Is it time to just give up on Boston?

[Lampert]

Originally Posted by GeoffD

There’s no question about this but you can’t lose touch of the reality that it’s the public sector propping up a part of the state that barely has an economic pulse. You can say the same about state money that has poured into New Bedford and Fall River. The title of this thread is “Is it time to give up on Boston?”
It’s a laughable notion because the vibrant economy of metro Boston props up the rest of the state. If you don’t have a job skill that pays in flyover country like licensed healthcare or education or public safety, there aren’t many job opportunities outside of the metro Boston area. Housing costs have made the region problematic for the middle class.

I agree with all of this, I was just adding my 2 cents.

[mdovell]

Generally it depends what you're doing though. You don't find a whole lot of manufacturing in Easton massachusetts. The reason being is the land price of so much higher it only makes sense develop them for housing. When you've got high population to begin with adding housing is simply a no-brainer at least in the short term. The problem in the long term though is that if it becomes a factor in that everything has to be imported.

Massachusetts at least had the ability to allow for a variety of urban areas throughout the state. Each one of them had their own specialization. The trouble is when those Industries declined it led to poverty. Which is why you need to allow them to redevelop.

The Government Can prop up certain areas but it also comes with a price. Government offices are not taxable and in many respects it adds up considerably especially in big college communities. I can still make an argument that we do see eastern Mass rely on a fair amount of Western Mass and Western new england. If it didn't need other communities the Mass Pike wouldn't really exist and then the Amtrak Northeast Corridor wouldn't exist. New England ISO is located in Holyoke, the biggest college campus for public Institution is UMass Amherst and the biggest festivals The Big E. If you don't have space for things a lot of these communities will become nothing more than houses with very little distinguishing one Community from another. What's the difference between Abington and rockland? What's the difference between Scituate and Cohasset? Many communities plow money into public education and there's nothing wrong with that especially in the 128th belt. However as time goes on if the population drops it's just not doing as much as what you think. And even then you can make the argument that again the government is propping places up but it's in the 128 belt. How many parents will be able to further afford a private education in the 128 belt if all those gold plated districts were to suddenly go away? School districts are government.

[GeoffD]

Originally Posted by mdovell

Generally it depends what you're doing though. You don't find a whole lot of manufacturing in Easton massachusetts. The reason being is the land price of so much higher it only makes sense develop them for housing. When you've got high population to begin with adding housing is simply a no-brainer at least in the short term. The problem in the long term though is that if it becomes a factor in that everything has to be imported.

Massachusetts at least had the ability to allow for a variety of urban areas throughout the state. Each one of them had their own specialization. The trouble is when those Industries declined it led to poverty. Which is why you need to allow them to redevelop.

The Government Can prop up certain areas but it also comes with a price. Government offices are not taxable and in many respects it adds up considerably especially in big college communities. I can still make an argument that we do see eastern Mass rely on a fair amount of Western Mass and Western new england. If it didn't need other communities the Mass Pike wouldn't really exist and then the Amtrak Northeast Corridor wouldn't exist. New England ISO is located in Holyoke, the biggest college campus for public Institution is UMass Amherst and the biggest festivals The Big E. If you don't have space for things a lot of these communities will become nothing more than houses with very little distinguishing one Community from another. What's the difference between Abington and rockland? What's the difference between Scituate and Cohasset? Many communities plow money into public education and there's nothing wrong with that especially in the 128th belt. However as time goes on if the population drops it's just not doing as much as what you think. And even then you can make the argument that again the government is propping places up but it's in the 128 belt. How many parents will be able to further afford a private education in the 128 belt if all those gold plated districts were to suddenly go away? School districts are government.

This is absurd. Metro Boston is an extremely high value add economy. The per capita GDP dwarfs western Massachusetts. People are much more highly compensated because they add so much profit for their employers. You don’t put a widget factory with low skill $15/hour repetitive task factory workers and 10% gross profit margin in metro Boston. $15/hour isn’t a living wage and those people can’t afford housing. Those jobs are pushed to Asia where they pay $8.00/hour, not Springfield where the minimum wage is $15. Boston is globally competitive. Springfield isn’t so Springfield circles the drain.

I still don’t get referencing the Big E. That’s a 2 week state fair in the fall. That doesn’t drive the local economy. It’s an easy day trip for 10 million people. It’s not like those 10 million people would otherwise consider going to Springfield for anything. The Basketball Hall of Fame only does 200,000. The casino has lots of competition. Tourism isn’t going to save Springfield. The local labor force has such low job skills that employers won’t locate there. It has no competitive advantage.

We’re off to Tanglewood this afternoon to hear Yo-Yo Ma and Emanuel Ax performing with the BSO. We were there for opening night with Juja Wang doing her thing and then Stravinsky Rite of Spring. We have no plan to stop in Springfield.

[mdovell]

Right but apparently you didn't read the Massachusetts taxpayer Foundation article.

https://www.masstaxpayers.org/heedin..._tid_depth=All
"The bottom line: High costs pose a much bigger threat to Massachusetts now than they did before COVID-19 changed the way companies and their employees think about remote work. The Taxpayers Foundation report cites particular concerns with an outmigration of talent that is already underway, an exodus that the report links to the high cost of housing and other living expenses. The report seeks to puncture what it calls “a belief in Massachusetts exceptionalism,” that this state will always be home to the best and brightest."

But hey Boston special right it's always a little different
" People and companies have far more flexibility with where they can be located, the report argues, and Massachusetts policymakers need to confront this new reality.

The report pulls from a variety of sources, pointing to home prices in Massachusetts that rank third in the US behind Hawaii and California, and rents in Greater Boston that are among the nation’s highest. It also highlights Census data showing that Massachusetts lost residents to other states during the height of the pandemic in 2020 and early 2021, and that Boston was among several high-cost cities whose population shrank during that time."

I'm not saying that things would move to Springfield but you can't ignore the fact that 900,000 people left their jobs in the state.

You cannot use GDP as a barometer of economic growth as frankly not everything translates into an end product that is used. I hear the same arguments about Connecticut and it's mostly defense contractors that prop that up. Military spending is government spending by the way so you can't point at Raytheon jobs as a form of GDP. If the defense industry was actively making things like cars and trucks and public Vehicles like fire trucks and buses then I could see the argument. What do you call a place that doesn't make what they really need and exports everything? A colony

[bostongymjunkie]

I thought this thread to be an appropriate place for this article. We elect such great leaders here in Boston nowadays. Never give up on Boston. LOL
https://www.boston.com/news/local-ne...p_featurestack


The truly pathetic part is that there will be suck-up political cronies of these people defending this.