It’s often said that what is good for Boston is good for Massachusetts. But what if that weren’t the case?
Greater Boston’s long list of attributes has been heralded for years now, by everyone from local newspapers to national policymakers. Only three weeks ago on this page, we lauded the Hub’s “sophisticated swagger,” calling the city “an opportunity magnet” and concluding that “even when other cities or other regions falter, this one will find a way to grow.”
This is precisely the problem. We can’t escape the slowly growing feeling that Boston’s relative success recently has come at the expense of some of our more hardscrabble, downtrodden neighbors.
In 2011, municipal success has become a zero-sum game. With limited state and federal resources, limited private investment and limited growth opportunities, it only stands to reason that true prosperity can only be limited to certain areas.
In short, Boston’s gain has been the bane of areas like Fall River and New Bedford, two working-class, blue collar towns struggling to attract business in the shadow of their more luminous neighbor to the Northeast.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, unemployment in Greater Boston stood at 6.5 percent at the end of June – not great, but markedly better than the nation’s recently announced rate of 9.1 percent.
And it’s almost half that of the struggling Providence-New Bedford-Fall River area, which is coping with unemployment of 11.1 percent. The area is one of just seven of the country’s 50 most populous metropolitan statistical areas with unemployment higher than 11 percent, according to a recent report from SNL Financial. The others include more famously battered – and much larger – locales like Detroit, Las Vegas, Sacramento and Miami.
Jobs are scarce all over, of course, but they’re relatively bountiful in Boston. And even the perception of job opportunities is enough to draw the unemployed like moths to the Boston flame. If you’re jobless in New Bedford, the 60-mile commute north to Boston for work – any kind of work – doesn’t seem too onerous these days.
And where the jobs are, investment follows. We’ve reported often in recent months about a resurgence in Boston’s commercial propety investment market, relaying stories of REITs flush with cash falling over each other to buy Boston’s best assets – and sometimes, its not-so-great assets, too.
But similar frenzies just don’t exist in Worcester, Springfield, Fall River or New Bedford, and for good reason – a lack of jobs means even good properties just can’t perform.
According to SNL, Florida-based HMG/Courtland Properties holds 20 percent of its investment portfolio in New Bedford/Fall River-area commercial propeties. In the first quarter, the company reported a net loss of more than $317,000. At the same time last year, the company made $115,000.
If you’re a real estate investment executive, then, why would you consider investing locally anywhere other than Boston? Prices are lower, yes, but if market fundamentals are so much weaker, what’s the advantage in saving a few bucks? Certainly, there is no other urban area in Massachusetts – or New England, truly – that is any easier to get to or offers any more amenities than Boston does. Really, nobody else can compete.
Eventually – maybe – Boston will become overly saturated, and some prosperity will trickle down to its forlorn neighbors. Then again, maybe it won’t. There’s still plenty of dry powder to ignite in this city, in the form of an emerging Innovation District and a sizzling biotechnology and life sciences sector.
Long gone, it seems, are the days when Boston’s rising tide lifted all Bay State boats. Rather, it feels more like that tide is drowning its smaller neighbors.
What’s good for Boston is no longer necessarily what’s good for Massachusetts. It’s time that some attention was paid to the rest of the commonwealth, in hopes that what’s good for Massachusetts might instead – one day – be good for Boston.
