美国国家公共电台 NPR Forget Oakland Or Hoboken. Worcester, Mass., Is The New 'It' Town

 

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

Next we have news of a side effect of booming cities where housing costs are soaring and people are priced out. People who can't buy in are moving to smaller cities. Think about San Francisco and Oakland, you know, or Manhattan and Hoboken, N.J., which is a little bit cheaper. Over the past few decades, that process has brought big change to Boston and the towns surrounding it. And now, a full hour west of Boston, Worcester, Mass., is seeing its stock rise. From WGBH Radio in Boston, Aaron Schachter reports on what could become a case study in urban growth.

AARON SCHACHTER, BYLINE¹: A few years ago, if you'd asked most people in Massachusetts their opinion of Worcester, you'd likely get an answer like this one from Michelle Costello.

MICHELLE COSTELLO: It wasn't any place I'd ever come - made me nervous, made me scared. My mother used to tell me all the time, when I was a kid, stay away from Worcester. It's not a nice place to be.

EDWARD AUGUSTUS: It had sunk into the psyche², I think, of the city that it wasn't going to come back, that this was just our fate.

SCHACHTER: Worcester city manager Edward Augustus grew up here and points to Union Station as a symbol of Worcester's booming industrial revolution at the turn of last century. By the mid-'70s, its roof had caved in. There was also the Galleria Mall, which was supposed to revitalize downtown, but instead killed local businesses, divided the city in half and then went belly³ up.

AUGUSTUS: There were a lot of silver bullet strategies over the years. You know, jeez, if we just make this project happen, this will be the catalyst⁴.

SCHACHTER: Officials really got to work in 2010 by beautifying the large park outside city hall and then demolishing⁵ the infernal mall. Kate McEvoy, a vice⁶ president for Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, is a fifth-generation Worcesterite.

KATE MCEVOY: Properties are hot, commercially. Properties are hot, residentially⁷. Everyone just wants a piece of Worcester right now. It's crazy.

SCHACHTER: It's actually not crazy at all, considering the forces at play. Brian Sargent, professor of public policy at UMass Amherst, says there's a classic path for a smaller city to boom, and Worcester is following the formula a whole lot quicker than anywhere else.

BRIAN SARGENT: You need a smaller city near a larger city. You need the larger city to get really expensive fast. That's Boston. You need the smaller city to go through under-development or, a lot of times, post-industrial depression. Then as the expensive city prices people out, there would be some bleed over from there.

SCHACHTER: Boston is 47 miles and an hour train ride away, making that bleed over a relatively⁸ easy commute⁹. This past spring, average rents in Boston rose faster than any metro¹⁰ area in the country, and that was on top of an already booming real estate market.

SAM CANARY: Professionally, it's a great place to be. Personally and socially, it has been just incredible.

SCHACHTER: 32-year-old Sam Canary works for Morgan Stanley and lives in one of Worcester's swanky new downtown buildings. He's minutes from a domestic airport and surrounded by nine colleges and universities, including the state university's teaching hospital.

CANARY: I walk to work every day. I go out to eat three or four nights a week. The food scene here is great. The social scene here is great. I get to be here, and I can access the world right outside my doorstep.

SCHACHTER: The city is experiencing booms in tech, biomedical and specialty¹¹ manufacturing. City officials have greenlit $2.6 billion in recent construction - new housing, as well as retail¹² and restaurant space. And Worcester is finally growing after losing residents for much of the last century. But it's the residents already here who Danielle Lariviere thinks about. She's with the Central Mass Housing Alliance and says over the past 12 months, rents and housing prices have risen too far, too fast.

DANIELLE LARIVIERE: We need to remember that we are pricing our elders out. We are pricing our young families out. In order to have, like, a really vital city, we don't want to end up with some of the crises that we're seeing in the Boston area.

SCHACHTER: Lariviere says the housing speculation¹³ so far hasn't extended much beyond the city center, but she worries that it's only a matter of time before affordable¹⁴ housing goes the way of Worcester's once-vaunted industrial manufacturing.

For NPR News, I'm Aaron Schachter.

(SOUNDBITE OF STEREO CUBE'S "CHERRY SODA")

1 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

2 psyche   

n.精神；灵魂

参考例句：

• His exploration of the myth brings insight into the American psyche.他对这个神话的探讨揭示了美国人的心理。
• She spent her life plumbing the mysteries of the human psyche.她毕生探索人类心灵的奥秘。

3 belly   

n.肚子，腹部；(像肚子一样)鼓起的部分，膛

参考例句：

• The boss has a large belly.老板大腹便便。
• His eyes are bigger than his belly.他眼馋肚饱。

4 catalyst   

n.催化剂，造成变化的人或事

参考例句：

• A catalyst is a substance which speeds up a chemical reaction.催化剂是一种能加速化学反应的物质。
• The workers'demand for better conditions was a catalyst for social change.工人们要求改善工作条件促进了社会变革。

5 demolishing   

v.摧毁( demolish的现在分词 )；推翻；拆毁（尤指大建筑物）；吃光

参考例句：

• The machine was designed specially for demolishing old buildings. 这种机器是专为拆毁旧楼房而设计的。 来自《用法词典》
• Conventional demolishing work would have caused considerable interruptions in traffic. 如果采用一般的拆除方法就要引起交通的严重中断。 来自辞典例句

6 vice   

n.坏事；恶习；[pl.]台钳，老虎钳；adj.副的

参考例句：

• He guarded himself against vice.他避免染上坏习惯。
• They are sunk in the depth of vice.他们堕入了罪恶的深渊。

7 residentially   

参考例句：

• Since being residentially different, title also each and not identical. 由于居住地不同，称谓也各不相同。 来自互联网

8 relatively   

adv.比较...地，相对地

参考例句：

• The rabbit is a relatively recent introduction in Australia.兔子是相对较新引入澳大利亚的物种。
• The operation was relatively painless.手术相对来说不痛。

9 commute   

vi.乘车上下班；vt.减(刑)；折合；n.上下班交通

参考例句：

• I spend much less time on my commute to work now.我现在工作的往返时间要节省好多。
• Most office workers commute from the suburbs.很多公司的职员都是从郊外来上班的。

10 metro   

n.地铁；adj.大都市的；(METRO)麦德隆(财富500强公司之一总部所在地德国，主要经营零售)

参考例句：

• Can you reach the park by metro?你可以乘地铁到达那个公园吗？
• The metro flood gate system is a disaster prevention equipment.地铁防淹门系统是一种防灾设备。

11 specialty   

n.(speciality)特性，特质；专业，专长

参考例句：

• Shell carvings are a specialty of the town.贝雕是该城的特产。
• His specialty is English literature.他的专业是英国文学。

12 retail   

v./n.零售；adv.以零售价格

参考例句：

• In this shop they retail tobacco and sweets.这家铺子零售香烟和糖果。
• These shoes retail at 10 yuan a pair.这些鞋子零卖10元一双。

13 speculation   

n.思索，沉思；猜测；投机

参考例句：

• Her mind is occupied with speculation.她的头脑忙于思考。
• There is widespread speculation that he is going to resign.人们普遍推测他要辞职。

14 affordable   

adj.支付得起的，不太昂贵的

参考例句：

• The rent for the four-roomed house is affordable.四居室房屋的房租付得起。
• There are few affordable apartments in big cities.在大城市中没有几所公寓是便宜的。