I'm staying up way too long playing with @mhpdata's Data Town feature. It's an easy way to explore all sorts of demographic data. mhpcenterforhousingdata.shinyapps.io/DataTown/
But I want to address housing production. Since 2010, the regional population (Boston MSA, minus NH portion) has grown by 7.3%. factfinder.census.gov/faces/tableser…
Where has the production of multifamily housing kept up?
Where has the production of multifamily housing kept up?
For instance: Chelsea has added 1400 units, and based on its 2010 population of 35,000, that's 1 unit per 25 people.
Boston: 1 for 30
Cambridge: 1 for 36
Watertown: 1 for 21
Everett: 1 for 30
Boston: 1 for 30
Cambridge: 1 for 36
Watertown: 1 for 21
Everett: 1 for 30
Not all towns have kept up.
Brookline has only added 110 units: 1 for every 536 people.
Waltham 1 for 300
But I am going to pick on Newton, which has added 150 units in the past 10 years: one for every 600 residents.
Brookline has only added 110 units: 1 for every 536 people.
Waltham 1 for 300
But I am going to pick on Newton, which has added 150 units in the past 10 years: one for every 600 residents.
(A quick aside: some towns, like Malden and Medford, have not reported full data. Nor has Everett, so its numbers might be better still.)
Why Newton? Because it is has some of the loudest anti-housing outcries. The group @rightsizenewton argues that the development is too dense for Newton and is trying to hold a referendum to overturn the votes of the City Council. bostonglobe.com/metro/newton/2…
Yet Newton is far behind the rate of housing production of its neighbors. If it build housing as fast as Cambridge, it would have added 2500 units in the past 10 years. As fast as Boston, 3000. As fast as Watertown? 4200.
Watertown is adding housing at a rate 30 times faster than Newton. Has traffic choked Watertown? Not more than anywhere else. (And Newton has as-good-if-not-better transit access compared to Watertown.)
Even if the Riverside and Northland projects are built, Newton will still be 1000s of units behind where they should be if they built at the rate of Cambridge, Boston or Watertown.
Which is not to say Watertown, or Cambridge, or Boston, is doing enough to keep up with population growth. But if somewhere like Newton refuses to build anything, it will hit the rest of the region that much harder.
So, come ye YIMBY sons and daughters of Newton (maybe just me and @rightlegpegged, but still) and tell your parents (if they still live there) or their old #OKBoomer friends to stop being NIMBYs.
