Any towns in Massachusetts that are lagging economically? (Boston, Worcester: how much, motels)

[intheweeds]

Originally Posted by timberline742

I kind of want to visit Southbridge after that post just to see it.


Edit: Stupid me, I just did go there for a memorial service of someone killed in a car wreck. Yeah, it didn't look amazing.

Sorry for the reason you were there . . .

It is a slice of life here, without question. All day every day. Years ago I had a good job in a bad section of Springfield - we saw lots of stuff but even the most, er, colorful characters seemed to take time off to sleep or watch tv or pass out on fire escape landings. Here in little Southbridge, nay, we shall rabblerouse 24/7/365.

[GeoffD]

Originally Posted by massnative71

That 30% actually isn't too bad, it's higher than some major cities like Philadelphia and San Antonio. Among it's peers, it's comparable to Providence and Syracuse. MILES ahead of Springfield, Hartford, Rochester, NY.

Not really.


Metro-Philly is enormous. It has rail infrastructure that is better than Boston. Outside of Center City, Philadelphia is a slum and you have millions of poor people skewing the numbers for the MSA. You have affluent white collar people living in the city core and some urban pioneers in the trendy Bohemian parts of the city but most people working in the office towers commute in by train or subway. You also have an Ivy and Drexel just west of Center City providing another vital neighborhood and an enormous gentrification push to the west of Penn. I was working there a year ago sleeping 3 midweek nights in Rittenhouse. Philly is 1.5 million and the metro is 6 million. Boston metro is 4.6 million. Boston doesn't have the extra 1.5 million poor people.



Metro Hartford blows away Worcester or Springfield in terms of the metro area economy. The city core is a thriving white collar jobs mecca and the metro area is one of the most prosperous in the country. Hartford is a failed city and nobody with any kind of job skills lives there beyond 5,000 childless people in the core city. 120K poor people in an MSA of 1.2 million. Using the 2010 census data, the Hartford MSA ranks #8 in the country for per-capita income. Boston is #5. You go across the line to West Hartford and it's an affluent white collar Newton-like city-suburb. Go a town farther west to Farmington, Avon, and Simsbury and it's extremely white collar professional suburban. Metro Hartford has hundreds of thousands of high paying jobs. Worcester doesn't. Springfield certainly doesn't. If you're sitting in Westboro, 495 is where you work. "City" is Boston. The problem with Hartford is the metro area is only 1.2 million. With NYC on one side and Boston on the other, it doesn't have the population base to ever be "NFL city" and the Ivy is 40 miles away in New Haven.


Worcester is certainly doing better and is seeing commercial office space interest as commercial rents and residential housing costs soar to the east. With the train and the Pike, it's connected enough to Boston to be viable. Way different from New Bedford and Fall River where the awful transportation infrastructure completely removes them from the Boston job market unless you're doing extreme commuting. With New Bedford and Fall River, you'd have to add sub-60 minute rail to Back Bay & South Station and fix at least Route 24 so you can get as far as 128 before you hit the absurd traffic jam.

[timberline742]

Bring back the Whalers.

[GeoffD]

Originally Posted by timberline742

Bring back the Whalers.

A 1.2 million MSA isn't big enough to support a pro sports team. You don't get the cable TV revenue to support a competitive payroll.

[timberline742]

I know... well, except Green Bay, but that's a different animal.

[BostonBornMassMade]

Originally Posted by life4orce

Randolph isn't in as bad shape as others, but for it's location, values really should be a lot higher than it is. It's right where 24/93/128 all meet, so you'd think the access would be great for businesses. Probably comes down to it's poor school system.

You could probably say the same about Stoughton, Avon, Holbrook too.

These towns got lots of cast off from Boston. Randolph being the first in the 80s and early 90s. The Metor South Area was inundated with a stream of lower income individuals as gentrification began in Boston in the late 80s. The pace of that receivership has only picked up thus a bunch of services and business catering to the lower middle class opened up. The meh schools, lower income demographic-buss connections to Dorchester and Mattapan and physical/social connection to the less glamorous Southern boston in general has made it an area that doesn’t have the most skilled workers, nor does it have urbanity, and al the major economic acticivity is in Boston because it’s so close. Avon is worse than Stoughton or Randolph if you ask me. 1/2 strips in Avon has so much “auto repair” and auto junk it comes off as a junkyard. The housing stock is also very small and very old. Add to this a concentration of African Americans and it’s not the most attractive place for out of town ers-the want to live “in Boston” meaning the collegiate areas of Northern Boston or inner metro west/Cambridge/Medford with the tech bros, or in Southie/North Dorchester with the finance bros where maybe if they’re luck they’ll run into Marky Mark!!

Those towns although close to Boston simply don’t have the draw to outsiders to drive up the real estate values or property tax revenue. They never have.

[tovarisch]

I heard a big news report this AM on the apparent downtown renaissance that Worcester is experiencing. There are winners and losers, of course, but it sounds like it's booming in some ways.

[Shrewsburried]

Originally Posted by GeoffD

Worcester is certainly doing better and is seeing commercial office space interest as commercial rents and residential housing costs soar to the east. With the train and the Pike, it's connected enough to Boston to be viable. Way different from New Bedford and Fall River where the awful transportation infrastructure completely removes them from the Boston job market unless you're doing extreme commuting. With New Bedford and Fall River, you'd have to add sub-60 minute rail to Back Bay & South Station and fix at least Route 24 so you can get as far as 128 before you hit the absurd traffic jam.

You seem to be willing ignoring the significant advantage Worcester has over other former MA manufacturing cities - higher ed density. It may not have an IVY, but it does have a number of universities including WPI, Holy Cross, Clark, and U-Mass Med.

Worcester, unlike a New Bedford or Lawrence, already has a critical mass of educated people coming to the city for employment or education. The key for Worcester is to curate an environment to retain these people and not lose them to Boston or other more robust metros. It's still a problem, but a better problem to have than convincing them to come in the first place.

[Shrewsburried]

Originally Posted by tovarisch

I heard a big news report this AM on the apparent downtown renaissance that Worcester is experiencing. There are winners and losers, of course, but it sounds like it's booming in some ways.

The restaurant scene certainly is. Growing up in Shrewsbury, we'd dine in Worcester, but always head east (greater Boston) or south (Prov) for more formal/fine dining occasions. Now I have friends voluntarily driving out to Worcester as they're plenty happy with the dining/bar options.

[mdovell]

Originally Posted by GeoffD

Not really.


Metro-Philly is enormous. It has rail infrastructure that is better than Boston. Outside of Center City, Philadelphia is a slum and you have millions of poor people skewing the numbers for the MSA. You have affluent white collar people living in the city core and some urban pioneers in the trendy Bohemian parts of the city but most people working in the office towers commute in by train or subway. You also have an Ivy and Drexel just west of Center City providing another vital neighborhood and an enormous gentrification push to the west of Penn. I was working there a year ago sleeping 3 midweek nights in Rittenhouse. Philly is 1.5 million and the metro is 6 million. Boston metro is 4.6 million. Boston doesn't have the extra 1.5 million poor people.



Metro Hartford blows away Worcester or Springfield in terms of the metro area economy. The city core is a thriving white collar jobs mecca and the metro area is one of the most prosperous in the country. Hartford is a failed city and nobody with any kind of job skills lives there beyond 5,000 childless people in the core city. 120K poor people in an MSA of 1.2 million. Using the 2010 census data, the Hartford MSA ranks #8 in the country for per-capita income. Boston is #5. You go across the line to West Hartford and it's an affluent white collar Newton-like city-suburb. Go a town farther west to Farmington, Avon, and Simsbury and it's extremely white collar professional suburban. Metro Hartford has hundreds of thousands of high paying jobs. Worcester doesn't. Springfield certainly doesn't. If you're sitting in Westboro, 495 is where you work. "City" is Boston. The problem with Hartford is the metro area is only 1.2 million. With NYC on one side and Boston on the other, it doesn't have the population base to ever be "NFL city" and the Ivy is 40 miles away in New Haven.


Worcester is certainly doing better and is seeing commercial office space interest as commercial rents and residential housing costs soar to the east. With the train and the Pike, it's connected enough to Boston to be viable. Way different from New Bedford and Fall River where the awful transportation infrastructure completely removes them from the Boston job market unless you're doing extreme commuting. With New Bedford and Fall River, you'd have to add sub-60 minute rail to Back Bay & South Station and fix at least Route 24 so you can get as far as 128 before you hit the absurd traffic jam.

The rail in Philly can be argued to be better in terms of what's built. However SEPTA tends to go on strike every other year. Say what you will about the MBTA but I don't think they had a strike since '82. Correct me if I'm wrong and maybe I am. Then again I heard arguments that Philly is the largest city that if it went away few people would miss it. I've been there a bit. I didn't think it was bad technically but yes the slum part can be a bit intimidating..then we saw the massive GENO'S sign.

Hartford with jobs? West Harford sure that's affluent but then again not everything is owned locally. They might have jobs but frankly they don't have people that want to stay. I attended my undergrad with a woman that left..she's now in London and goes to the west bank for conferences (huh?). CT as a state is odd. Civil service jobs are often regulated for registered party members, there's no prop 2 1/2, no chapter 70, no chapter 90 etc. They are 50 years behind mass in affordable housing law, 30 years behind mass in procurement law, 25 years behind mass in terms of public school reform etc. Hartford will gain population as the foundation issue keeps crumbling.

You have to also remember that Springfield, Hartford and New Haven are connected with the CT rail. The idea that everyone works locally doesn't really work. I took it recently to new haven (amtrak ones are better (wifi, better bathrooms, lights, leather seats etc) Make no mistakes Hartford needs more people to come back to work which is why that tunnel project to connect long island to CT I thought was a great idea but it would be the largest construction project in US history and was cancelled. Transit is the most efficient long term way to get more employees rather than sponsoring visas and changing work requirements.

Also keep in mind that Mass Mutual is pulling out of Enfiled, Aetna is merging with CVS and insurance jobs themselves along with finance are slated to be automated. Groton is doing fine with submarines. In sourcing can be better for manufacturing. If Mass can get CRRC I think CT could try to get something similar. Most US buses tend to be by Gillig which is based in SF. Having a new bus factory could be huge.