Submitted by AverageUhhhh t3_122r8d6 in WorcesterMA
What is there en masse that Worcester is giving to Massachusetts??? Or the world???? A larger than average city with shit schools, racist history, enough cars to make this shit as polluted as the Hudson, shit. I just wish things could get better, and STAY better. No gentrification, no ridiculous Petty bullshit (yes both the word and the mayor), just a better, more cultured, more capable city for everyone to really be a part of. Shit.
ok
We talking about a different Worcester? This city has improved leaps and bounds since the 90s
Lol what part of the country doesn’t have a racist history? As to what we have to offer, we have lower rent prices than Boston and Cambridge so that’s always going to attract people.
Talking about pollution most forget many of the factories here use to burn and dump chemicals right into the ground. I use to do water testing for a college program and it does slowly work it's way into the water ways of the city. Some gets pumped out. I love the fancy restaurants that are sitting on top of chemical dumps.
Worcester is a huge brown field, remediation is expensive and what would be the point?
Must be pretty young. Worcester has changed for the better a whole bunch. If I had to guess. Gen z'er? Without a job?
What are you giving us more importantly 🤣
Yeah the baseball stadium was a huge waste of money. It only brings ppl into to watch the game and leave. rather than something that would encourage people to visit and stay and explore the city. The demographic that actually lives here doesn’t care about baseball.
Lol worcester is not nearly gentrified enough
Worcester went down the path of Detroit, but it's getting better.
What you're talking about takes money, Worcester's tax base isn't enough to pay all it's bills. Worcester has tried and failed many times through many schemes to bring in money makers all ended up losers. Worcester's bread and butter was industry, it's gone and ain't never coming back. The city could offer free land and a five year tax moratorium to businesses and no one would take it. Even the Casinos aren't interested. Worcester's lucky, other industrial cities have fared much worse, like Gary Indiana, Detroit, Akron Ohio and hundreds of others. The homeless in SF and LA are migrants from the rust belt because staying in those mid west cities meant death. Worcester's my old home town and I lived there during the boom time and it's just so sad that there doesn't seem to be a way to fix what it's become. What would bring in large amounts of Federal money?
When did Worcester have a boom time?
When I was in 3rd or 4th grade and geography was still taught, I remember our textbook had a picture of Worcester in it. The caption under that picture said, "Worcester Massachusetts, the industrial capital of the world." It said Worcester's claim to fame was having more manufacturing per square mile than any other place on the planet. Worcester at the time had steel mills, shoe manufactures, plastics factories, envelope factories, textile mills, foundries, factories that made precision measure devices, a factory that made industrial scales, another that made textile looms. There were hundreds of small shops that made just about every type of small goods. There were three major baking companies, one of which made only pies. The largest employers that I remember were Norton Abrasives, Wyman Gordon, Heald Machine, Crompton and Knowles, Reed and Prince, Curtis and Marble, Washburn Steel and Wire, Brown Shoe, David Clark Co and Orbit Co both made products for the space program. Pullman standard built train cars, White and Bagley made Oilzum products which were high quality lubricants, Dapol plastics, Harrington Richardson made guns for WWII and Viet Nam. The repurposed mill buildings in Worcester and the ruins and scars of old manufacturing sites represent only a small percentage of the factories that once existed. Every three decker in Worcester was built as cheap housing for mill workers. There's still hundreds of those standing but thousands that disappeared as the city declined and tried to reshape it self. When 290 went in whole neighborhoods disappeared and Worcester has many empty back streets where mills once stood. Every large neighborhood in Worcester except the west side housed manufacturing. Very little remains. I prefaced your answer with all of this to give you an idea of the enormity of Worcester's industrial past which began in the 1800s. The boom time began during WWII and ended in the mid to late 70s. During that time Worcester had one of the fastest growing middle class in the country and what is no suburban was once rural. I want to add that all of the major manufacturers contributed billions in endowments to many of Worcester colleges and universities and large amounts to the Arts.
your_city_councilor t1_jdrr3dc wrote
Maybe this is not the city for you.