Living in Pittsfield, MA

About Pittsfield

Settlement here dates to 1752, and the plantation of Pontoosuc was organized in 1753 before being incorporated as a town in 1761 and named for William Pitt. Park Square was laid out in 1790 on donated land, and the Old Town Hall, the county courthouse, the Berkshire Athenaeum and the First Church of Christ still face it. Late in the 19th century downtown pushed north along North Street, helped by an 1891 trolley line. In 1890 William Stanley Jr. founded the Stanley Electric Manufacturing Company here, and General Electric bought it in 1903. Pittsfield became a city in 1891.

Water and woods frame the city. Onota Lake, 617 acres and owned by the city, and Pontoosuc Lake are used for swimming, boating and fishing, and Pittsfield State Forest covers 11,000 acres with Berry Pond and 30 miles of trails. Herman Melville finished Moby-Dick at Arrowhead, his home on Holmes Road from 1850 to 1863. On West Housatonic Street, Hancock Shaker Village keeps 20 historic buildings, including a round stone barn from 1826. Downtown, the Colonial Theatre of 1903 reopened after restoration in 2006, and the Berkshire Museum, founded by Zenas Crane in 1903, holds more than 40,000 objects.

Pittsfield's homes are mostly older single-family houses and two- and three-unit buildings; the 2020 Census counted 21,738 housing units. On April 13, 2021, the City Council replaced the 2004 Downtown Arts Overlay District with a Downtown Creative District, which requires 20% of a building's units to be affordable but allows a waiver. In February 2025 the council allowed one accessory dwelling unit by right on any property with a one- or two-family house. One downtown conversion pairs the state's Housing Development Incentive Program with a local tax exemption: the former Berkshire County Savings Bank at 24 North Street is planned as Park Square Residences, 23 mixed-income apartments, and on July 9, 2026 it was reported to have received $4 million in state tax credits under that program. In August 2026 the Berkshire Regional Planning Commission began a housing production plan for the city, due to the state in May 2027.

Homes in Pittsfield

A 2009 city housing analysis describes Pittsfield's housing stock as relatively old, made up mainly of single-family homes and small multifamily buildings of two or three units, and counted 21,633 units citywide in 2008. In the Westside and Morningside neighborhoods next to downtown, more than 80% of homes were built before 1969, and many larger houses from the 1890s to 1930s have been divided into apartments.