Economic Development
Publications and Presentations
- The Urban Experience
- Staying Power
- Sustaining the Mass Economy
- Revenue Sharing
- The Rebirth of Older Industrial Cities
- Building Our Heritage
- Moving Up
- Economic Revitalization
- The Boston Renaissance
- Growing Prosperity
- The Great U Turn
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The Urban Experience
Barry Bluestone, Mary Huff Stevenson and Russell Williams. Oxford University. July 2008.
courtesy of Barnes and Nobles.com
The Urban Experience provides a fresh approach to the study of metropolitan areas by combining economic principles, social insight, and political realities with an appreciation of public policy to understand how U.S. cities and suburbs function in the 21st century. The book is grounded in the real life experiences of students and their families on the premise that there is a fascination about one's own surroundings. It uses a great deal of historical and comparative data to explore the wide variation in how we experience urban and suburban communities. It addresses the changing role and function of U.S. metropolitan areas in an age of growing global competition and focuses on key contemporary problems facing cities and suburbs. The book introduces analyses from economics, sociology, and political science as useful tools to understand the evolution and current status of the nation's urban areas.
The book will be a valuable text for urban scholars, public officials, and all those interested in understanding urban dynamics.
Staying Power: The Future of Manufacturing in Massachusetts 
July 2008
NOTE: the following is an excerpt of a press release by the Boston Foundation
Conventional wisdom may relegate manufacturing to the ash heap of earlier centuries, but new research undertaken by the Center for Urban and Regional Policy (CURP) and the School of Social Science, Urban Affairs, and Public Policy at Northeastern University and released today by the Boston Foundation establishes not only the importance of manufacturing as a potent part of the regional economy but its role as a catalyst for future growth. Today, almost 10 percent of the state’s workforce is employed in manufacturing, creating almost $40 billion worth of goods annually. The sector retains more than 8,600 firms that are technologically sophisticated and well positioned to compete successfully in the emerging global economy.
The report, entitled Staying Power: The Future of Manufacturing in Massachusetts, reviews the history of manufacturing in the state, from before World War II through recent decades of decline and renewal. In addition, surveys of more than 700 businesses were completed and separate interviews with more than 100 business leaders in the sector were undertaken by the research team, headed by Barry Bluestone, Dean of the School of Social Science, Urban Affairs and Public Policy and Director of CURP, and Don Walsh, a Senior Research Associate at CURP. Lauren Nicoll and Chase Billingham also contributed to the writing of the report.
The report was commissioned by the state’s 2006 Economic Stimulus bill. Partners in the publication included he Manufacturing Extension Partnership, the Massachusetts Alliance for Economic Development and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, in addition to the Boston Foundation.
To download the full report, click here.
Moving Up in the New Economy: Career Ladders for U.S. Workers 
Strategies that create new opportunities for low-wage workers to learn skills and advance through a progression of higher-skilled and better-paid jobs are thoroughly explored across various sectors of our economy in Moving Up. Case studies of career-ladder programs are presented at the firm, local and regional level in five sectors: health care, child care, education, biotechnology, and manufacturing.
Sustaining the Mass Economy: Housing Costs, Population Dynamics, and Employment 
May 2006
The Federal Reserve Bank of Boston's New England Public Policy Center and The Rappaport Institute for Greater Boston at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government hosted the release of Sustaining the Mass Economy: Housing Costs, Population Dynamics, and Employment on May 22, 2006 in Boston.
According to the report’s findings, employment dropped by over 160,000 since 2001; the population has fallen for the past two years in a row, mostly as a result of rapidly rising out-migration to places like New Hampshire, Arizona, and North Carolina; and the loss of population was disproportionately among young workers and their families. We also know that housing prices skyrocketed by 144 percent in Greater Boston between 1995 and 2004 so that the median single family home sold for $376,000 at the end of this period. Meanwhile, Class A apartment rents in the Boston metro region were the most expensive in the country, save those in New York City. Price and rents have stabilized in the past two years, but they remain among the highest in the country.
"This report attempts to use statistical methods to test whether or not this conjecture about the adverse economic development effects of housing costs is valid and whether the survey responses of former state residents represent a real trend", according to Director Barry Bluestone.
Click here to download the full report.
Revenue Sharing and the Future of the Massachusetts Economy 
January 2006
Revenue Sharing and the Future of the Massachusetts Economy” determined that the future economic prosperity of Massachusetts is dependent on increasing the fiscal capacity of cities and towns.
The report acknowledges that certain variables, such as cost of living and climate, will continue to disadvantage the Commonwealth in its competition for workers and business investment. But this can be addressed by recognizing that economic development turns increasingly on the ability of local communities to compete in the regional, national and global economy by offering vital public services and high-quality public amenities.
It concludes that Massachusetts must re-craft the fiscal partnership between the state and local governments if municipalities are to play their critical role in economic development, and recommends three steps towards achieving this goal:
- A new and enduring revenue sharing partnership,
- Diversifying the local tax and revenue structure, and
- Increasing local management authority.
Click hereto download the full report.
The Rebirth of Older Industrial Cities: Exciting Opportunities for Private Sector Investment
April 2004
This project, funded in part by the Massachusetts chapter of the National Association of Industrial and Office Properties (NAIOP), aims to identify impediments or "deal breakers" to development in five designated urban areas in Massachusetts. The research focused on sites identified by officials in Boston, Chelsea, Holyoke, Lawrence, and New Bedford, and on six key industrial sectors, all identified as strategic by the state government: health care/life sciences, biotechnology, information technology, financial services, traditional manufacturing, and travel and tourism. More than 50 business leaders and commercial real estate professionals were interviewed in order to determine the factors most important in location decisions. The Dukakis Center focused in particular on firms that had an existing or recently established urban presence in one of the study cities to determine what factors contributed to the decision to locate, expand, or remain in these urban locations.
Former Dukakis Center Associate Directo David Soule spearheaded this project, with assistance from director Barry Bluestone, and associate director Joan Fitzgerald. Three research associates, Jennifer Cabrera from the Harvard Law School, Shelley McDonough from the Sociology Department and Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and Mark Melnik from the Sociology Department at Northeastern University also worked on this report.
To download the full report, click here.
To download the Presentation of "The Rebirth of Older Industrial Cities", click here.
Building on our Heritage: A Housing Strategy for Smart Growth
and Economic Development 
October 2003
This report was developed at The Dukakis Center for the Commonwealth Housing Task Force, an ad hoc group of housing advocates, developers, business and civic leaders, and academics who began meeting in 2001 to develop solutions to the housing problem in Massachusetts. In this report, the Task Force made two recommendations:
- The state should provide financial and other incentives to local communities that pass Smart Growth Overlay Zoning Districts that allow the building of single-family homes on smaller lots and the construction of apartments for families at all income levels.
- The state should increase its commitment to fund affordable housing for families of low and moderate income.
Barry Bluestone, director of the Dukakis Center, worked with Eleanor White, a Research Associate at the Dukakis Center and president of Housing Partners, Inc. and Ted Carman, president of the Concord Square Development Company, Inc., to craft this proposal. This team, along with many others from the business, academic, and non-profit world, presented the proposal to the Massachusetts State Legislature's Housing Committees in late November. The proposal was passed into law in 2004.
To download the full report, click here.
Economic Revitalization: Cases and Strategies for City and Suburb 
Joan Fitzgerald and Nancey Green Leigh. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 2002
A discussion of leading revitalization strategies in the context of both city and suburban settings, offering case studies of program development and implementation. The text incorporates social justice and sustainability into how we think about and practice economic development. It discusses how revitalization strategies are implemented in both cities and suburbs, particularly inner-ring suburbs that are experiencing decline previously associated only with inner-city neighborhoods.
The Boston Renaissance: Race, Space, and Economic Change in an American Metropolis 
Barry Bluestone and Mary Huff Stevenson. New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2000
The culmination of nearly five years of research on the new Boston economy. It recounts the industrial and demographic revolution in post-World War II Boston and its impact on racial and ethnic attitudes, residential segregation, and the labor market success of whites, blacks, and Latinos.
Growing Prosperity: The Battle for Growth with Equity in the 21st Century 
Barry Bluestone and Bennett Harrison. New York: Houghton-Mifflin & The Century Foundation, 2000
This publication explores historical trends and current prospects for economic growth in the United States.
The Great U-Turn: Corporate Restructuring and the Polarizing of America 
Barry Bluestone and Bennett Harrison. New York: Basic Books, 1990
A sequel to The Deindustrialization of America, this book investigates how economic policies have contributed to growing inequality.