Wondering from afar.

[CALGUY]

What about it's neighbor to the north, the town of Avon?

[BruinsGirl]

Originally Posted by bricka

brockton public schools score an "A" in the diversity category on niche.com

It must be a great place to live then.

Joking. We lived in Easton in 2000-2002, our son played squirt hockey for Brockton Boxers.
Even though town had questionable reputation it didn’t feel unsafe.

[matrix5k]

Time to go solar. That won't help with gas prices though.

[CALGUY]

Originally Posted by matrix5k

Time to go solar. That won't help with gas prices though.

Obviously, you posted in the wrong thread.

[BostonBornMassMade]

Originally Posted by CALGUY

I left Ma many, many years ago, and visited for the last time in 1990.
Born in Brockton, and raised in Avon, I wonder how these areas have changed over the years.
I have heard terrible things about Brockton, and it breaks my heart to hear of it's decline.
Avon being such a small town, I can't imagine it changing much, but one never knows.

I googled my old homestead in Avon, and it no longer exist.
A huge raised ranch now sits on that property on Page street.
So what have I missed in all these years?

Brockton is certainly mostly Black (predominately Haitian and Cape Verdean but also other blacks) but it's improved a lot since 2015. Including Cape Verdeans the city is 51% black it has more home purchases by blacks than Boston (7x its size) Crime is way down, and poverty isn't all that bad. Just needs some beautification. Really improved recently, with new apartments downtown and a new Brockton Beer Company brewery downtown.

Avon also has a lot of black residents, but it's still middle class. Most students in Avon Public Schools are Black or Latino now. Looks more rundown than the average suburban town, but As far as I know it's alright.

Both towns have grown considerably since 1990- between the two of them they've added 15,000+ people.

Brockton football team is no longer relevant It began waning around 2005, but its accelerated since 2012. Theyre rarely top 20/25.

[masssachoicetts]

Randolph native here... like right on the border of Avon and Holbrook. Yeah, that part of Randolph. Formerly known as South Randolph. The downtown kids. The Martin E Young kids. F Donavan (Okay, I'm getting carried away...lol)

Brockton has improved tremendously since 2015. Like BBMM said... its a very different place than 10 years ago in a good way.

As has Randolph, which was on the rougher side from about 1998 to like 2017sh. Randolph looks amazing compared to what it looked like in 2010. I'm proud of it.

Avon hasn't changed.

[scorpio516]

Originally Posted by massnative71

Avon is now home to IKEA, that's the only significant change I can think of.

Technically Ikea is right across the border in Stoughton. The Costco across the parking lot is in Avon though

[GeoffD]

Originally Posted by masssachoicetts

Brockton has improved tremendously since 2015. Like BBMM said... its a very different place than 10 years ago in a good way.

Other than peeling off Route 24 to do a quick grocery shop at Market Basket and Aldi, I haven’t been in Brockton in ages. I speculated here years ago that the commuter rail would cause a lot of demand for middle class housing as people got priced out elsewhere. I was shouted down at the time. The only families I know in Brockton are Cape Verdean and they’re pretty prosperous. With does “a very different place from 10 years ago” mean?

[mdovell]

The only real problem with the commuter rail is that they made three stops. They could have had more development with one instead of spreading it out. I've argued for years that Brockton could host a multi university dorm due to the rail and bus lines. Students want an urban area, there's space and there's transit, should be an easy sell. The park has serious potential but little investment there's no reason why you can't have a REI in the area. The mall is very clean but also empty. They miss having a movie theater but it's hard to do that with Randolph so close.

If there is an area nearby in bad shape that's Holbrook. Hardly any tax base and they actually want a trash dump to open...

the other thing I'd point out about Brockton and to a point Taunton is these are inland cities. Usually urbanization focused on rivers as they were highways before highways. Then canals happened etc. If we look at Springfield there's the river and if we look at Lowell/lawrence/lynn there's water. The population growth also shifted. Brockton stood out 100 or so years ago because it was the highest populated area but gradually suburbs grew.It's to the point now where five or six towns is the same population. Basically what I'm saying is no one on the south shore says they are in the "Brockton metro area". The name has been taken off even on newspapers and it was never large enough to support say a tv station back in the day (radio is anywhere). I think they could have done better if they adopted CPA.

Prova is a great start but it needs to also try to link the parks with the museum