Massachusetts grew more slowly over the last 50 years than the rest of the country, adding 1.3 million people (24%) while the country expanded by over 128 million people (63%). Weather, taxes and the cost of living are often blamed, but we also lack places to grow. Faster growing states like Texas, Florida, Arizona and California, have unincorporated land to create new towns and cities. All our growth must take place within our existing communities.
While a lot of housing has been built in the last 20 years, the demographics of that growth is surprising. 123, or 35%, of municipalities are less populous than they were 50 years ago. Of the state’s 25 largest communities, seven are still smaller than they were 50 years ago and five only attained their 1970 population in 2020. Only nine of the 25 suburban or gateway cities grew in every census since 1970. While the communities larger than 50,000 are home to 40% of our total population, they absorbed only 20% of our 1.3 million new residents.How did this happen? Well, there are two major drivers of housing demand: population growth and household size, which are rarely discussed in housing policy and zoning discussions. A town of 10,000 people in 1970 needed 3,322 housing units based on the state average of 3.01 people-per-household (pph). But that average has dropped to 2.34, over 20%, since 1970. So that town needs almost another thousand housing units, or 30%, to maintain the same population number. To keep up with the state’s low growth rate of 0.5% per year and smaller household size, it would need almost 2,000, or 60%, more units.
No wonder housing is expensive and undersupplied.
Source: We Are Not Who We Used To Be | ULI Boston/New England
