Category Archives: Impact On Society

Impact On Society

Don’t Panic? What To Do When Amazon(?) Comes To Town

One of my favorite books, The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, begins with a slightly hungover Arthur Dent waking up to the sound of a bulldozer warming to demolish his home in order to make way for a new hi-way. With little warning and few alternatives, Arthur takes the most reasonable course of action. He lies down in the mud in front of the bulldozer.

Holliston, MA is a relatively small town (est. pop 14,000) West of Boston that just awoke to the arrival of a massive (800,000 sqft) warehouse development project. Something odd happened last summer, when the trees at 555 Hopping Brook Rd were unceremoniously cut down with little explanation and no forewarning. Earlier this year, the intensions of CRG development became clear.

The industrial-zoned property is being groomed for a massive warehouse and distribution center. And while the eventual tenant is not currently known, The New York Times recently featured an article about Amazon’s expansion into small towns across America.

In response to the 555 Hopping Brook project, the residents of Holliston (and neighboring towns) organized a history of the project including the proposed impact studies submitted to the town for review. Some of the questions raised by residents include:

  • What happens to home values and corresponding residential property tax revenue when a 800,000 square foot warehouse and an additional 474,500 total annual trips (1,300 average daily trips x 365 days) of tractor-trailers and other vehicles are added to our town?
  • What is the expected cost of the road repairs from the additional 474,500 total annual trips of tractor-trailers and other vehicles?
  • Do we have the adequate emergency services (fire and police) to support this development? If not, what is the cost of additional support?
  • After all costs have been considered, what is the true economic impact of this project?

To date, the developer has offered to make minor improvements to a town road, such as adding additional signals and signage. The key financial benefit to Holliston is a proposed ~$1 million in additional tax revenue, about 1.2% of the total tax revenues currently received in 2019.

Town residents are now faced with a mix of anticipated risks (traffic, noise) and possible rewards ($1 million for town projects). And the decision on whether to move forward or not is a popular topic in the local Facebook Group:

If it’s not very explicitly laid out and guaranteed how tax revenues and town finances will be impacted, I see no reason to not fully expect more of the same run around..I believe the safe bet is having this facility will make it much LESS likely to be able to support the town infrastructure.

I would like to see a point where this town replaces its 52 year old high school and its dilapidated water system, without having to hear excuses about how we can’t pay for it..The developers are going to walk away, we’ll smugly claim some kind of victory, and we’ll have another two decades of indecision about how to pay for things.

Source: Holliston Residents posts on Facebook

One of the larger questions raised is whether a small, local government can even organize a response to a project of this size. With multiple committees and little precedent to follow, some members wonder who ultimately has the authority to approve or disapprove the project.

I spent several years as a Selectman, State Representative, and Chairman of the Zoning Board of Appeals. Since those days laws have changed, authority has shifted, and I have no idea where the power to approve or end this assault upon the town lies.

Source: Holliston Resident post on Facebook

As a Holliston resident, I feel a bit like Arthur Dent on that fateful morning when forces from beyond came to demolish his home. And as one who lives happily in analytical strategy for many waking hours of the day, the situation feels all to familiar: we have a bunch of imperfect metrics to describe an existential problem about which the general public has already baked an opinion. Oh…and it’s not really clear who’s going to make the final call or if there is even budget to find an answer.

Now we’re getting somewhere.

To-date, Holliston has focused on (and publicized) a number of cost drivers including increased traffic, noise, and burden on emergency infrastructure. Less attention has been given to other environmental factors such as air pollution or water management that directly impact residential health and wellbeing over longer periods of time.

When data is difficult to assemble, creating comparisons becomes even more challenging. Will the warehouse project feel like a power plant? A new mall? What are the measures that should be used to evaluate different development options? Unfortunately, many smaller towns view development with a scarcity mentality…this may be the only shot at a bright new future.

The central question is whether $1 million will exceed the additional costs created by the warehouse project, and by how much. How did the developer arrive at $1 million in the first place? While we know this amount is about 1.2% of the town’s budget, what is the expected value of goods that will pass through the warehouse? What is the geographic value of Holliston relative to other potential site? These are much more difficult questions to answer.

Stress on a system is also a learning opportunity. The Holliston project has forced a number of difficult questions, and Holliston is still reacting to a development proposal. Can small towns muster enough analytical horsepower to proactively define a range of beneficial opportunities using more than anecdotal evidence?

Holliston is one of potentially hundreds of towns that will be impacted by warehouse expansion. For this reason, and because of the range of data available, the 555 Hopping Brook development is our Hack The Future project this Spring. Take a look at the data, explore, and submit your thoughts on what the town of Holliston should do.

Impact On Society

Might a ZIP Code Determine One’s Destiny?

In one of the latest episodes of the “Hidden Brain” podcast titled “Zipcode Destiny”, host Shankar Vedantam and Harvard economist Raj Chatty revisit the American Dream and discuss interplay between early education and childhood environment in setting one’s chances for socioeconomic success later in life.

In one of his latest studies, Professor Chatty reanalyzed data from existing randomized studies conducted decades ago evaluating the impact of a good kindergarten teacher on a child’s cognitive outcomes. The original conclusions were unimpressive: while there was some benefit in terms of improved standardized test scores in the first few grades, any gains faded out soon after.

Professor Chatty realized, though, that these studies weren’t looking far enough into the future. Merging in Social Security and income tax records, he and his colleagues showed that gains from being assigned to a better kindergarten classroom reemerge in adulthood. Children exposed to better teachers are significantly more likely to obtain a college degree and, on average, have higher earnings.

A great teacher, however, does not only train students in technical subjects but, more importantly, helps them develop “soft” skills like self-discipline, confidence, focus, and teamwork. Data shows that such non-cognitive skills are much more predictive of success in adulthood. Put simply, it is more important to get along with peers than scoring high on a math test!

In the second part of the podcast these finding are viewed through the lens of the ever-evolving American Dream. Opportunities for upward mobility do not just vary by state and city – children growing up only a few blocks apart can have very different outcomes in life. Findings show that community-level factors such as segregation levels, size of middle class, percent of two-family parents, are predictive of kids’ outcomes. Also, places with higher levels of social capital (e.g., a sense of community) are more favorable for economic mobility.

Many of these findings are outlined on the Opportunity Insights website, a resource put together by a team of Harvard researchers studying factors related to economic opportunities. The site offers a plethora of useful information, including academic papers and reports on the topic, interactive maps of mobility outcomes at a neighborhood level, as well as a free online course on Using Big Data to Solve Economic and Social Problems.

Circling back to the original question about the impact of early education, Professor Chatty shared results from another experiment that explored the effects of providing housing vouchers to residents of underprivileged communities for relocation to neighborhoods with better outlooks. Again, the new long-term reanalysis showed that the highest positive effect of such relocation was observed among kids whose families moved when they were very young. The length of exposure to a more opportune environment mattered a lot.

These insights can be used to inform policies aimed at decreasing inequality and reviving the American Dream. Professor Chatty suggests improving the reward system for teachers in public schools. The current structure places the most emphasis on experience, taking little consideration of teachers’ efforts and productivity. Also, a team of researchers is mapping data to identify “opportunity bargain” neighborhoods that are affordable to low-income families and have good long-term outcomes for children. They then work with local governments to develop programs that motivate low-income families to move by simplifying the moving process.

Professor Chatty’s outstanding research has informed policies that improve people’s lives. It would not be possible, however, without access to the ultimate “big data” such as anonymized tax, census, and Social Security records that allowed researchers to follow people across generations. Merging these data to existing well-designed studies that lacked long-term follow-up may provide deeper insights into issues of equality of opportunity.