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Spring, 2005
 Content: • In search of a creative and industrious economy
Patience. That was the counsel offered recently by the University of Massachusetts Donahue Institute, based on a reality check of the state economy. The same advice is appropriate for Berkshire County, but not necessarily for the same reasons. While the chunk of Massachusetts east of Interstate 495 can pin its hopes on higher education and the potential of biotechnology and other emergent fields, a movement is afoot here to spark a creative economy of artists' lofts, restored theaters and downtown restaurants. There also is a push to promote the region to outside employers, to attract jobs and rebuild the county’s manufacturing base. According to the Donahue Institute, Massachusetts since March 2003 has been groping back from recession, but at a slower pace than its last recovery, which began in June 1991. As with the earlier recovery, this one is "jobless," with no net new jobs created. The difference is that two years into this recovery, the end is not visible. The state economy has grown more slowly than the nation as a whole, and -- ominously -- Massachusetts was the only state with a net population loss in 2004. The outmigration is blamed in part on the state's high cost of housing. Home prices rose for the 11th consecutive year during 2004, according to the Massachusetts Association of Realtors. The statewide median selling price of a single-family home increased by 11.5 percent to $340,000. In Western Massachusetts, the median price increased 13 percent to $175,000. "The state is experiencing a modest brain drain," the Donahue Institute noted. "Moreover, the tech boom that finally pulled Massachusetts out of the recession shows signs of fading, which may restrain the pace of growth going forward. Nevertheless, the recovery seems to be on solid footing, with rising earnings and consumer spending, and vitality in education, technology and science. It will just take some patience to wait for the economy's engine to get into full gear."
Longtime residents of Berkshire County can attest that the economy here has been stuck in second gear for years, with the possible exception of South County. Like the state as a whole, Berkshire County had the distinction of being alone among the four westernmost counties to lose population between 2000 and 2003, dropping by 1.2 percent to 133,310 people, according to the latest economic review by Western Massachusetts Electric Co. Unlike the state, the softening of the boom in information technology manufacturing doesn't register in this area, which never benefited to begin with. Ships and boats But Berkshire County isn't really like the rest of the state. "I don't think whatever is happening in Massachusetts as a whole is going to have an effect on what’s happening in the Berkshires," said Robert A. Nakosteen, associate professor with the school of management at UMass-Amherst. "The Berkshire links are more toward New York [state] and north." Some of the "ocean liners" that once drove the Berkshire County economy, Nakosteen's word for large employers, have long since sailed away. "What's taken their place is a fleet of small boats ... one or two or three-person firms" focused on areas such as media, information technology and financial services. "These really are more people than companies," he said, with high educational achievement and significant occupational demands. Nakosteen noted a "hollowing out of the middle" of the county's labor force, with the smaller firms and service-oriented employers on the either side. That is not to say that Berkshire County is devoid of manufacturing companies with 100 or more employees -- among them, Crane & Co. in Dalton, MeadWestvaco Specialty Papers and Schweitzer-Mauduit in Lee, Specialty Minerals in Adams, Sheffield Plastics, and Interprint, Unistress, AGIpolymatrix and GE Advanced Materials in Pittsfield. One of the county's largest manufacturers -- General Dynamics Advanced Information Systems in Pittsfield -- is on a growth trajectory, with new work on the inertial guidance system of the Trident II nuclear missile. The company at this writing had about 850 locally based employees. Interprint CEO William Hines Sr., who heads the "Jobs for Pittsfield" initiative, reported re-cently that midsize moldmaking and other manufacturers in the city added 235 new jobs in 2004. There still is hope that Berkshire County will attract new, high-paying manufacturing companies, perhaps as a result of the semiconductor/nanotechnology cluster forming in nearby Albany, N.Y. In fact, the success of the William Stanley Business Park in Pittsfield depends on drawing new companies. But there also is a realization that such companies, if they do come, will be of the small-boat variety. No one is predicting an ocean liner like GE's departed transformer works. Art as development In the midst of this economic evolution to third gear, a new concept is gaining ground -- the possibility of the arts and culture being more than just stimulation for the mind and senses. People now believe that the arts can be a catalyst or even a driver of economic revitalization. The arts certainly deserve a seat at the table when analyzing the Berkshire County economy. According to data contained in the WMECO economic review, the category "arts, entertainment and food services" represents 14.2 percent of total county employment, trailing trade (15.6 percent) and health care (15.4 percent), but beating manufacturing (12.3 percent) and all other categories. Berkshire County also had the largest percentage of employees in the arts and entertainment of the four western counties.
The contributions of Tangle wood (2004 attendance: 321,998), Hancock Shaker Village and other tourist venues to sustaining the local economy are well established. Still to be determined is what artists' studios and residences in Pittsfield and North Adams, concept restaurants and theater restorations -- the Colonial in Pittsfield, the Mohawk in North Adams, the Topia Arts Center in Adams, the Mahaiwe in Great Barrington -- can do for downtowns. For once, Pittsfield may be at the forefront of progress as one of the first communities in the state to hire a full-time director of cultural development, Megan Whilden. "This is significant," said Dan Hunter, executive director of the Massachusetts Advocates for the Arts, Sciences and Humanities, during a recent grant ceremony. "You don't find that in cities like Boston." Stephen C. Sheppard, professor of economics at Williams College, is heading a grant-funded effort, the Center for Creative Community Development, that is researching how the arts and culture relate to economic revitalization. The first in a series of case studies "C3D" has undertaken is Berkshire County's greatest ongoing experiment in the field, the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art in North Adams. Sheppard shared some initial findings. Mass MoCA, which opened in May 1999 in the former Sprague Electric Co.complex, contributes on the order of $14 million annually in payroll and money spent on vendors. As of early 2004, the museum's presence had raised residential property values within a two-mile radius by an estimated $13 million to $15 million in aggregate. The museum also has drawn other businesses and restaurants to its downtown location. "This happens because any cultural investment changes the attractiveness of a site," Sheppard explained. But, he said, a cultural restoration is not an end in itself when it comes to economic revitalization. "You don't want the only game in town to be a cultural center. You want there to be a sustaining process of growth ... that the process not stop there," Sheppard said. "Mass MoCA has not made North Adams into a place where anybody can succeed in business. It's not a magic spell for the business community." So, will arts, culture and tourism be the ultimate way forward for Berkshire County, or will manufacturing regain its former foothold? Patience.  RETURN TO TOP |
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