Springfield #41 deadliest city. (Boston, Chicopee, Weymouth: tax, to live in, prices)

[mdovell]

Hardly cherry picking. First you guys said Weymouth is an outlier. Now it's Pembroke and Rockland. No one else here is looking at the actual Town reports for the census information.

One year of growth or shrinking isn't enough but when you have a lost decade it starts to hurt. You have to look at longer term tends as that's how business decisions are made. in many respects with retail looks odd is what they call comp. That means did you do more in one. Of time for another. Of time and that becomes much harder to do if you got a shrinking population. This is why I seeing retail especially in the malls pulling out a suburban area..

On Weymouth the decline and bounce doesn't really bring it back.

In 1980 it was at 55,601
2018 estimate is 57,719
2118 people in a 38 year span is 55 people a year or 3.8%

3.8% might be good for a year or five but not 38.


There are many people of color that argue if they can't see it then they can't be it. So even if you try to make the argument for suburbs being diverseyou have to ask yourself how many local boards and commissions are made up of people of color? How many teachers? How many department heads? How many business members are Chamber of Commerce? If they don't really see it then they don't really believe it's diverse.

you can try to say there's diversity but until you actually back your statistics up with some actual Source then it's just one opinion versus another as there's no data. there can be the potential in the next census is I don't think a local census especially counts anything of demographics other than the actual the raw number. The federal census gets much more detailed.

[massnative71]

Originally Posted by mdovell

Hardly cherry picking. First you guys said Weymouth is an outlier. Now it's Pembroke and Rockland. No one else here is looking at the actual Town reports for the census information.



One year of growth or shrinking isn't enough but when you have a lost decade it starts to hurt. You have to look at longer term tends as that's how business decisions are made. in many respects with retail looks odd is what they call comp. That means did you do more in one. Of time for another. Of time and that becomes much harder to do if you got a shrinking population. This is why I seeing retail especially in the malls pulling out a suburban area..



On Weymouth the decline and bounce doesn't really bring it back.



In 1980 it was at 55,601

2018 estimate is 57,719

2118 people in a 38 year span is 55 people a year or 3.8%



3.8% might be good for a year or five but not 38.





There are many people of color that argue if they can't see it then they can't be it. So even if you try to make the argument for suburbs being diverseyou have to ask yourself how many local boards and commissions are made up of people of color? How many teachers? How many department heads? How many business members are Chamber of Commerce? If they don't really see it then they don't really believe it's diverse.



you can try to say there's diversity but until you actually back your statistics up with some actual Source then it's just one opinion versus another as there's no data. there can be the potential in the next census is I don't think a local census especially counts anything of demographics other than the actual the raw number. The federal census gets much more detailed.

I can play this game too!


Springfield 1960 population: 174,463
Springfield 1970 population: 163,905
Springfield 1980 population: 152,319
Springfield 20187 estimate: 153,060


That's a gain of 2,713 from 1980. Springfield grew at a rate of 1.8% over that 38 years while Weymouth grew 3.8%. If you go back to 1970, or 1960...it gets much bleaker. If Weymouth is "dying", then what does that say for Springfield...


I never said Weymouth is an outlier. It's growing just like all Boston suburbs are, and at a much faster rate than Springfield (like at 7X the rate since 2010). How's that Eastfield Mall doing btw?




Here are the diversity stats for all of Norfolk County. Pretty much tracks state patterns:


http://www.city-data.com/county/Norfolk_County-MA.html


White 80.5%
Asian 11.6%
Black 7.3%
Hispanic or Latino 5.9%
Some or other race 0.9%

[GeoffD]

Originally Posted by mdovell

Cities are where most people live. Those that live in suburbs and rural areas are a minority in this country.

Diversity helps with marketing as frankly younger people are more diverse.

If suburbs were attractive they'd still be growing. Lower birth rates and a federal clampdown on immigration are going to continue to shrink towns.

Dead wrong like usual. 52% of the country lives in suburbs. 27 percent urban. 21% rural.

[GeoffD]

Originally Posted by massnative71

Towns like Hanover, Duxbury, and East Longmeadow "working class"??? Who would have known...

GMAFB. Pull up The NY Times 2016 election results for Massachusetts broken out by town. The coastal South Shore towns have the high percentage of college educated and voted Hillary. Go west of Route 3 and it’s Trump country. The same is true for the working class flight towns in Springfield. Agawam, for instance.

[massnative71]

Originally Posted by GeoffD

GMAFB. Pull up The NY Times 2016 election results for Massachusetts broken out by town. The coastal South Shore towns have the high percentage of college educated and voted Hillary. Go west of Route 3 and it’s Trump country. The same is true for the working class flight towns in Springfield. Agawam, for instance.

First time I ever heard Hanover or the Silver Lake towns (well OK MAYBE Hanson) described as "working class". That designation would go to Rockland, Weymouth, Hull...all of which voted Hillary. Don't know much about the Springfield suburbs, just that places like East Longmeadow and Southwick are both considered some of the "nicer ones" and both went Trump. Top of the line Longmeadow went Hillary, all the sketchier places (Springfield, Chicopee, Holyoke...) were for Hillary as well. I think vocation and industry has more to do with voting behavior than wealth levels or economic "class". That pattern is repeated everywhere.

[in_newengland]

Originally Posted by massnative71

First time I ever heard Hanover or the Silver Lake towns (well OK MAYBE Hanson) described as "working class". That designation would go to Rockland, Weymouth, Hull...all of which voted Hillary. Don't know much about the Springfield suburbs, just that places like East Longmeadow and Southwick are both considered some of the "nicer ones" and both went Trump. Top of the line Longmeadow went Hillary, all the sketchier places (Springfield, Chicopee, Holyoke...) were for Hillary as well. I think vocation and industry has more to do with voting behavior than wealth levels or economic "class". That pattern is repeated everywhere.

I have nothing to contribute ever since I was wrongly accused of being "racist" a while back, but this is interesting information to me. I didn't know that E. Longmeadow and Southwick went for Trump. And Spfld, Chicopee, and Holyoke went for Hillary, which makes sense. (Trying to figure out what the reasons would be for E. Longmeadow and Southwick to go Trump.) Although, historically, E. Longmeadow was blue collar with factories and on the outskirts, there were farms. (Gone now and replaced with condos and newer homes.)

Maybe some of that lost past lingers on, especially among older people. Southwick is rural--I can understand the Trumpism there. You could be right about that, massnative, that vocation and industry has more to do with voting behavior than wealth or economic "class."

And, at the risk of being called "racist" again, maybe that could further be broken down according to race, religion, and ethnic groups, education too. Longmeadow and E. Longmeadow are historically as different as chalk and cheese. Longmeadow was settled early and still has some "old" money/families who came on the Mayflower, whose roots in town go back to colonial days. They resented the "new" money that, well, let's just say there's an olde Longmeadow Country Club and a newer one that was just referred to as the Jewish Country Club!

The town also has a Catholic school. Longmeadow has always had strict zoning laws against businesses. Most of it is zoned residential only. Almost everyone there is well educated. There is a lot of wealth. But East Longmeadow has come a long way educationally and economically. I think I can understand Longmeadow voting blue--education, wealth-professionals, and the fact that Jewish people tend to vote blue. I can't quite grasp E. Longmeadow though, except for its working class past.

Sorry to ramble on, but I like to analyze things. Back to Springfield, I don't even know the demographics there now, probably mainly black though. When I left, as a little kid, in Dinosaur Days it was white and later I remember people complaining about Puerto Ricans. My last memory of Springfield was of a troupe of scantily dressed prostitutes running up to our car as we transported my elderly inlaws home from Christmas dinner at Storrowton in mid afternoon. The prostitutes were hanging out shamelessly and freely in the middle of Main St and they were white. This was over 20 years ago and I have never gone back. My impression is of that kind of trashiness --that's what comes to mind now when I think of Springfield.

^^^I don't think I'm a prude. Do most people really want to see that sort of thing on Christmas Day (or any day) in the middle of the main st of their city or town? In the same place where there used to be respectable department stores, restaurants, and businesses? And no police in sight? Yes, it had come to that!

[tovarisch]

I did not accuse any individuals of being racist (certainly not you, in_newengland, or you, massnative71), I made a GENERAL, non-personal statement that some who dislike Springfield MAY have some racism going on. I stand by that, but I don't feel like it's then fair to attack ME personally. Maybe they don't have any racism. I just think it's always valuable to look within, and see if any bigotry is there, for any reason. It's hard to be completely free of it, since it has such a long history in the U.S.

[tovarisch]

Just an FYI: according to Wikipedia, which uses census figures, Springfield is currently 51% white, 22% Black/African/American, 38% Hispanic/Latino, and a lot of other races and ethnicities. Obviously there's a bit of overlap there. But, again, I spend a lot of time there (in fact, I'm there right now). It's an interesting place to be, and there's some optimism in the air.

[mdovell]

Originally Posted by GeoffD

Dead wrong like usual. 52% of the country lives in suburbs. 27 percent urban. 21% rural.

U.S. Cities Factsheet | Center for Sustainable Systems
United Nations (UN) Population Division (2018) World Urbanization Prospects: The 2018 Revision.
"Approximately 84% of the U.S. population lives in urban areas, up from 64% in 1950. By 2050, 89% of the U.S. population and 68% of the world population is projected to live in urban areas"

https://www.census.gov/newsroom/pres...5/cb15-33.html
"U.S. Cities are Home to 62.7 Percent of the U.S. Population, but Comprise Just 3.5 Percent of Land Area"

Rural areas are dying off I think we can all agree on that. Population is centered around cities.

Back to Springfield unlike many other gateway cities the population drop was nearly as high. Suburbs generally are supposed to grow because single family homes are for families. Cities have more jobs and when employers, leave prices drop and then people leave.

[massnative71]

Originally Posted by tovarisch

I did not accuse any individuals of being racist (certainly not you, in_newengland, or you, massnative71), I made a GENERAL, non-personal statement that some who dislike Springfield MAY have some racism going on. I stand by that, but I don't feel like it's then fair to attack ME personally. Maybe they don't have any racism. I just think it's always valuable to look within, and see if any bigotry is there, for any reason. It's hard to be completely free of it, since it has such a long history in the U.S.

You phrased it as "It's hard not to see hidden racism in some of the comments that criticize Springfield". What exact "comments" were you referring to??? In context at least, one would assume that you meant stuff posted in this very thread (not that there was really much "criticizing" beyond posting some less than flattering statistics). As you can see, it wasn't just one poster who interpreted it that way. One must be careful in this world when directing such accusations as they do have consequences, so you have to excuse those of us who might gotten a little overly defensive.