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[This Just In]

TAKING STOCK
Vital statistics

BY CHRIS WRIGHT

From the Boston Municipal Research Bureau’s Facts & Figures, 2002 edition:

• The City of Boston’s total population in 2000 was 589,141, an increase of 15,500 residents since 1990. The city’s population is 49.5 percent white, 23.8 percent black/African-American, 14.4 percent Hispanic, 7.5 percent Asian/Pacific Islander, and 0.3 percent Native American.

• The largest private employer in Boston in 2000 was Massachusetts General Hospital, with 14,907 employees. Fidelity Investments was second, with 11,250 employees.

• Boston covers 45.7 square miles. It contains two golf courses, 11 police stations, 19 cemeteries, 21 hospitals, 26 swimming pools, 26 libraries, 34 fire stations, and 60 tennis courts.

• There are 785 miles of roadway in Boston, 39 bridges, 42,329 streetlights, 726 traffic signals, and 4221 public buildings.

• In Boston, 57.9 percent of all property is residential, while 42.1 percent is for commercial use.

• The most valuable building in the city is the Prudential Center, at $607,191,000. South Station is worth $39,575,000.

• Logan Airport has 19 miles of runway and taxiway. The airport served a total of 27.4 million passengers in 2000.

• There are 2200 acres of open space in Boston. In 2002, the city’s Parks and Recreation & Environment departments will receive $14,073,000, eight percent of the total budget.

• In 2001, the Boston Police Department had 3044 employees, 825 of them female. The average salary in this period was $48,408 for males, $40,409 for females.

• The nine employees of the city’s Special Events and Tourism department earned an average of $54,680.

• The governor of Massachusetts earned $135,000 in 2001, up from $90,000 in 1995. In the same period, the mayor’s salary increased from $110,000 to $125,000.

• Of 2931 public-high-school graduates in 2000, 7.6 percent claim "no current activity"; 31.6 percent are in college. Five graduates are employed in agriculture, forestry, and fishing.

• In 2000, there were 1867 building fires in Boston, 599,133 emergency 911 calls, and 7322 violent crimes (down from 13,673 a decade earlier).

• There were 3538 marriages in the city in 1999, and 31 suicides. The year as a whole saw 4491 deaths, 58 of them due to HIV/AIDS, 21 to motor-vehicle accidents, and 1166 to heart disease.

• In 1999, 22,576 babies were born in Boston, 775 to teenage mothers.

Issue Date: January 3 - 10, 2002

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