While most of us make a big deal out of our kids’ birthdays, many adults would just as soon look past the opportunity to register their annual odometer reading. However, when you hit a really big number, like 300 years, it’s worth a pause and a celebration.
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While most of us make a big deal out of our kids’ birthdays, many adults would just as soon look past the opportunity to register their annual odometer reading. However, when you hit a really big number, like 300 years, it’s worth a pause and a celebration.
The city of Worcester pulled out all the stops for its 300th anniversary as a town on June 14, 2022. Friday night fireworks at Polar Park, a road race and parade down Main Street the following day, and a Boston Pops concert at the DCU Center on Sunday brought out the local crowds and put the city in the spotlight.
Another less public, but nonetheless important, celebration took place a few days prior: the inaugural Worcester Homecoming, a two-day event with dozens of high achievers from around the country with roots in Central Massachusetts. The event, which WBJ Publisher Peter Stanton and Events Manager Kris Prosser helped organize, is based on a model successfully executed in Detroit and Baltimore. The high achievers were invited to come back to the city where they grew up and/or went to school, to witness its progress and be invited to engage in its future.
While Worcester has a rich history, its fortunes have not always been bright. Many of the city’s industries and their workers took a hit during the post-industrial slowdown as the population dipped and housing barely increased in value. As one of the returning expats at Worcester Homecoming summed up, having moved away some 30 years ago after college, “Worcester was a great place to be from.”
It’s taken the better part of the last couple decades, but today Worcester is getting its mojo back; and now it’s not just a great place to be from, but a great place to be living.
What will Worcester look like as it grows and evolves? Success can be a double-edged sword. The region’s claim for a much lower cost of living than Greater Boston has taken a hit as housing is tight and home prices as well as rents have risen more rapidly than inflation. That’s what can happen when you add more than 25,000 new residents over a 10-year period. The momentum that for so many years seemed to elude Worcester has taken root, and white hot areas like the city’s Canal District are facing gentrification, a term most long-term residents would never have thought would be used in their city. Growth is a good thing, but it has to be balanced with what preserves Worcester’s character and its bones and provides opportunities for the full diversity of its residents.
Celebrating a major anniversary serves to highlight much of what Worcester has accomplished over the course of its three centuries and in the last decade. Engaging some of our most accomplished Central Massachusetts alumni from around the country helps extend that Worcester connection to help move the city forward. None of these means all the old and new problems impacting Worcester have suddenly disappeared, but much like a child’s birthday party, this June’s celebrations gave the community a chance to pause and reflect on what has been accomplished over the centuries and take pride in where we are today. Worcester is a diverse and culturally rich hub with plenty to brag about.
