It could ease traffic, make housing more affordable and provide a much-needed economic boost to a less advantaged region.
And it’s not a magic wand.
State Sen. Eric Lesser, a proud son of the town of Longmeadow, has filed a bill that would provide $10,000 in relocation expenses to families who relocate from the Boston area to western Massachusetts. The important caveat is that the offer is only for telecommuters — people who can bring their jobs with them.
“Come here because we have a great lifestyle … we have great communities, we have great schools,” said Lesser, “but we’re not producing jobs fast enough. Our economy is not growing enough.”
Massachusetts, he said, is a microcosm of the rest of the country, and even the world — a place where old manufacturing cities like Springfield have struggled in the global economy, while jobs and people have migrated to thriving urban areas like Boston.
“We’re seeing a hyper-vacuuming of jobs and opportunity in a handful of small geographic places and the emptying out of communities around that area,” said Lesser. A financial incentive for people to move, he said, would benefit both sides of the state, providing more people to bolster the economy in western Massachusetts while lessening the demand on transportation and housing around Boston.
“You can actually help both ends of the state with a proposal like this. We can give an escape valve for the congestion and grind in Boston and we can give people an opportunity to build lives here in western Massachusetts,” said Lesser. “The bottom line, even a modestly priced house in Boston will buy you a mansion in western Massachusetts.”
The median price for a house last year in Springfield was $160,000, according to the Massachusetts Association of Realtors.
Boon and Caro Sheridan live in nearby Holyoke in a renovated church. She has a sewing studio, he has a home office, and beneath the peaked roof there's a wide open living space. They bought the renovated church six years ago for $238,000. It was far less than the asking price of the Everett apartment they were renting.
"The person who owned our property decided to put it on the market," said Boon Sheridan. “It wasn’t necessarily something that we could purchase, so it was time to move."
Do they miss the city?
“Choices shrank, but we still have a lot of things to do,” said Boon Sheridan. “We had a favorite bar in Somerville, now we have a favorite bar in Northampton.”
“We’re not missing out anything here, really,” said Caro Sheridan, “it’s been good for us.”
Lesser’s bill would set aside $1 million, enough to fund the relocation of about 100 families. It’s a modest start to address what he said is a major problem, no matter what side of the state you call home.
“You know, eventually jobs and opportunity will leave Boston on their own because it’s too expensive, because no one can get around, because nobody can afford to live there,” Lesser said. “If we don’t have a holistic view of growth and opportunity in our Commonwealth, we are going to end up with both places suffering.”
If the plan passes, western Massachusetts will have some nearby competition. Vermont just implemented a similar measure, offering work-at-home newcomers a $10,000 relocation incentive.
But, Lesser points out, for Boston-area residents, western Massachusetts is closer.
“This isn’t Siberia, this isn’t Alaska,” he said. ‘We’re very, very close — 90 minutes down the Mass Pike.” And, he said, if you're so inclined: New York City is a mere two and a half hours away.
