IF THERE’S ONE THING advocates, officials, residents, and experts can all agree on, it’s that Massachusetts’s Gateway Cities need more housing. A lot of it.
What kind of housing needs to be built? That’s where the agreement ends.
In Fall River — where one in five residents live in neighborhoods with highly concentrated poverty and the median household income sits at $57,000 compared to the state’s $104,000 — it can be difficult to consider that the city needs anything other than more subsidized housing production, especially when you factor in the state’s affordable housing shortage.
And yet the South Coast community is on track to see its 20-acre waterfront transformed by a massive mixed-use development consisting of parks, commercial space, and up to 1,500 new housing units to be built over a 10-year period, all of which the city has indicated should be market rate.
The move has sparked criticism from affordable housing advocates who argue that the waterfront plan should include at least a partial commitment to income-restricted units given that nearly half of renters in Fall River are considered “cost-burdened,” or spend more than 30 percent of their income on rent. But economic development advocates and experts say too much affordable housing can further concentrate poverty, while market-rate housing benefits low-income renters by expanding the overall availability of housing.
It’s all part of a broader debate over development and market-rate housing that has landed in almost every Gateway City in the Commonwealth, often playing out through dueling opinion pieces and policy reports. In these communities, housing costs are rising, supply is well below demand, and vacancy rates remain low, meaning competition is too high to stabilize prices. New developments — as well as their proponents — are often met with resistance and backlash, either because the projects lack affordability, are branded as “luxury” housing, or because of gentrification concerns. But local leaders often push back, arguing that what these cities need is a mix of housing that attracts businesses, jobs, and higher incomes that will spur economic development.
As post-industrial era cities like Fall River seek to attract more buying power, break up concentrated poverty, build up the middle class, and revitalize their communities, they are grappling with pro-development and pro-affordability ideals that often seem to be at odds.
“What if everybody’s right? More housing is needed, and affordable housing is also acutely needed,” said Tracy Hadden Loh, a fellow at the Brookings Institution who studies real estate and economic development. “With this ‘debate,’ you end up with people talking past each other when they’re really talking about the same thing, which is just the supply crisis.”
In July, the Massachusetts Department of Transportation — the state agency that owns the site — announced that potential developers have until October 21 to submit bid proposals for Fall River’s Davol Street corridor. Officials say the development could draw close to $1 billion in private investment and would represent a key milestone in the city’s 25-year effort to unlock the potential of its waterfront.
The property sits along the Taunton River adjacent to the MBTA’s Fall River Depot commuter rail station and was created through the Route 79-Davol Street Corridor Improvements Project, which converted a former elevated highway into an urban boulevard. In time, the site will become a new neighborhood featuring restaurants, retail establishments, and housing that local officials hope will attract new residents, employers, and investment. The city has indicated a strong preference that the developers focus on market-rate housing.
The master plan cites a market analysis prepared by CommunityScale, an urban planning consultancy, that found that over 30,000 renters are looking for market-rate housing in the greater Fall River market every year, and that the development could meet more than five percent of that demand.
Pro-development and pro-affordability advocates have been sparring over housing for decades in Massachusetts, though the debate in Gateway Cities intensified following the 2010 creation of the Housing Development Incentive Program (HDIP) — a state program that awards tax credits for market-rate housing in these 26 communities where developers often need help making projects financially viable. It is the only state program targeting market-rate housing and is pitched as one tool for increasing housing supply across income brackets. Fall River has designated its waterfront site as an HDIP district.
The program has drawn controversy from affordable housing advocates, a handful of state lawmakers, and anti-poverty groups like the Massachusetts Law Reform Institute who argue that tax dollars are better spent subsidizing the construction of affordable units than market-rate units. State Sen. Jamie Eldridge, a Marlborough Democrat, authored a bill in 2023 that would require 20 percent of the units in HDIP projects to be made affordable, though it never moved out of committee. The Senate later rejected a similar amendment that Eldridge introduced to a section of the bill that funds HDIP.
A 2022 report by the law reform institute says that the tax credits have gone to developers building “luxury housing in hot market areas” that can attract private developers without state subsidies, citing examples of “high-end” developments in Gateway Cities that rent for more than the area’s median market rents.
The waterfront plan in Fall River anticipates initial average rents of nearly $2,100 a month, ranging from roughly $200 to $1,000 more than the city’s average market rents depending on the unit size. But average market rents in Gateway Cities are typically lower because of their older housing stock, and rents in new construction tend to be more expensive overall. Market-rate projects that are not built through the state program typically charge rents that are on par with or higher than those of new HDIP construction.
Loh said these new developments are often assumed to be exclusively for high-income renters, which isn’t true. “Luxury” is a relative term, she added.
“There’s this yuppie person that everyone is imagining, but actually, almost everyone lives in market rate housing,” Loh said. “This idea that new construction projects are for ‘somebody else’ … overlooks a natural dynamic in the housing sector, which is that things that are new are nicer than things that are old, and new things are more expensive. But then we’re like, ‘Ooh, that’s luxury.’”
The support for market-rate housing is rooted in a classic supply and demand equation. When supply falls short of demand, rents and home prices rise. When there are too few homes overall (and when vacancy rates are low), higher-income households compete for older, modest units that would otherwise remain affordable. Though it seems contradictory, building new, market-rate housing for middle- or high-income earners drives the price of older housing back down and increases the available supply.
Data from the California Legislative Analyst’s Office has shown that low-income neighborhoods in the Bay Area that have added more market-rate housing units since 2000 have been less likely to experience displacement, likely because the construction of market-rate housing reduces housing costs for low-income households.
“In Fall River, most of the housing stock was constructed pre-1940,” said Ken Fiola, executive vice president of the Bristol County Economic Development Consultants. “You have people here that are renting, but if offered a new and attractive type of rental opportunity, they’ll jump at it.”
New market-rate developments generally increase assessed property values as well, expanding the local property tax base. Those additional revenues then flow into the municipality’s budget.
People like Ed Lambert, executive director of the Massachusetts Business Alliance for Education and former mayor of Fall River, say market-rate housing is vital for Gateway Cities to attract a professional, middle-class workforce with disposable income to spend at restaurants, gift shops, and other small businesses.
“I don’t think it’s necessarily fair that every time there’s a big development opportunity, the creation of affordable housing has to drive every decision in that development,” he said.
The 26 Gateway Cities have 35,000 more extremely low-income renters than they have apartments that are affordable to this population, according to the MassINC Policy Center. Collectively, these cities need to add 83,000 housing units over the next 10 years to catch up to demand, these researchers also note. That means housing production would need to double compared to what it was between 2014 and 2024. (MassINC Policy Center is part of the same organization that publishes CommonWealth Beacon.)
Affordable housing advocates like Tracy Albernaz, the Fall River community organizer for the faith-based organization United Interfaith Action, say the problem is not that market-rate housing is being built, but rather that the city isn’t building enough affordable housing.
In Fall River, 73 percent of the rental stock is affordable, with 59 percent classified as naturally occurring affordable housing and 14 percent classified as deed-restricted housing, meaning units are required to be offered at rents affordable to income-eligible households. The remaining 27 percent is classified as not affordable. As of 2025, Fall River’s subsidized housing inventory was just over the 10 percent goal set by the state, according to data from the Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities.
But because naturally occurring affordable housing is unrestricted and therefore vulnerable to market forces, rent increases can ultimately result in a reduction of this type of affordable housing stock. In Fall River, the median income of renters sits at $41,000 while the income needed to afford the typical rent is nearly $73,000.
Still, Gateway Cities are the backbone of affordability when it comes to housing in the state. They contain around 75,000 deed-restricted units — twice as many as their suburbs.
“There’s a need for affordable units, no question about it. But you don’t have to warehouse all of the poor within Gateway Cities,” Fiola said. “You have to look at the surrounding suburbs and see how they’re addressing the affordability component.”
Liz Murphy, Fitchburg’s director of community development and planning, said 76 percent of the city’s downtown housing stock was income restricted five years ago. Now, the area is a designated HDIP zone, and the city is seeing a growing number of market-rate investments there.
“Affordable housing is critically important, but not at the expense of concentrating poverty,” she said.
Research from Harvard University’s Opportunity Insights has shown that children who grow up in mixed-income communities earn more as adults, are more likely to attend college, and are less likely to be incarcerated than those who grew up in high-poverty public housing communities.
“Affordable housing is a regional need, and to say that only specific neighborhoods should fulfill that need is to be in favor of economic segregation,” Loh said. “The same thing is true of market-rate housing.”
Leaders like Lambert have long argued that Gateway Cities shoulder more than their share of housing for the poor and are often asked to do more while other communities get a pass.
“Some of the people complaining that Gateway Cities aren’t doing enough live in suburban communities that are opposing the state’s effort to have all cities participate in creating a Commonwealth that has a sufficient amount of affordable housing,” he said. “I saw that on the front steps of this debate when I was mayor.”
When he was in office in 2001, Lambert took heat from anti-poverty groups for turning down a $9 million federal grant to rehab a public housing development called Watuppa Heights. He argued at the time that Fall River had become a magnet for lower-income residents driven out of Boston by high housing costs and instead proposed that the 100-unit development be razed and replaced with 26 single-family homes.
The site was eventually demolished and now sits blighted and undeveloped amid a yearslong lawsuit — first filed by homelessness advocates in 2021 claiming the city refused to honor its obligations to build affordable housing on the site — that has left the property in legal limbo.
In 2002, a similar controversy erupted in Worcester as city officials began pushing for more market-rate housing development while local housing advocates sought to prioritize affordability for lower-income residents. A prominent consulting firm had advised the city to scale back its subsidized housing plans and instead try to “attract a higher class of people.” That comment drew fire from community leaders, who called it the height of insensitivity. But city officials got the message, even if they distanced themselves from the language.
“Maybe this study was a little crude in its conclusion,” said Worcester’s housing director at the time. But he added that it was “absolutely critical” for the city to push for more market-rate housing.
Developments branded as “luxury” housing in low-income cities can also ignite concerns and claims of gentrification. But there is little evidence to support fears that extensive gentrification is taking place in Gateway Cities. Those moving into these communities have slightly lower incomes than those who already live there, suggesting that rising housing costs are not due to an influx of higher-income residents, according to the MassINC Policy Center’s 2025 Gateway Cities Housing Monitor. Only in Malden is the share of residents with incomes above $75,000 higher among newcomers than among longer-term residents.
There is evidence of a relationship between rising rents and the prevalence of no-cause eviction filings across the Gateway Cities, according to the housing monitor report. In communities where rents have surged the fastest, including Fall River, filings are consistently among the highest. Many are concerned that landlords are using this process to remove tenants at will so they can seek higher rents — with or without renovating the unit — due to high demand and competition.
Lambert said underneath the gentrification argument is often an assumption that revitalization and development can’t happen without displacement.
“There’s kind of an automatic reaction that an investment is just going to be a bad thing for the people that live there. I think that’s what holds these cities back,” he said.
Fiola is hopeful that market-rate housing will attract residents with higher educational attainment levels, which could encourage businesses and professional employers to set up shop in Fall River.
“You need to be able to show these companies that you have a constituency that can meet their workforce needs, otherwise you lose out on economic development opportunities,” he said.
As the market-rate debate plays out on Fall River’s waterfront — just as it did last year on Lynn’s waterfront — the question doesn’t seem to be whether Gateway Cities should choose between market-rate and affordable housing, but whether they can build the right mix that satisfies parties on all sides.
“Unless we want to just write blank checks to support Gateway Cities with taxpayer dollars, the flip side of that is helping them create a self-sustaining financial model that includes a good mix of housing,” Lambert said.
