Page 4 - BusinessWest April 15, 2024

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APRIL 15, 2024
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BusinessWest
The State of the Bay State
AIM’s Leader Says the Commonwealth Is at an Inflection Point
BY GEORGE O’BRIEN
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rooke Thomson said her story is of the kind the Bay State and its lead- ers like to write.
Hailing from the Midwest, she graduated from Mount Holyoke Col- lege, went to law school in Boston,
and then made the decision to start her career and raise a family here.
It wasn’t easy, she recalled, noting that she needed roommates when she got her first apartment, and housing in the Boston area, as well as countless other expenses, made those early years — and even the later ones — a stern challenge.
But she stayed and is now president and CEO of Associated Industries of Massachusetts (AIM), a position from which she reflects on, and often retells, her story while noting, with large doses of frustration and even dismay, that it is becoming a harder story to write today.
Indeed, some of the thousands who graduate from Bay State colleges and universities each
year are opting not to start their careers here, said Thomson, who sat down recently with Busi- nessWest to discuss the state of the Bay State. And some who did start here are finding it too difficult to stay amid sky-high prices for every- thing from homes to daycare and tax burdens that are far less friendly than many other states, including several in the Northeast.
This exodus, if you will, is one of many forces, most of them interconnected in some ways, that are colliding at what is an inflection point for the state, said Thomson, a critical time in its history, when the dust has largely settled from COVID and its aftermath, and this state, like all others, must devise a business plan, if you will, for cop- ing with a new set of realities.
These forces include the momentous shift in how and where people work post-pandemic, a swing toward remote work and hybrid schedules that is impacting everything from commercial real estate to hospitality and service businesses in central business districts in cities from Boston to Springfield and everywhere in between. They also include demographics — everything from smaller high-school graduating classes to huge
numbers of retiring Baby Boomers — a persist- ing workforce crisis impacting most all sectors of the economy, falling state tax revenues, trans- portation issues led by the famously unreliable MBTA, a housing crisis that is impacting most of the 351 cities and towns in the Common- wealth, high energy costs and the growing need to address climate change, and, of course, the spiraling cost of living, punctuated by sky-high home prices, not just in Boston, but in an ever- wider radius around the city and many other parts of the state as well.
A poignant example of how many of these forces are intertwined came late last month, when Boston Mayor Michelle Wu proposed legislation to increase commercial property tax rates amid a decline in property values post- pandemic — and as many buildings suffer from remote-work-related issues — in an effort to pro- tect residents from what she called “sudden and dramatic tax increases.”
The matter went to a subcommittee last week, where its fate is in question, especially in an election year, and amid warnings from real- estate trade groups and business leaders that