With prices jumping up and up in what were once two of the last big affordable cities in Boston’s orbit, some residents are trying to stop construction of new housing in its tracks. iStock photo illustration

Some of the last remaining escape hatches from Greater Boston’s grossly overpriced housing market are starting to close. 

By that I mean Providence and Worcester, mid-sized cities that have become a refuge for Greater Boston’s stressed-out and maxed-out buyers and renters. 

Both are now starting to see big increases in housing costs.  

And in both cities, local NIMBY types are harassing developers trying to build new housing to meet the influx of demand. 

Yet if they succeed in doing anything, it will be to put more upward pressure on prices and rents, making it more expensive for both newcomers and long-time residents of both cities. 

Remote Work, Lower Prices Boost Demand 

The pandemic increasingly appears to have been the catalyst for the surging prices and rents Rhode Island’s capital and Worcester, New England’s second largest city, are seeing now. 

The pandemic supercharged demand for single-family homes, while sending Boston-area prices – already crazy – soaring. 

It also turned remote work, previously an option for a small but growing number of professionals, into what is now an almost irrevocable feature of the modern economy. 

Cities like Providence and Worcester, which would have previously involved a considerable commute for tech and other workers with jobs in the Boston area, suddenly beckoned buyers with their much lower cost of living and burgeoning cultural scenes, Providence in particular having been a foodie hub for years. 

And come they have. 

After initially dipping below $240,000 back in 2020, the median price of a single-family home in Providence has rocketed over the past three years and is now approaching $340,000, according to The Warren Group, publisher of Banker & Tradesman. 

Buyers from the Bay State accounted for an astounding 25 percent of all Rhode Island home sales last year, with this year looking like a repeat, Boston.com reports. 

Single-family homes in Worcester have posted a similar increase, with the median price rising from roughly $285,000 back in mid-2020 to nearly $400,000 today, The Warren Group says. 

Rents in both cities have also shot up as rents in Boston and its suburbs also spiral upward. The average rent for a two-bedroom in Worcester is now $1,635, up $150 over the past year, a recent report found. 

‘Parasites’? Really? 

But as is so typical in New England and arguably across the country, efforts to build new housing, especially apartment buildings, are being met with suspicion in both cities. 

As the region as a whole has gotten wealthier, we’ve also gotten a lot pickier about what kinds of housing is deemed acceptable, leading to a huge drop in construction and a chronic shortage of new homes and apartments. 

In Providence, plans for a 5-story apartment and retail building in Fox Point, a waterfront neighborhood near College Hill and the Brown University and Rhode Island School of Design campuses, are running into opposition from locals. 

They would apparently rather see the nondescript 2-story commercial building that houses a nail salon and some small offices be left alone than see a project built that would bring to the city 62 badly needed homes. 

The new project is too big and might, heavens forbid, rent its space to a chain store or restaurant, among other complaints. 

Meanwhile, a recent GBH News story quoted one Worcester resident as calling the wave of new, more upscale new apartments being built a “parasite” on the city. 

Barricades Won’t Save You 

Tellingly, the GBH story pushed the questionable idea that rents and prices are rising in Worcester and other Gateway Cities due to the construction of higher-end housing, with only a glancing reference to the dire shortage of housing that has long afflicted Massachusetts. 

And that, in turn, cuts to the heart of the matter when it comes to a significant part of the NIMBY opposition to new housing in cities like Providence and Worcester that have seen prices explode over the past few years. 

The NIMBY types truly believe if they can run off or block new, market-rate condos and apartments, that will somehow stop the upward spiral in prices and rents we are now seeing in what were not long ago considered second- and third-tier cities. 

Scott Van Voorhis

But that misdiagnoses the problem. Buyers and renters from the Boston area aren’t flocking to Providence and Worcester for the new cookie-cutter apartment and condo projects. 

Rather, many have been priced out or simply frustrated at how little an otherwise-large sum of money will get them in the Boston-area housing market. 

Given that, it makes far more sense to build more housing and hope that at least takes some of the pressure off the existing housing stock in Providence and Worcester. 

But make no mistake, those Boston buyers and renters are going to continue to come, new housing or no new housing. 

And all that foot-stomping by the NIMBY types, to the extent it slows or even blocks construction of new housing, will only succeed in pushing up prices higher and faster than they would have gone up otherwise. 

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