In 2003, the report’s geographic coverage was further expanded to include a total of 108 communities. This year’s report extends coverage to all counties, regional planning areas, and federally-defined metropolitan areas in Massachusetts.
The text that follows this introduction highlights some of the most significant findings that emerge from the extensive set of tables and charts that constitute the bulk of the report. Part I, together with Tables 1–11 and their associated charts, provides an analysis of lending in the city of Boston from 1990 through 2005. This analysis is subdivided into three sections which focus, in turn, on total lending within the city, on lending by major types of lenders, and on lending under targeted mortgage programs.
Part II, together with Tables 12–20, examines detailed information on mortgage lending patterns in 108 individual communities – all 101 cities and towns in the Metropolitan Area Planning Commission (MAPC) Region plus the seven largest Massachusetts cities outside that region. Part III, together with Tables 21-29, presents data on patterns of mortgage lending statewide and in the state’s major subdivisions: fourteen counties, nine metropolitan areas, and thirteen Regional Planning Agency areas. A map showing the MAPC Region and the Boston MSA precedes Table 12. Finally, Part IV briefly examines reasons for mortgage loan denials by race/ethnicity and income, statewide
