Left In Lowell

Sunday Globe Questions the “Lowell Miracle”

12 Responses to “Sunday Globe Questions the “Lowell Miracle””

1. Josh Says:
   September 9th, 2007 at 11:03 pm

   I always enjoy seeing Lowell get some press in newspapers other than the Sun. I thought it was a pretty good article. I agree with Wirzbicki on some points. I think that building ballparks and stadiums and government-run urban renewal projects tend to be a colossal waste of taxpayer time and money. What generates growth is having a dynamic economy. That means one that is not weighed down by taxes/regulations and that lets the economy go where it is taken by the people (i.e.: Not having a master plan to bring in X or Y industry).

   Lowell has been pretty successful in this regard thanks largely to our always changing immigrant population. Just when things start to get stale, a whole new population comes in to invigorate things. Of course having a large immigrant population means we’re always going to have worse poverty statistic (and this doesn’t necessarily mean that things aren’t going well for the poor since many came from much much poorer country, so Lowell is a significant improvement which should not be marginalized).

   I guess my point is that Lowell has done well, not because of some government planner’s vision, but because thousands of individual entrepreneurs had their own little visions and were able to pursue without much interference.

2. joe Says:
   September 10th, 2007 at 9:58 am

   The author notes that Lowell’s revitalization has failed to turn the city into a major economic engine - it hasn’t created a lot of jobs, attracted big industry, or returned Lowell to its status as a major manufacturing center. Therefore, the revitalization has failed.

   The problem with this line of analysis is that Lowell’s revitalization efforts haven’t focused on making the city a major economic center, but on making it a good place to live and play. He notes that most of the jobs at the ballpark are low-paying; so what? That initiative was never meant to be a jobs program, but to provide residents and visitors with something fun to do.

   Here’s a thought experiment; would Lowell be better off if all of the mill buildings that have been turned into condos were, instead, being used as industrial space? Of course not. Employment isn’t something that happens on the local level, but on the regional level. Place-making and quality of life, on the other hand - the things that have attracted new residents and visitors to Lowell - happen on the local level.

3. waittilnextyr Says:
   September 10th, 2007 at 2:19 pm

   The article doesn’t give full import to the wave of immigrants resettled in Lowell during the 1980s. Had he done so, it would be clear that this major event was the primary cause of the increase (41.6%) in the number of those living in poverty over the period from 1980 to 2000. Indeed, even the article quotes a (modest) 4.7% decrease in poverty between 1990 and 2000, illustrating the problem occured in the 1980s. We can expect a further reduction as those immigrants lift themselves into better economic positions through education and work experience.

   However, Lowell needs to continue to take action to improve the opportunities of its citizens as well as their quality of life. Let’s hope that the recently announced Hamilton Canal project consists of a good mixture of uses to help in that regard.

4. jdayne Says:
   September 10th, 2007 at 3:35 pm

   The article provoked me to think about the issue of “renaissance” in Lowell and my experience of economic revitalization on Boston’s Beacon Hill and a very different local, in Holland, Michigan. The downtown in Lowell is, to me, depressing in the sheer mass of empty retail space or marginal occupied space–yet another “dollar” junk store.

   Beacon Hill was a relatively depressed neighborhood and badly depressed in the 1960s and 70s. In the 1980’s single professionals began to move to the neighborhood to be close to their jobs downtown. The surprise (for them and the Hill) was the decison of may, when they married, to remain and raise families. While these children go to private schools (offering little help to the public system), the creation of a stay at home parent class with means have entirely transformed retail on Charles Street. Over approximately 15 years, the Hill morphed from the back end of the Brahmin descendancy (no money and deteriorating property) to a destination address now as much for empty-nest adults leaving the suburbs as for the young professionals and “suddenly” a viable community with a range of ages (though far less range in economic status) has solidified.

   Holland, Michigan, also depressed in the 1970’s and 1980’s, benefited greatly from the relationship between Hope College and the town so that the source of income was more than the annual tulip festival as local industry (often auto related) moved away. Herman Miller (Aeron chair et al) and the lakes (Michigan and the cleaned up Mackatowa) anchored the cache of the town and Chicago money, as well as student and visiting parent dollars began to shop in the city. Summer folks and students eat, shop, drink coffee during the day as do office workers, lab techs, professors . . . and Holland has become a much named educational, family and retirement living destination.

   What I cannot quite see is who will provide a stable and critical economic mass of dollars to Lowell that must be spent in a neighborhood or city for it to thrive? Any number of retail establishments can open in here but, what with busy lives lived elsewhere who will these retail establishments draw? I shall hope that a part of the Hamilton Canel transformation is welcoming small white collar/professional companies (research, labs, services) that have synergy with the University of MA and Middlesex, that create a reasonably compensated class of shoppers for Lowell and who, as these workers see the city, also opt to live here. There is a lot of space to broaden the economic base without gross displacement of an existing and, typically lower income, population. Lowell is not and need not become the South End in Boston with its significant displacement.

   I agree with the poster above that publically financed “big” projects often fail to deliver. (Read the studies on subsidized stadiums!) I also agree with the astute observations about the vigor of an immigrant population that moves through a city as they prosper. (Just look at the Irish migration from South Boston to Dorchester to Hingham . . . or the Jewish migration from Roxbury to Brookline and Newton in prior decades.) The problem with this pattern is that it tends to be an out migration as the immigrant comes to associate the hard days with that first address. What Lowell needs, as we benefit from often foreign-sourced immigrant neighborhoods of individuals on the way up and, then, out, is to draw a different in-migrant–the individual for whom Lowell is a destination, not a stepping stone.

   Not sure of the solution(s), but I did enjoy The Globe article because it provoked me to think. I hope that many here in the city were equally provoked and that Lowell is the ultimate beneficiary of our thoughts–and actions.

5. Coffee Drinker Says:
   September 10th, 2007 at 5:22 pm

   The Alan Wirzbicki article mixes the discussion of downtown revitalization with job creation and economic development. Getting people to come into the CBD (central business district) of a city is not the same thing as attracting large scale industry with lots of high paying jobs to the downtown. Making a city livable for people at all levels of “wealth” is also different from raising the housing prices in order to reduce the poverty rate by making it too expensive to live downtown. Too tired to make a good lefty pitch here for the redistribution of income, but you get the idea. There are two things going on — livable city and living wage.

   Also, did anybody else think it was strange that Professor Forrant can walk from the campus to Brew’d Awakening in 15 minutes? It’s got to be at least 2 miles, not 1, so at the normal walking pace of 4 miles per hour, it would take a half and hour. No wonder his students don’t want to walk downtown! Nobody wants to walk anymore.

6. waittilnextyr Says:
   September 10th, 2007 at 9:47 pm

   South Campus to Brew’d Awakening:
   Total Est. Distance: 1.57 miles

   North Campus to Brew’d Awakening:
   Total Est. Distance: 1.16 miles

7. -b Says:
   September 10th, 2007 at 11:11 pm

   Tough article to read. It made some good points, but missed others.

   One of the points the article mentioned was all of the empty storefronts in downtown. This is very true, and hard to miss. It really makes me wonder why the city is embarking so agressively on the JAM plan when we already have so much vacant property downtown to being with.

   The Sun had an article over the weekend showing pictures of what the revitalized JAM area might look like when it’s done. There were lots of thin white people walking around with nice cars parked here and there.

   While it all looked nice, I keep wondering how much its going to cost me (that wasn’t really clear in the Sun article), and secondly why we need to do this when we have so many buildings that are already vacant.

   Maybe I a little off topic…

   I felt like the article declared the city’s efforts to be a failure, and I find that far from true.

   All one has to do is goto the parking garage on John Street, goto the top floor, and look around. What they will see is city alive with activity. The mills along the river are widely used for both govenment, commecial, and residential. Many of these buildings were decaying and had low vacancy rates.

   The ball park, arena, and riverwalk are all net money losers for the city, but they raise the quality of life. With that comes more people that want to live here and increased property values. There wasn’t much mention of quality of life in article, and that’s a big oversite.

   Generally I found Bernie Lynch did a good job of defending the city. Most of what he said was dead on.

   Another spin on the comment of walking from UML to Downtown - On top of the distance, one has to walk through one of the rougher parts of the city. I’ve had people try to sell me stolen goods on multiple occasions while on Moody Street.

8. Margaret Says:
   September 11th, 2007 at 8:27 am

   Also, has anyone tried going to a poetry reading at Brew’d Awakening? You can’t get in the door. I have to believe some of those kids are from UML.

9. joe Says:
   September 11th, 2007 at 12:22 pm

   b,

   There are three major differences between the plans for the Hamilton Canal District and the downtown.

   1) The Hamilton Canal District is right up next to the commuter rail station and the end of the Connector, while the core downtown has much worse access for people coming from out of town, or for residents trying to get to work elsewhere.

   2) The development in the HCD will be on vacant land, allowing the construction of large, modern buildings. Much more profitable per square foot, and a lot more square feet, compared to renovating a 2-4 story building downtown.

   3) Most of the empty space in the downtown is retail space. By contrast, most of the space that will be built in the HCD will be office or residential space.

10. Bob Forrant Says:
    September 11th, 2007 at 12:54 pm

    I wrote a long response to all of the points people are making about the Gobe article and sent it last evening - did it make it there?

11. Corey Says:
    September 11th, 2007 at 1:44 pm

    I have a feeling that the reason that we need to develop the Hamilton Canal district in exchange for revamping say, Central St is that those buildings are from the late 19th century, and this is the early 21st. Modern large stores with loading zones for large trucks and buildings that are up to fire code and ADA standards are not available in our core downtown. The Hamilton area is a blank canvas next to a few arterial roads (which again, Gorham Street is not). My hope is an intelligently designed mixed use neighborhood here will allow the smaller specialty shops that could actually use our existing retail space to prosper - once they’re anchored. We also have a confusing downtown. I’ve lived in the Lowell area my whole life and I gave a lost couple looking for the Kerouac Scroll the wrong directionts to John St from Market earlier this week because it’s different in the car than on foot. People constantly turn right out of the end of Shattuck onto Market towards Dutton, and they constantly go the wrong way down Palmer, into the garage. The Hamilton Canal district will be more sanely designed, while I’m hoping it will be as pedestrian friendly as our core city is.

    Safety…that’s a big one too. It came up in the discussion about ULowell and I totally agree - Lowell is scary at night and I would never be caught dead on Moody St after dark, and I wouldn’t happily be there during the day. I live downtown and was walking home late at night from the dorms area and I got mugged on Father Morrisette and ended up at the ER. I live in the Canal Place buildings and there’s been a (capped) syringe just inside the coal shed building fence for a few weeks now. Maybe I should get some gloves and deal with it, but in my experience, a lot of my fellow ex-suburbanites take this sort of thing a lot more negatively than I do. The Hamilton plan should help clean up crackhead and hooker alley back there that us Yuppies abut, which plays into the Two Lowells discussion. There’s nothing we can really do about that I don’t think other than attract good jobs. I think Lowell has given up on that largely and it’s a huge mistake - we now have a significantly smaller daytime population than nighttime one. We do have a poverty problem that should probably be dealt with in some way that doesn’t involve a bulldozer. Cities are diverse almost by definition. In Lowell, because of how small it is, it’s very obvious that we have a very varied population living in a very small space and that causes some conflicts. Downtown is surrounded by fairly dangerous areas. Belvidere and the Upper Highlands very quickly turn into fairly bad neighborhoods. This type of thing doesn’t turn wealthier professionals on to a place, it turns them on to Westford. In a city the size of Boston, the distance from a safe place to be and an unsafe place is much, much wider.

12. Mimi Says:
    September 11th, 2007 at 4:53 pm

    Bob Forrant:

    Your post did not make it. Can you send it again? Thanks.

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