Somerville after the fall

The gales of economic adversity howling through the nation and the world will be brutal and prolonged. As the recession deepens and prolongs, it will coincide with peak oil impacts. And as baby-boomers continue to age, far fewer workers will support many more retirees. Increasing the Social Security eligibility age is inevitable, and decreasing benefits is likely. Healthcare costs, now at $8,000 for every man, woman, and child, will increase to $13,000 within a decade.

When the storm ultimately subsides, Americans will live differently. If our city’s leaders reform their foolish development policy, Somerville will be better positioned than many places to benefit from these changes because of the region in which we are located, our urban character, and our particular characteristics.


Economic tumult has transformed modes of living in the past. At the conclusion of the Civil War, towns like Lawrence, Lowell, and Springfield were the nation’s industrial centers, while most Americans lived on farms or in farming towns.

A mortgage-driven banking crisis in 1873 marked the beginning of a depression that lasted over twenty years. By 1900, innovations in industrial production were concentrating economic growth in burgeoning factory cities across what we now call the rust belt. Changes in how Americans lived were both a result and a cause of this transformation.

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