🔒Editorial: Create a regional economy for everyone

The best possible outcome for the Central Massachusetts economy is one that helps industry thrive, spurs innovation, encourages outside investment, attracts the best talent, and provides a great quality of life for all. This ideal scenario is awfully difficult to achieve, but everyone in the region’s business community ought to strive toward this broad mutually beneficial goal. Unfortunately, significant challenges have arisen in the last few years, and affordability is an increasingly big obstacle for people who’ve lived and worked in the region for years, as well as those we hope to attract from outside the area. Affordability is getting worse, and it’s having a direct impact on local employers. As Mica Kanner-Mascolo writes in her “A rural migration”, the people who can no longer afford the rising costs in Worcester are moving to more outlying areas of Central Massachusetts. This creates a problem for healthcare providers and social service nonprofits, which are now struggling to reach the vulnerable populations they serve, as they are often losing access to transportation and nearby services. Arguably more housing will help address the affordability issue, but about the only housing that can be constructed profitably is market rate or luxury rentals. Their pricing isn’t helping the cost of housing. Affordability in Central Massachusetts, when compared to Greater Boston, has been a calling card for decades. While the region is still less expensive than to the east, it’s increasingly taking a larger chunk out of people’s salaries, with many newer units requiring a six-figure salary to reasonably meet the monthly rent. We’re losing some of the special sauce that has driven so much growth here. As potential workers are getting priced out of the region, new immigrants are actively discouraged from coming here, further exacerbating the workforce shortage plaguing multiple industries, particularly health care and manufacturing. Sentiment toward immigrants has unfortunately become a highly politicized issue, and we seem to have lost the thread on how critical immigrants are to fueling the economy, both as workers and consumers. It’s a mindset that needs to change if we’re to continue the regional growth we’ve seen this last decade. While these problems can seem intractable, we at least need to be taking steps to effectively address them. Identifying the key areas of future growth in Central Massachusetts and investing in supporting those industries, and developing a shared vision for expanding housing are two issues that can and should be tackled. This editorial is the opinion of the WBJ Editorial Board.