Upon realizing that large chunks of Boston neighborhoods were left unmapped by Google Street View, Bostonist e-mailed Google HQ to find out why. We received a fairly standard response that the neglected areas would be mapped soon:

We generally start collecting imagery at the metropolitan center (in this case Boston) and move out from there, which explains why the more outlying areas you mentioned are not covered in as much detail. However, we plan on making Street View more comprehensive as time goes on and will be adding Street View imagery for new cities on an ongoing basis.

Uh, it's not like Dorchester is that far from the city center. But the Google rep said that new Street View zones would be announced on the Google Lat Long blog.

So Bostonist took a Google Street View trip to the intersection of Blue Hill and Columbia Road. There's not much mapped there, but we took a shot of the intersection and a sign of the Franklin Park Zoo. Note that the Google Street View team seemed to have missed a spot. If you rotate yourself at the intersection of Blue Hill and Columbia, much of it turns into a smudge:

That might be something Google Street View should consider on its next trip through the city.

Image from Google Street View.