Housing has become scarcer in the dark-colored states on the above map, with new residents moving in (or being born) faster than contractors can put up houses. (Click the map for a larger image, and download this file for complete data: Download housing_estimates_by_state_2006.xls ) The most extreme case is Alaska, which has grown […]
Housing
Posted inEconomy, Education
AN OPPORTUNE TIME FOR COMMUNITY COLLEGES
Once I got past the inflammatory cover headline (“College Try: Why Aren’t Mass. Community Colleges Making the Grade?” CW, Spring ’07), I was glad to see CommonWealth present such a thoughtful and balanced assessment of the challenges and the potential of our state’s community colleges. This is a timely topic. Gov. Deval Patrick acknowledged as […]
Posted inEconomy
Not-so-prime spots
UPDATE: For more recent foreclosure data, go to the Head Count in our Winter 2009 issue. home foreclosures in Massachusetts continued to climb this spring—up 40 percent in May compared with the same period last year, according to the Warren Group. The map based on the number of foreclosures during the 180-day period ending on […]
Posted inEconomy
Deeds that keep houses affordable may keep neighborhoods poor
INTRO TEXT in a state short on affordable housing, it might seem odd that housing advocates are calling for policy changes that could eventually bring more market-rate units to poor neighborhoods. But some say that’s exactly what is needed to lift communities-and families-out of poverty. Many affordable-homeownership programs attach long-term deed restrictions to properties, limiting […]
Posted inEconomy, State House News Service
On the Cape new homes for workers go begging
INTRO TEXT sandwich attorney jonathan Fitch doesn’t like the term “workforce housing.” He thinks it’s “gimmicky.” All he and his wife Nancy, who have been active on land-use issues in town since 1970, wanted to do was build “the least expensive new housing” in the area. But town officials and local housing groups persuaded the […]
Posted inEconomy
Healey drops into a dispute over a homeless shelter in Worcester
Fall 2005 Lt. Gov.Healey at the controversial PIP Shelter in Worcester. The tour of the PIP Shelter on Main Street in Worcester on July 26 starts out as a routine, almost ceremonial, visit by Lt. Gov. Kerry Healey, who chairs the state’s Interagency Council to End Homelessness. Healey is there by invitation of officials from […]
Posted inEconomy
Growing pains
A long about June, the “housing bubble” became big news nationally. In the same week, a cover story in Time (HOME $WEET HOME) focused attention on the “blistering” US real estate market and a New York Times Week in Review piece took the story global, noting the run-up of housing prices in coastal cities and […]
Posted inEconomy
The state considers carrots for smart growth
With Massachusetts home prices continuing to soar, the housing crisis has begun to sound like the old Mark Twain saw about the weather: Everybody talks about it, but nobody does anything. ALISON WILLIAMS Smart-growth housing in Manchester-by-the Sea. Hoping to match deeds to words, the Romney administration and an independent task force of housing, business, […]
Posted inEconomy
The death and life of American cities
The Boston Renaissance: Race, Space and Economic Change in an American Metropolis By Barry Bluestone and Mary Huff Stevenson Russell Sage Foundation, New York, 2000, 461 pages Comeback Cities: A Blueprint for Urban Neighborhood Revival By Paul S. Grogan and Tony Proscio Westview Press, Boulder, 2000, 285 pages OVER THE PAST half-century, America grew into […]