The greater Boston area will need to build an additional 435,000 units of housing by 2040 to accommodate younger workers and keep growing, according to a new report from the Metropolitan Area Planning Council (MAPC).
As the population ages, the number of jobs in the greater Boston area could flat line unless the area succeeds in attracting more young workers, the report states. If current demographic and housing trends continue, the region’s overall population would grow 6.6 percent over the next three decades. But it will be decidedly grayer: the population age 65 and older would increase 82 percent, while the working-age population will remain essentially unchanged. Without an influx of younger workers, the number of jobs in the region could grow by less than 1 percent from 2010 to 2040, the report suggests.
"More than a million of the region’s workers will be retired by the year 2030," Marc Draisen, executive director of MAPC, said in a statement. "To fill those jobs and grow the economy we need to reverse the trends that see so many young workers leaving metro Boston."
If the city is able to get young workers to flock to Boston, total population could increase by 12.6 percent over the same period, with the working age population rising 7 percent, adding 175,000 new workers to the labor force. Accommodating such growth would require 435,000 new housing units, the report suggests, verses 305,000 units under the status quo.
"Our towns and cities desperately need this information so as to be prepared for the dramatic changes in the types of housing aging baby boomers and young ‘millennials’ will want and need," Barry Bluestone, director of the Kitty and Michael Dukakis Center for Urban and Regional Policy at Northeastern University, said in a statement.
In a switch from previous growth patterns, the report suggests that the bulk of future housing demand will be for multifamily housing, mostly in urban areas. Both for-sale and rental multifamily units will make up at least 48 percent and as much as 62 percent of housing demand, the report suggests. Even in suburban municipalities, demand for multifamily units will make up between 28 percent and 37 percent of total demand.
The report also says that, based on current demographic trends, the number of school-age children in the greater Boston region and in most municipalities peaked in 2000 and is likely to decline over the coming decades. The population aged 5 to 14 is projected to fall another 8 to 9 percent by 2020 and is not likely to fully rebound, even under the stronger-growth model.
