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CIAO DATE: 5/5/2007
Reconnecting Massachusetts Gateway Cities: Lessons Learned and an Agenda for Renewal
Mark Muro, John Schneider, David Warren, Eric McLean-Shinaman, Rebecca Sohmer, Benjamin Forman
February 2007
Abstract
Could it be? Could it be that at least some of Massachusetts’ long-suffering “Gateway Cities” —the state’s once-humming mill and manufacturing towns—are ready to rejoin the state’s economic mainstream?
Yes, it could. Despite the latest blows of deindustrialization, signs of life are animating parts of the state’s faded urban hubs beyond Boston.
Sky-high home prices in Greater Boston are motivating middle—class home-seekers to take another look at living in affordable satellite cities like Lowell, Worcester, or Brockton. Real-estate values and housing starts are up in virtually all of the older regional cities, from New Bedford to Springfield. And, in many of the mill towns, the catastrophic population losses of the 1980s have ended. For the first time in decades, these cities’ reconnection to prosperity seems at least imaginable.
