One city was once the wealthiest per capita in the world. The other was nearly the cotton manufacturing capital of the world. But today, New Bedford and Fall River are among the many mid-sized cities in Massachusetts struggling to adapt to the evolving global economy.
Both are adjusting at a "tremendously" slow pace, according to Ben Forman, research director at the Massachusetts Institute for a New Commonwealth, a Boston-based organization also known as MassINC.
BOSTON – Can Boston compete with New York and Los Angeles artistically? Statistics indicate the competition so far hasn't favored the Bay State capital, as just 3 percent of working artists in America can be found in Massachusetts, compared with 11 percent in New York and 28 percent in California, according to educationnews.org.
While the raw numbers suggest that Boston lags far behind New York City and Los Angeles as a center for the arts. But according to Richard Florida, author of "Rise of the Creative Class," greater Boston contains some of the nation's highest proportions of creative professionals. Florida argues that the presence of artists will play a key role in urban economic development in the 21st century.
