The new community-by-community census numbers portray Western Massachusetts as a patchwork of population losses and gains that are sometimes difficult to explain.
Belchertown Town Clerk William R. Barnett says it's no surprise his hometown's population again surged the past decade, continuing a decades-long trend.
Barnett and others said much of Belchertown's growth consists of young working couples with children who are looking for a relatively affordable home, good schools, open space and commuting access to Amherst or Springfield.
Belchertown's population jumped by 13 percent since 2000 to 14,649, according to new U.S. Census Bureau statistics. The increase represents the fastest population growth of any community in the four counties of Western Massachusetts, except for a handful or so of towns with less than 2,000 people, where percentage moves can be deceiving.
Barnett, who moved to town about 30 years ago, says he sometimes sees moose, black bear and wild turkeys on his property near the Quabbin Reservoir. He described Belchertown as "a bedroom community" and one where neighbors know each other and much of social life revolves around public schools, including a new high school that opened in 2002, organizations and an annual fair on the town common.
"It's just a nice place to live," the town clerk said. "People seem to get along. It just feels good living here."
Judging by population gains, Belchertown was among the local winners in the new census, but other municipalities were losers. The new community-by-community census numbers, released on March 22, portray Western Massachusetts as a patchwork of population losses and gains that are sometimes difficult to explain.
Northampton and Greenfield suffered small population losses, for example. Cities such as Chicopee, Holyoke, Springfield and Westfield enjoyed incremental gains, because they added more Hispanics, according to census numbers. Take away Hispanic increases in Greenfield and Northampton and those communities would have together lost hundreds of more people, census numbers show.
While Belchertown's population grew, bordering towns such as Pelham, Ludlow and Palmer all lost people over the past decade.
Belchertown Town Planner Douglas F. Albertson said much of the town's population increase stemmed from the easy credit of the earlier part of the decade. That helped fuel the building of 90 to 100 single-family homes a year in Belchertown, many of them large, until the latter part of the decade, when the economy collapsed in a financial crisis, he said.
Timothy Brennan, executive director of the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission, said "first-ring" suburbs enjoyed stronger population growth in Western Massachusetts.One sure sign of growth is traffic. Traffic can be bumper-to-bumper for a mile on Route 9 on Friday afternoons in Belchertown, coming from Amherst and the University of Massachusetts, Albertson said.
Timothy W. Brennan, executive director of the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission, said population growth in Western Massachusetts was stronger in “first-ring suburbs” such as Belchertown, East Longmeadow, up 11.5 percent; Wilbraham, up 5.5 percent; Southwick and Southampton, each up 7.5 percent; Hadley, up 9.5 percent and Westhampton, up 9.4 percent.
Brennan said some more distant communities – Cummington, down 11 percent, for example, and Worthington, down 9 percent – may have been hurt by the high price of gasoline, which discourages long commutes.
“Some of that is definitely going on,” Brennan said. “When you cross $3 a gallon, it really has an impact.”
Rep. Stephen Kulik, a Worthington Democrat, said it’s difficult to determine the causes for Worthington’s population decline to 1,156 people following at least three decades of steady increases.
Kulik said a lack of jobs and the high costs of gasoline may be factors. "You might decide that living in a more remote community is too expensive," he said.
Rep. Stephen Kulik said it's difficult to understand why Worthington lost population for the first time in several decades.Other small towns boomed over the last decade, but some of the numbers are raising question marks about the census counts over the years.
Montgomery, for example, was listed as the fastest-growing community in Hampden county, rising by 28 percent since 2000 to 838, the census said. But in the 1990’s, Montgomery, which is just north of Westfield, dropped by 14 percent, something that seems to defy logic.
Montgomery Town Clerk Judy L. Murphy said she believes the census in 2000 undercounted the town’s population, something that artificially inflated the town’s population growth during the past decade. Her own census, completed annually, showed Montgomery with 808 people in 2000, well more than the federal census count of 654 for that year.
“People come and people go,” Murphy said. “We've been around the high 700s and the low 800s for years and years.”
According to Brennan, of the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission, Palmer may have lost population because of economic troubles that led to factory and plant closures the past decade, sending jobs overseas. Palmer, down by 2.8 percent to 12,140, lost more population on a percentage basis than any of the 23 communities in Hampden County, according to the census.
“They took a lot more body blows,” Brennan said.
Palmer’s population had climbed by 4 percent during the 1990’s before dipping the last decade. Nearby Ludlow’s population also rose in the 1990's and then fell during the past 10 years.
Ludlow Selectman Aaron L. Saunders said he was surprised by the town’s small population loss, coming after a 13 percent gain in the prior decade. Ludlow’s 0.5 percent population decline since 2000 indicates an aging population for the town of 21,103, Saunders said.
Saunders pointed to a new 55 and older development at East and Miller Streets in Ludlow. He said the planning board is busy reviewing new sub-division plans.
“Some types of growth add more people,” he said. “Other types of growth are not going to have the same type of result.”
In Hampshire County, Todd D. Ford, executive director of the Hampshire Council of Governments, said he was puzzled by Northampton’s population loss. The city’s population declined by 1.5 percent to 28,549.
Ford said Northampton bucked a national trend of people returning to urban cores.
“It’s got a lot of things going for it and it loses population?” Ford said. “The fact that Northampton did not grow at a decent rate, I find surprising.”
Northampton Mayor Mary Clare Higgins attributed the city’s population decline to families having fewer children, driving down the size of households. She said she would have loved to see the population rise a little, but the loss amounted to 430 people, not a huge concern.
Hampshire and Hampden counties both grew in population, but Franklin and Berkshire counties joined Cape Cod at the eastern end of the state in losing population in the latest census.
Greenfield Town Clerk Maureen T. Winseck said she was disappointed the community’s population fell by 3.9 percent to 17,456, declining for the second decade in a row.
Winseck said the census may have missed some immigrants and homeless people, despite an all-out effort during the count.
Greenfield was among 13 communities in Franklin county, or half the total number of communities in the county, that lost population since 2000, the census said.
Planners believe that the population of Western Massachusetts is poised to increase in the next decade. A couple of catalysts for growth could be expansion of high-speed Internet and faster or restored passenger rail service in communities such as Northampton and Greenfield.
In February, Massachusetts contracted with a Canadian telecommunications company to manage a new $71.6 million broadband network that's being built to deliver the Internet to under served areas of the state such as Franklin county.
“The trend will reverse,” said Jessica Atwood, senior economic development planner with the Franklin Regional Council of Governments, who projected modest population gains for the county for the years ahead. “We will see an increase in future years.”