Opinion: South Shore 2030 Offers A Roadmap And A Warning

Here are a couple of numbers to get your attention: the South Shore will soon be attracting one worker in the prime 25- to 44-year age group for every three retiring workers. The South Shore remains a wonderful place to live with a range of attractive local communities, a vibrant economy, an educated work force and a expanding world of entertainment and recreation opportunities. But look down the road a few years, and the scene will not be as sanguine unless we make changes in the near future. Do something now, or pay a price in the future.

That was part of the message of “South Shore 2030: Choosing Our Future,” a report prepared for the South Shore Chamber of Commerce. The report is part of a multi-year effort by the chamber to gather and report information about 26 communities south Boston, living and working in those communities and our collective economic future. Chamber members and staff have contributed thousands of hours to the project. And the chamber paid Market Street Services, an Atlanta firm that defines itself as an economic, community and workforce development consulting firm, to assemble an extraordinary range of data about the region, analyze that information and tell us where we are, where was want to go and how to get there. Do nothing except what we have been doing, the report says, and the future is not bright.
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The following are some of the findings from the Market Street Services report that was presented recently at the chamber’s annual meeting.

​Market Street said the data it collected “reveals some early warning signs that regional trends are no longer pointing towards sustainable growth and success.” Extend the current trends, and we will see more residential growth without job growth, it says.

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