Massachusetts' New Suburban Frontier

The Boston Globe features an in-depth profile of Hopkinton -- the largest in a series of largely unplanned "instant suburbs" along the I-495 corridor.

1 minute read

June 17, 2002, 5:00 AM PDT

By Chris Steins @planetizen

"That Hopkinton, at the intersection of I-495 and the Massachusetts Turnpike, would join the ranks of Wellesley and Weston is perhaps less surprising than the speed with which it has happened. In 12 years of furious transformation, the sleepy farming town [... has] became the leading boomtown in a series of boomtowns up and down I-495, which the 2000 US Census shows is the area of the state's most rapid growth... Across the country -- during the very same 12 years of Hopkinton's remarkable boom -- interest has grown in "smart growth" and other alternatives to sprawl. New suburbs of single-family subdivisions are simply not sustainable, a new breed of planners and environmentalists declares: bad for the water, the air, and the land, bad for threatened species and biodiversity... Hopkinton, clearly, never got that message. The American dream is alive and well in the subdivisions, spread out over the acres like a Levittown on steroids: a blaze of growth fueled by blinding prosperity."

Thanks to Chris Steins

FULL STORY: Instant suburb

Sunday, June 16, 2002 in The Boston Globe

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