Last week, my barber and I were talking about Plum Island.
“It used to be all poor people,” he said, nostalgically. “Now you can’t buy anything for under a mil. It’s ridiculous.”
He’s not wrong. Once upon a time, before boutique shops and artisanal coffee joints lined Inn Street, Newburyport was a working-class town with a rough-around-the-edges downtown. Buildings had peeling paint, storefronts were utilitarian, and housing was accessible to average working families.
If we truly want to address the affordability crisis that haunts our community, perhaps the solution isn’t building more luxury condos or endlessly debating zoning density. Maybe we should embrace a full-scale historic reversal: bring back the decaying 1950s aesthetic that kept property values at a sensible, blue-collar level!