| Massachusetts cities and towns which become attractive to new residents and/or businesses can be considered blessed. Property values rise, propelled by market demand. But new residents and businesses have expectations that may run into a municipality’s pre-existing conditions – the need to update basic infrastructure and services and then to sell that to taxpayers and municipal bondholders.
Current “it” communities range from the metro-glamor of neighborhoods such as Somerville’s Davis Square, Boston’s Innovation District and Jamaica Plain, to the job-growth-driven blossoming of communities in the west of the state, including the “’boros” – Southborough, Westborough, Marlborough and Boxborough along the I-90 and I-495 nexus.
Points To Ponder
Demographics: Who are the newcomers, why are they coming and what do they want that they weren’t getting in their former community? In metro Boston, newcomers fall into two categories – those who haven’t had children yet, and empty nesters, says Judi Barrett, director of municipal services at RKG Associates. When they move west, families with children tend to choose towns with the highest MCAS scores. In Massachusetts, where home rule is the default, how does municipal management balance newcomers’ expectations with those of long-time residents, particularly when the third rail is often school costs?
Transportation: Metro Boston’s mass transit system is replete with contrasts – old versus new subway lines, and subway cars and buses. Expansion of mass transit services in already-densely populated municipalities will likely increase property values, but at the possible cost of lower-income housing. To the west, the expansion of the Interstate system and feeder roads has brought many sleek industrial parks and commercial support infrastructure along I-495 and Route 2 in what was forest, meadowlands or family farms a mere generation ago. If transportation brings new life to a local economy, what gets displaced?
Jobs: Twenty-plus years of westward commercial expansion, an initial reaction to higher metro Boston costs, have created a generation of exurban workers who originally moved west to find more affordable housing. While the commuter rail has expanded 617-area-code job opportunities for some residents in the 508, 781 and 978 area codes, the litmus test is often the length of the drive from their homes to the nearest train station. With Greater Boston’s post-Recession commercial resurgence, will more of them choose to head east for work?
Here’s The Catch
Infrastructure: Increased property values bring with them expectations of wider roads and bridges, expanded sewer systems, a beefed-up utility network, and high-speed broadband service. Long-time residents may resist the additional expenses, pitting one generation against another.
Schools: Families with children flock westward to municipalities with the highest MCAS scores, and if they can’t find a home they can afford in those towns, they’re making use of the school choice option to send their kids to school in the neighboring town of choice. Their expectations for school funding and support have the potential to clash with that of older, longer-term residents with different priorities.
Zoning: Massachusetts towns started adopting large-lot zoning in the late 1970s and early 1980s to restrict the amount of high density housing, in an effort to protect and enhance property values. That was followed by the advent of 55-and-older housing developments that zoned kids out. These restrictions work as long as there is an upcoming crop of buyers as the original owners sell. Meanwhile, young families are priced out.
Services: Fire and ambulance services are particularly impacted by the demographic monoculture of older residents who have money – but money can’t buy back lost health. In over-55 housing developments (with no private health support systems, which is most of them), ambulance calls are far more frequent than in mixed-age communities. Judi Barrett recounts concerns from overburdened first responders in towns with senior housing; they say their resources are being stretched thin by ambulance calls, reducing their ability to respond to fires.
John Mullin, professor of regional planning, director of the Center for Economic Development at UMass-Amherst, sees a shift in values away from schools and toward increased security and medical services, creating downward pressure on tax overrides to support schools.
Beware The Monoculture
The cautionary note: A demographic monoculture may seem like a sure-fire hit when it’s implemented, but time and tide will change things. Populations mature, age, move on and/or die, leaving their material wants behind, including the notion of a big house on two acres of lawn. “The very narrow concept of the American Dream is limiting and not conscious of the way society has changed,” cautions Barrett.
Communities that find themselves desirable should be making long-term plans to create an economy that nurtures those on the way up, either economically or demographically, or both, planners advise. That will be a challenge in home-rule Massachusetts, which has long eschewed the central planning that’s a fundamental in other parts of the country. If they don’t, they run the risk of falling in and out of fashion.
Email: coneill@thewarrengroup.com
