Across the country, cities are abandoning their parking minimums and hoping to end up with fewer parking lots and walkable, transit-oriented neighborhoods. The local rules have been used to ensure new developments can accommodate residents with cars and do not overwhelm on-street public parking. But urbanists have argued that the requirements gobble up land that could be used for more housing and drive up construction costs.
Gateway Cities
Posted inElection 2026
‘A self-fulfilling cycle’: Why Gateway Cities consistently have lower voter turnout
Cities like Worcester — where the poverty rate is twice as high as the state’s — may have trouble getting people to the polls this November. The state’s most disadvantaged and diverse urban communities often have some of the lowest voter turnout rates. In the last midterm election year, nine of the 10 municipalities with the lowest voter turnout were Gateway Cities.
Posted inHousing
On Fall River’s waterfront, the debate over market-rate housing unfolds
The South Coast community is on track to see its 20-acre waterfront transformed by a massive mixed-use development consisting of up to 1,500 new housing units, all of which the city has indicated should be market rate. The move has angered affordable housing advocates and sparked a familiar debate, where pro-development and pro-affordability ideals seem to be at odds.
Posted inEducation
The unintended consequences of the Student Opportunity Act
The well-intended legislation was aimed at addressing persistent racial and socioeconomic achievement gaps, but what Beacon Hill perhaps didn’t foresee was the greater financial pressure it would place on municipal budgets as sluggish state aid growth that has not kept pace with inflation, strict limits on local tax increases, and rising costs continue to trap many local governments between a rock and a hard place.
Posted inOpinion
If we want better local government, especially in Gateway Cities, let’s change the election calendar so more people vote when we elect municipal leaders
“No other institutional reform we know of—short of making voting compulsory—comes anywhere close to having this kind of impact on turnout,” says the University of Chicago’s Center for Effective Government of aligning local and national elections.
Posted inOpinion
Fall River waterfront makeover shouldn’t leave out affordable housing
Unfortunately, under Fall River’s current plans for the almost 1,500 homes slated for the site, bidders must defer to the city’s “strong preference for market-rate housing as the development option for the Property.”
Posted inGateway Cities
The Dean of Massachusetts mayors
After more than 32 years in office, Dean Mazzarella has become the longest serving mayor in Massachusetts history, managing to transform the city, limit his list of enemies, and remain an ever-present, zealous leader. Despite an electoral touch other officials would die for, he comes off far more as affable everyman than calculating politician, which could be why he has endured politically for so many years.
Posted inPolitics
Political Notebook: House Speaker foretells Senate tax swerve
He was joking when he described “fortune-telling” as a preferred pastime, but House Speaker Ron Mariano still managed to divine the way electoral politics would affect a Senate tax cap proposal.
Posted inEnvironment
Despite being disproportionately impacted by air pollution, many Gateway Cities don’t have state-run air quality monitors
Of these 26 former industrial cities, 17 do not have state-operated air quality monitors. At a time when environmental justice communities are even more at risk due to federal rollbacks to clean air protections, the lack of monitors has some advocates speaking out as climate change continues to lay the groundwork for the dangerously hot and dry conditions that fuel wildfires.
Posted inOpinion
In the panic over a talent exodus, Massachusetts is forgetting the underutilized talent it has
Most states compete for the workers everyone else wants. Talent activation is a different discipline. It starts not with who might move to the state, but with who is already here.
Posted inGateway Cities
‘We are America’: Chelsea named All-America city for the second year in a row
Nearly half of Chelsea’s predominantly Latino population was born outside of the United States — the largest foreign-born population of any community in Massachusetts. The city’s award application highlighted its community-centered policing, food distribution system, and youth development initiatives – efforts that have helped strengthen residents’ trust in local government amid a federal immigration crackdown that has had Chelsea in its crosshairs, according to city officials.
Posted inHealth Care
Merrimack Health shutters Methuen maternity unit a month earlier than expected
The three-campus health system first announced its plans to shutter the obstetric unit and consolidate its maternity and neonatal services at Lawrence General Hospital, which is less than two miles away, on April 1. But on June 23, administrators informed Methuen nurses that they would cease admissions to the hospital’s maternity unit in six days.
Posted inHousing
Homeowner satisfaction high in Gateway Cities despite a host of financial challenges, new poll finds
The poll highlights a clash between how people feel about homeownership and what it means for their finances. Gateway City homeowners were more likely to skip urgent home repairs due to cost, buy in neighborhoods that were not their first choice, and say that competition with other buyers was a barrier they faced.
Posted inTransportation
Springfield mayor calls for ending regional fare-free bus program, drawing criticism from state transit advocates
Officials and transit advocates have criticized the mayor’s approach and questioned whether the youth disturbances at Union Station can be attributed to the availability of free bus rides. Some have cited the success of the fare-free program and instead called for more policing.
Posted inTransportation
Gateway City leaders celebrate one year of South Coast Rail, but final phase remains in limbo
Getting Phase 1 across the finish line was no easy feat. And just over a year later, state officials still have not rolled out a plan to finance and finish the second phase — also called the “full build” — that was proposed nearly a decade ago.
Posted inHousing
How a shuttered hospital site in Lynn is being transformed into affordable housing for seniors
Local leaders say the $85 million development — which will be reserved for residents age 62 and older with incomes up to 60 percent of the area median income — will help alleviate the city’s housing shortage and provide an affordable, accessible option to some of Lynn’s most vulnerable residents.
Posted inOpinion
The answer to the school desegregation lawsuit? Revive urban communities.
This long-overdue school desegregation lawsuit may provide the push we need to change the conversation from cross-district enrollment to place-based revitalization of urban neighborhoods.
Posted inEnergy
Port cities try to weather shifting winds
Salem and New Bedford both received millions from the state to develop the sites of retired fossil fuel power plants into terminals that would serve as logistics and operations centers for the construction of offshore wind. But wind projects have long been struggling to get off the ground.
Posted inMiddle class
‘I want a legacy for my family’
For years, small business ownership has served as a “gateway” to the middle class, particularly for residents in Gateway Cities like Holyoke where economic mobility is otherwise limited and educational attainment is low. But since the pandemic, experts and advocates have warned that Massachusetts’s small businesses are struggling to survive.
Posted inEnvironment
Lowell residents sue data center, state over air quality permit
The legal challenge, filed in Middlesex County Superior Court, comes at a time of heightened scrutiny over data centers and their role in powering artificial intelligence both around the country and within the Bay State.
Posted inEnvironment
$120 million sewer project marks Lynn’s latest effort to improve water quality, fix its long-polluted coastline
A collection of cities on the North Shore (and across Massachusetts) have historically combined sewer systems where both wastewater and stormwater come through shared pipes. During heavy rains, the excess flow bypasses the treatment plants where it is supposed to be cleaned and is instead discharged into local bodies of water to prevent backups in people’s homes.
Posted inHealth Care
Methuen Hospital will be next in a string of maternity unit closures since 2010
This will be the 12th maternity service closure in Massachusetts – five of which have occurred in Gateway Cities – since 2010. The state technically doesn’t have any maternity care deserts – counties without hospitals or birth centers offering obstetric care, and no obstetric providers. But recent losses have experts and advocates sounding the alarm.
Posted inEducation
Worcester pilot program provides early childhood educators with rent-free space to start their businesses
The Family Childcare Success Project, formed in partnership by the Guild of St. Agnes and the Seven Hills Foundation, launched a new family child care incubator — only the third of its kind in the nation — meant to provide more child care slots while making it easier for early educators to get their start.
Posted inEnvironment
‘Not if, but when’: Flood prevention project in Everett and Chelsea remains frozen one year after federal program cuts
One year ago in April, the Trump administration abruptly announced its intent to shut down the bipartisan Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) program, a Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) initiative that has allocated billions of dollars in federal grants to pre-disaster mitigation efforts in communities across the country since 2020.
