The Mass. economy shrinks, the nations expands, and the Feds cut rates

[BostonBornMassMade]

Originally Posted by simplexsimon

I consider myself pretty well traveled. Please provide examples. Are you talking about cities in the U.S.? How do they compare to Boston in an economic sense?

Again, I'm using Boston because it's local and people know it. Do you consider Boston the worst city out of say, SF/LA/DC/Seattle/NYC? Cities that have plateaued and have very high median incomes.

DC is stil very much growing. Its been growing faster than Boston this entire decade and ill lkely continue to do so-its more affordable with a higher median income.

Its suburbs are much more affordable and far less NIMBY because there are only county governments and no town governments. They practically beg for more residential development. There is also lots of flat undeveloped land in the DMV. Their rapid transit goes about 20 miles out from the downtown core.

Seattle is also still growing rapidly.

[Shrewsburried]

Originally Posted by BostonBornMassMade

They practically beg for more residential development. There is also lots of flat undeveloped land in the DMV.

This sub has been kicking this dead horse for sometime, but developable land is a significant issue in eastern MA ... there just isn't a lot of it. Sure, we can build more density, but generally speaking, people move to the 'burbs to have those .5+ acre lots and distant neighbors.

There is very little appreciation for the percentage of land which simply isn't developable, or at least not easily. I live in Sterling which, despite proximity to multiple urban areas, remains rather rural in feel and was only developed en masse during the late '80's. But here's the reality of land in town: only the operational farms have land worth a damn (cleared, leveled), and even this land is questionable thanks to a 100+ years of LA spraying. The rest of the land in town is either Wachusett watershed, wetlands, heavy ledge, or topo nightmares. So a seemingly sparse town outside 495 is still commanding 140K+ for raw buildable lots.

At some point, people will have to accept that central and eastern MA cannot and will not replicate the growth seen in places like TX, CO, TN, etc. as the land cannot support that level of construction. There are areas within Austin proper which remain incredibly sparse and, thanks to to lack of acreage mins, when developed will fit a ton of housing.

[BostonBornMassMade]

Originally Posted by Shrewsburried

This sub has been kicking this dead horse for sometime, but developable land is a significant issue in eastern MA ... there just isn't a lot of it. Sure, we can build more density, but generally speaking, people move to the 'burbs to have those .5+ acre lots and distant neighbors.

There is very little appreciation for the percentage of land which simply isn't developable, or at least not easily. I live in Sterling which, despite proximity to multiple urban areas, remains rather rural in feel and was only developed en masse during the late '80's. But here's the reality of land in town: only the operational farms have land worth a damn (cleared, leveled), and even this land is questionable thanks to a 100+ years of LA spraying. The rest of the land in town is either Wachusett watershed, wetlands, heavy ledge, or topo nightmares. So a seemingly sparse town outside 495 is still commanding 140K+ for raw buildable lots.

At some point, people will have to accept that central and eastern MA cannot and will not replicate the growth seen in places like TX, CO, TN, etc. as the land cannot support that level of construction. There are areas within Austin proper which remain incredibly sparse and, thanks to to lack of acreage mins, when developed will fit a ton of housing.

Thats another thing in the DC area lots ofsuburban areas openly accept apartment complexes and dense townhomes/rowhomes.

Massachusetts does a lot to further it natural disadvantages. I suspect part of the reason why every single year NJ and MD have higher median household incomes than us and were always neck and neck in terms of MHHI with a much more economically unstable CT. MA take growth oppurtunities and does the msot it can to constrain and complicate situation to the point where the payoff is marginal at best.

We see it with housing, we see it with the roll out of legalized marijuana and we even see it with the casinos.

Ma makes everything upscale/exckusive and it ends up benefitting the people and the state pretty marginally.

We went with casinos-they're far too upscale and under performing because they dont offer what locals want.

We went with weed to expensive to restrictive and massively underperforming because theres no vapes a and its 2.5x the street prices.

We go with housing, too restrictive and too upscale and thus inefficient and still expensive. We have condos sitting empty in the South End and Chinatown meanwhile it was revealed last week... Madison Park Village got ~800 applications for 36 units of co-op housing less than half a mile away.