My tagline says I that grew up in Northampton, left the area, and came back 16 years later. Despite the hiatus, I have lived in Northampton for total of 43 years, and kept a tab on it for those absent 16 years. There is a lot I can say about Northampton based on this experience, a history that many people newer to the city are not aware of.

I feel blessed to live in a community that is progressive, reasonably safe, and I can think of no better place for me to have transitioned from male-to-female. I love the access to the arts, particularly the live music and good food, but something is sorely missing for me and some of my peers who grew up here.

I’ve seen Northampton recently described as one of, it not, the best place to live in America. That’s a huge statement to make. I wonder if they talked to people who have lived here a significant portion of their lives. From my perspective as someone who grew up here, I don’t see it. The rating for Northampton looked primarily at the positives of living here, but it seems they missed the negatives.

Recently talking to a friend my age, we were lamenting the loss of the Northampton we grew up in. We feel Northampton was a city with a large active middle class, good schools, good roads, family-owned stores around for generations. In fact, I’ve been around so long that I remember shopping with my mom in McCallum’s Department Store, the current home of Thornes Marketplace.

Over the years, I’ve seen many families that were the backbone of Northampton leave the city for surrounding towns where housing is more affordable and taxes and fees are lower. Instead of maintaining a Northampton that was for everyone, it feels like there is an out-sized focus on creating this trendy, upscale, city with a downtown that’s a tourist attraction — this at the expense of other key things in the city. For my Florence-girl self, I generally avoid downtown Northampton because of the traffic, tough parking, and long distances I sometimes have to walk on my arthritic knees. (Note: I just had total knee replacement surgery on June 17!)

While there are a handful of restaurants and businesses that I value, and, as mentioned, I love the excellent live shows, but much of what downtown has to offer just sadly doesn’t speak to me. I suspect I am not alone — it is also why I’m glad I live in Florence which has evolved, but not to the point where it doesn’t feel like the place where I grew up. I feel similarly about neighboring Leeds, where I lived for two years in the 1990s.

I think we, as a city, have spent far too much money developing our downtown at the expense of much of the rest of the city. Please don’t get me started on the over-priced Resiliency Hub fiasco or all the money spent on design work for a new Main Street layout. Also, don’t get me started on the funding fight for Northampton’s schools as I support quality education. The streets of the city — away from downtown — are riddled with potholes. There is a shortage of affordable housing for young families. The tax burden is high and has caused many seniors and lower-middle class folks, the backbone of the community when I was growing up, to leave the city. And the traffic ...

This issue is bigger than just Northampton. For 14 of the years I was away from the area, I lived in Kennebunk, Maine. Obviously a tourist area in the summer, Kennebunk, when I moved there, had great community spirit. It was kid friendly, safe, had good schools, and considering the location, relatively affordable housing for middle-class families. Now, like Northampton, it is suffering traffic congestion, the affordable homes are being bought up and “gentrified” for wealthy retirees and well-off eastern Massachusetts folks who moved there, telecommuting or taking the Amtrak Downeaster to Boston when they need to. I see the same issues there as here, and frankly, it makes me quite sad.

Some of this can likely be traced back to 2020 when Covid paralyzed the nation, with many families departing large metro areas for safer places like Northampton and Kennebunk. These privileged folks loved the relatively low cost of living here and could afford to pay top dollar for properties, pricing out people in the community.

At 59, some might call me a crotchety stick in the mud, but when I see two communities I love evolve into ones that feel almost exclusive, it is hard to watch. Based on my education, job, and financial status, one could consider me privileged, and that is a valid assessment, but I never see the people who are not as well-off or educated, as less than me. In many ways, I am frequently more comfortable around those people than those folks who are supposed to be my peers based upon their financial status and education.

I hope the residents of Northampton, and particularly our governmental and community leaders, take a long, hard, look at this city to ensure we are building a community for everyone and not just a privileged group.

Mariel Addis is a native of Florence. She left the area for 16 years but returned in 2013.