AT THE END OF JANUARY 2024, the Worcester Now | Next citywide long-range plan draft was released to the public. It is open for public comment until February 25.

WHAT IS WORCESTER NOW | NEXT?

Worcester Now | Next is the City of Worcester’s current master planning process. The City has not written or adopted a new citywide long-range plan in nearly 40 years; the last plan was adopted in 1987. Since then, Worcester has grown tremendously – as can be seen in The Research Bureau’s Reinventing Worcester report from August 2023. Even so, many Worcester residents have become increasingly cost-burdened by housing, indicating that, although new housing has come online in the last few years, much more housing of all kinds needs to be built in the next few decades to accommodate more growth (see Static Income, Rising Costs: Renting in the Heart of the Commonwealth from December 2022). Building more housing will require substantial investment in infrastructure and transportation, making now an important inflection point for Worcester’s next few decades. A citywide long-range plan like Worcester Now | Next, then, is necessary to plan for growth over the following decades and to ensure that Worcester can accept, accommodate, and advance the interests of all of its current and future residents.

Worcester Now | Next was written with input from City staff, several consultancy firms, a community advisory board, and with extensive public input over the course of two years. The Research Bureau previously hosted a Now | Next forum during Jane Week in the Woo in May 2023.

Worcester Now | Next officially kicked off in 2022, and aims to be finished and adopted in spring 2024. The draft plan, currently public, is open to public comment until February 25th. Interested readers can find the draft plan, an executive summary, and other information about the plan here.