Massachusetts built only 142,431 apartments, houses and condominiums between 2010 and 2019, a far cry from the 304,790 built in the 1970s.

The 2010s saw lots of talk about the desperate need for more housing in Greater Boston and across Massachusetts, from everyone from newspaper editorial boards and politicians to religious leaders. 

So, with the decade officially at an end, just how did we do? 

Unfortunately, not too hot. 

Construction of new homes, condominiums and apartments in Massachusetts in the 2010s fell to its lowest level since the U.S. Census began publishing the stats in 1960, even making a double-digit plunge compared to the 2000s. 

Numbers Paint Dispiriting Picture 

Coupled with the economic boom that helped transform the Boston area into one of the world’s wealthiest metros over the past four decades, the result of this chronic shortage of new housing has been both entirely predictable and tragic. 

Home prices and rents have soared to insane and unsustainable levels, with the median home price in Massachusetts hitting $400,000 in 2019. 

That’s up nearly 4 percent from 2018 and an all-time record for the state, according to The Warren Group, publisher of this newspaper. 

“Strong job growth has attracted more people into the region and pulled more residents into the job market,” the most recent Greater Boston Housing Report Card noted. “For a region with a track record of sluggish housing production, this has predictably resulted in demand outstripping supply, sending both rents and home prices soaring.” 

The soft–sell approach to solving the housing crisis – encouraging developers to build more housing and offering modest incentives to suburbs, towns and cities in hopes they will roll back onerous zoning regulations – simply isn’t working.

The numbers that detail this story aren’t pretty. 

The 1970s were the peak decade for new residential construction in the state, with developers rolling out 304,790 new homes, condos and apartments in the Boston area and across Massachusetts. 

On average, developers pulled building permits for more than 30,000 units each year. 

Then came the 1990s and a big drop–off in housing construction. 

The decade saw 168,044 new homes and rentals built, for an average of 16,804 each year. 

There was a modest rebound in the 2000s, when 172,544 units built, before a big drop in the 2010s. 

The massive amount of building that’s gone on in Boston – including One Seaport Square, shown here in 2015 – stands in contrast to the little new housing build in the city’s suburbs.

A big drop, as in a more than 17 percent decline: Just 142,431 new houses, apartments and condos were built in the 2010s across Massachusetts and in Greater Boston. 

That’s barely 14,000 new residential units a year, or less than half what we were seeing in the 1970s. 

Boston Carried the State 

The results are both surprising and somewhat counterintuitive as well, given the transformation of Boston’s skyline thanks to a bevy of gleaming new condo and apartment towers. 

But as if often the case, life is complex and two seemingly contradictory facts can both be true at the same time. 

 Boston Mayor Marty Walsh has made substantial progress in getting new housing built, with a big uptick in construction over his predecessor, the late Thomas M. Menino, who was himself no slouch in this regard. 

Under Walsh, the city has doled out permits for 30,000 new units since 2014, with Boston well along the way towards meeting the mayor’s goal of 69,000 new units by 2030. 

Thanks to the building boom in Boston, the number of new apartments rolled out over the past few years in Massachusetts is the highest seen since the go-go 1980s. 

But the progress in Boston has been more than counterbalanced by a collapse in single-family home construction and new multifamily housing of all types across the rest of the state. 

Enough Carrots. Time for Sticks 

In the suburbs, where the vast majority of people in Greater Boston live, it’s the same old story of local zoning rules rigged to bar new residential construction and NIMBY opposition.  

One need look no further than Newton, where NIMBY neighbors have mounted a campaign for a city-wide vote that would kill plans for a build 800 apartments – as well as offices, restaurants and eight parks – on what is now a dreary, 23-acre parcel dominated by parking lots, a struggling shopping plaza. 

The drop off in 2010s is doubly frustrating given all the attention the housing crisis has received. 

Governors and mayors, not to mention religious, civic and business leaders, have spent a decade cheerleading for more housing of all types, setting ambitious goals, issuing reports and doling out tax incentives. 

Scott Van Voorhis

Yet after all that, it still failed to move the needle.  

The soft–sell approach to solving the housing crisis – encouraging developers to build more housing and offering modest incentives to suburbs, towns and cities in hopes they will roll back onerous zoning regulations – simply isn’t working. 

The carrot clearly isn’t working, so it’s time for the stick. 

It’s time for Beacon Hill to step in and ban the exclusionary zoning rules that suburban communities have so successfully used to bottle up badly needed housing. 

Scott Van Voorhis is Banker & Tradesman’s columnist; opinions expressed are his own. He may be reached at sbvanvoorhis@hotmail.com.