Is the Boston area beginning to sprawl? (Worcester, Lowell: living in, stores)

[Parsec]

Originally Posted by Steephill2

how diversified is industry in cambridge? it is mostly biotech? wonder how much the values in surrounding communities are affected by growth in biotech. and what are chances of downturn there?

Not very diverse from what I can tell. Cambridge is Route 128 circa 1987. What goes up must come down (but eventually back up).

[lrfox]

I think that as the city and metro area grows, you'll continue to see development in the suburbs and in the city. Don't forget, Boston is undergoing it's largest building boom in decades (including the two tallest towers built since the Hancock was constructed).

Boston isn't and never will be New York City. Everything that happens here will happen on a much smaller scale.

That being said, I do think you'll see some urban investment in places like Worcester, Lowell, Quincy and others (Providence is probably the most obvious one). Not entirely because people are priced out of metro Boston (though that's part of it), but because the region as a whole is growing and there is a shift- especially among young adults- toward preferring walkable, transit connected urban centers full of amenities and relying less on cars.

In the case of New York, many corporations found it far less expensive to locate in places like Jersey City or Stamford. I don't think that Boston is all the way there yet. There's still a lot of room for corporate growth in Boston. It's also not as expensive. Much of the growth you will see (in fact, most of the growth we have seen) in places like Lowell and Providence will continue to be residential as these cities provide more affordable urban living environments as alternatives to Boston.

[Whatsnext75]

I just don't see it happening in Quincy. If people get priced out of Boston i think they'd be likely to go to parts of Dorchester before going to Quincy. If they are going to leave Boston entirely they would just go to a suburb south of city rather than Quincy. People say oh but Quincy has the T. Quincy has had the T for decades, that's nothing new. I also think quincy tried with Marina Bay and building luxury condos there.

[CaseyB]

Originally Posted by Whatsnext75

If people get priced out of Boston i think they'd be likely to go to parts of Dorchester before going to Quincy.

Huh?

[missionhill]

I guess people differ on what sprawl really means but I see plenty of sprawl already. I think Sam Bass Warner made that point back in 1961 with "Streetcar Suburbs" saying all that 1880-1920 development in Roxbury and Dorchester and areas like them was essentially suburban. Boston could have continued to grow in dense blocks as it did with Back Bay and the South End but the streetcar technology enabled it to grow instead in a suburban pattern (although no one today thinks of Dorchester or Somerville as suburban.) Once the car got into the act the suburbs spread and thinned out for miles, engulfing many old farming towns and industrial cities. Sudbury is a good example--houses on very large lots spreading for miles all over town. Each one of them generates numerous car trips every day and from none can a person walk to any practical destination like work or a store or even to a railway station. If that's not sprawl then what is?

Of course it's a really pejorative term, "sprawl". It's pretty much how people want to live; we like our large lots and countrified atmosphere. It's not so bad but it generates an awful lot of traffic. Also the land and climate we have around here make sprawl easier to produce. People live on tiny lots in the Bay Area, for example, even in expensive suburbs, because there's only so much buildable land.

To lrfox's post I'd add that all the Route 128 development that occurred beginning in the '50s right after the highway was built was a dramatic case of sprawl in the electronics manufacturing sector. NYC isn't really very different; there too the suburban and exurban development extends far beyond the city limits and despite the huge railway infrastructure to get people in and out of Manhattan the metro area is saturated in traffic.

Nothing new about sprawl and nothing intrinsically wrong with it. I hate the kind of sprawl that saps the commercial life and energy from once bustling cities like Springfield and Holyoke but in the case of Boston, already bursting at the seams, distributing employment and housing around eastern Mass sounds sensible.

[Whatsnext75]

Originally Posted by CaseyB

Huh?

Say what you want but many parts of Dorchester are hipper and nicer than Quincy-Lower Mills, Ashmont, Cedar grove area. Families might go to Quincy because they are scared of Dorchester's rep but not single people. I would hate to have a family in quincy but that's just me. Blah quincy.

[CaseyB]

No, I wrote that because last time I checked - Dorchester IS Boston.

[Whatsnext75]

Originally Posted by CaseyB

No, I wrote that because last time I checked - Dorchester IS Boston.

I'm talking about people getting priced out of places like back bay, south end, north end, beacon hill. I don't see those folks going to quincy if they were priced out of those areas. I could maybe see them going to savin hill or the lower mills area. Now if someone gets priced of dorchester, then maybe quincy would be an option. I know a few people in that boat and i was surprised. Outbid on many homes in dorchester so they ended up in quincy.

[timberline742]

Originally Posted by sparklingforest

compared to boston, yes.

Jesus christ

[masshawk]

Originally Posted by missionhill

If that's not sprawl then what is?

I dunno, "sprawl" has a connotation of urban growth and same-ness to me. Solid development with no breaks in between. If you look at the LA metro area in Google Maps satellite view, it's one nearly continuous block of gray-brown from Santa Monica to San Bernadino. Concrete and subdivided housing tracts all the way through. Same with Houston and San Antonio. Whereas Sudbury and most areas outside 128 are way too leafy for me to consider them part of Boston's sprawl. I mean, there are still actual farms there.

If the corridor from Waltham/Newton to Worcester started really filling in, the green areas shrank dramatically, and you couldn't tell Southborough from Framingham from Wellesley, that's when I'd say we'd hit sprawl. The strip between Medford and Lowell is starting to inch that way it seems, just because those towns are less allergic to development than most of Metrowest. But right now I'd say Worcester, Boston, and Lowell are definitely still discrete and distinct metro areas.