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Is the Boston area becoming a 'white collar rust belt'?
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PostPosted: Thu May 24, 2007 6:50 pm GMT    Post subject: Is the Boston area becoming a 'white collar rust belt'? Reply with quote

I don't know folks but other than hospitals and colleges, many companies, including tech and financial, are leaving town.

That's not a whole lot different than let's say Buffalo NY where all they have are govt entitled jobs, colleges, tourism (the falls), and hospitals but little else since the decline of manufacturing back in the 60s, 70s, and early 80s.
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Parsec
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PostPosted: Thu May 24, 2007 7:04 pm GMT    Post subject: Reply with quote

But there's also companies moving into town like Microsoft and Google looking for space in Cambridge, not to mention existing companies like Raytheon looking for 500,000 s.f. around the Northern part of 495.
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PostPosted: Thu May 24, 2007 8:01 pm GMT    Post subject: Reply with quote

I think you're referring to the MIT/Kendall Sq phenom which is one of the Massachusetts miracle ideals which is slowly coming undone over the years.

Years ago, a startup tech company would create thousands of jobs after the warm-up phase and those jobs would be all over eastern Mass. This was the age of DEC, Banyan, Wang, Prime, and later Powerbuilder, CTP, etc. Even during the 90s, when biotech was still considered nascent, Wyeth and Biogen created thousands of jobs in eastern Mass but today, the next gen of biopharma are mainly hiring specialists from MIT/Whitehead and doing much of the development work in cheaper locales. Likewise, Googs and MS are also trying to keep an MIT presence but don't really need the region for much else though MS owns Groove Networks but I believe Groove's a survivor of the '01-'02 recession with seed money from the '97-'00 bubble times.
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PostPosted: Thu May 24, 2007 8:08 pm GMT    Post subject: Reply with quote

Also, look at the Boston area mainstays: Putnam, Fidelity, Gillette, Reebok (headquarters), Arthur D Little, Polaroid. These firms are either hurting, gone under, or re-locating in large numbers.

So when Googs decides to then hire 40 or more MIT and Harvard students, it doesn't really make up for overall losses in the region.
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AgentGrn



Joined: 28 Sep 2006
Posts: 82

PostPosted: Thu May 24, 2007 8:14 pm GMT    Post subject: Reply with quote

Funny to think of it ... a white collar rust belt where nobody can find a good job and nobody can afford to buy a home sanely.

Actually, it's more sad than funny.
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SN
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PostPosted: Thu May 24, 2007 8:38 pm GMT    Post subject: Reply with quote

:Raytheon looking for 500,000 s.f.

They can take over the mainly vacant, 2 million sq ft Lucent facility in N Andover. I don't think that business has much left in the tank.
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PostPosted: Thu May 24, 2007 8:56 pm GMT    Post subject: Reply with quote

Quote:
2 million sq ft Lucent facility in N Andover. I don't think that business has much left in the tank.


It's already been sold off to developers. All that's left of Lucent in MA are satellite offices and perhaps a bit of the old Ascend/Stratus buildings near 495.
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PostPosted: Tue May 29, 2007 6:57 am GMT    Post subject: Reply with quote

It's nearly official, Fidelity is moving 2000 jobs to the Carolinas and/or Texas.

The Hub's financial district will be a ghost town in the years ahead. I suspect that unlike the chic cities: NY, DC, San Fran, etc, Boston's future is pointing in only one direction. The net result will be a major RE collapse of the likes unseen even during the '89-'92 condo crash.
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AgentGrn



Joined: 28 Sep 2006
Posts: 82

PostPosted: Tue May 29, 2007 11:03 am GMT    Post subject: Reply with quote

I know from an insider that Fidelity's been trying to close out their Marlboro data center for years now ... but they haven't been able to do so since their need for systems outpaces their ability to move them or build out more space in Merrimack or Dallas. At the moment, anyway.

How many of those 2,000 are going to relocate? That'd be interesting info.

I wonder what kinds of positions are being counted in the 2,000 .... but I remember when Genuity axed this many over a couple quarters. One time around the end of the tech bust, I was driving to work and noticed that traffic was quite a bit lighter.
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ABB
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PostPosted: Tue May 29, 2007 6:00 pm GMT    Post subject: Reply with quote

On the semiconductor side of the house, I'm hearing that Intel in Hudson/Rte-495 will continue those operations for at least another two years so that gives enough time for those fortuitous enough to plan ahead.
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PostPosted: Tue May 29, 2007 6:42 pm GMT    Post subject: Reply with quote

Quote:
How many of those 2,000 are going to relocate?



I think the plan was to give 2K employees the option to move and therefore, the opportunity to keep their jobs. So I presume that they're not too worried about losing corporate history, etc, during this transition but are striving to at least retain a certain percent of it. All and all, what this says is that employees, even in the service sector of finance are disposable entities, not too disparate from manufacturing workers in the more mature industries.
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john p



Joined: 10 Mar 2006
Posts: 1820

PostPosted: Tue May 29, 2007 10:07 pm GMT    Post subject: Reply with quote

It looks like the light at the end of the tunnel is only five short years away.

http://www.boston.com/business/globe/articles/2007/03/13/shortage_of_workers_may_stretch_many_employers/
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PostPosted: Wed May 30, 2007 1:09 am GMT    Post subject: Reply with quote

Right now, employers subtley practice age discrimination against those in their mid-50s anyways so why would it be a stretch to say that the only difference would be that they wouldn't be able to get away with it in five or so years so readily.
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Barney
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PostPosted: Thu May 31, 2007 4:23 pm GMT    Post subject: Reply with quote

The Boston area is the only major metropolitan region, outside of let's say dumpsters like Detroit, that have had no appreciable job growth once you discount the growth of real estate transaction personnel during the bubble. That, by definition, is a white collar bust town. In contrast, all the other cities: Chicago, Philadelphia, DC, Houston, even NYC have corporate work growing at a decent clip.
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john p



Joined: 10 Mar 2006
Posts: 1820

PostPosted: Thu May 31, 2007 5:52 pm GMT    Post subject: Reply with quote

Where do you find data to support that?
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