Mayor Lisa Wong inherited a big job when she won Fitchburg’s mayoral election last year. An old mill town with closed factories, a crime problem and a record number of foreclosures are just some of her worries.
The 28-year old Wong has a plan and Radio Boston heads to Fitchburg to find out what it is.
Listen to the full show:
Read studies about revitalizing old mill cities, see videos from Fitchburg and Lowell.
Radio Boston: Fitchburg Rising?
Original Airdate: February 8, 2008
Rebroadcast: July 25, 2008
- Guests:
- Fitcbhurg Mayor Lisa Wong, recently elected to her office, she’s promising to turn things around. She hosted our webchat, you can read its transcript here.Robert Forrant, Professor of Social and Economic Development at UMASS-Lowell
Somerville Mayor Joseph Curtatone, He’s also President of the Massachusetts Mayors Association.
Dean Mazzerella, mayor of Leominster
To find out more about efforts to revive old mill cities across the state check out these two studies:
Mass Inc.’s - Reconnecting Massachusetts Gateway Cities
MIT’s - Voices from Forgotten Cities
Lowell, Massachusetts: After the Renaissance
Once held as the national model for urban revitalization, Lowell, Massachusetts is entering a new phase.
Old mill buildings have been revamped, the downtown is thriving, but the job base is thin. The overall economy is still fragile. Radio Boston’s Meghna Chakrabarti spoke with Lowell City Manager Bernard Lynch about the city’s next steps.
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I listened to this segment and while I was inspired by the young mayors energy, by the end I was thinking this is the folly of youth.
To think people are going to move to Fitchburg and spend two hours commuting to Boston a day is a pipe dream. I would never want to do it. It’s nuts and a waste of time. The train line to this area is unreliable for this kind of commute.
People who have good jobs in Boston want to stay in Boston.
Lawrence is a good example. They tried to attract artist as a way to generate buzz and all. I know some who moved there and have regretted buying lofts that they now can’t sell.
Living in Lawrence is not very nice, very high crime rates and all.
In all honesty putting development into rafting and outdoor sports is not going to save this city. You need real investment and real jobs.
Another city to look at is North Adams and Mass Moca. Which has not lived up to the original dream of creating a lot of jobs for the area. With the exception a few jobs at the museum, and the nice inns in the area there’s not much in the way of employment.
The only people moving there are retired art professors from Boston. Most of the high tech companies have failed.
While I hope this city does figure out a way to pull itself together, I hate to say it does not look well for Fitchburg.
A show at times insightful but also frustrating.
I’ve been a working artist for a while, and it’s the most economically demanding thing I’ve ever done, but also rewarding. I make a thing and somebody buys it for whatever reason. The only sure way to be economically stable is to make stuff or perform a service that people want. I wish there was more attention paid to the process by which these cities stopped making things that people wanted, the tax and regulatory changes which the state passed which led to the hollowing out of our industry.
It would be nice if arts was the way back, but essentially it’s a solitary activity. To be successful you either depend on a wealthy buying public that has income from private industry, or subsidized support from government (which is a unproductive circle of money) or universities. When small cities want to copy the arts community in Boston to support cafes in down neighborhoods, what they don’t understand is that the colleges and universities are dispersing that money. An artist with benefits and disposable income to spend at the cafe is probably getting that from teaching, not producing and selling.
So the arts community in Boston serves its part as the “experience” for college students, the major cash import for the city, each coming with a $100-200K pot of money to spend over a few years of long-term tourism. As long as arts is a service, not a production industry, it will probably not provide much growth, and small cities would be smarter to reform their tax and regulatory environments first.