Living in Springfield, MA

About Springfield

Springfield sits on the eastern bank of the Connecticut River, about 24 miles north of Hartford, and serves as the Hampden County seat. William Pynchon founded it in 1636 as Agawam Plantation, and it became a city in 1852. The federal armory here began making small arms in 1794 and closed in 1968; its Main Arsenal now holds the National Park Service's collection of historic military firearms. James Naismith invented basketball in Springfield in 1891, and the Hall of Fame stands on the riverfront.

The city calls itself the City of Homes, a name tied to its Victorian houses. The McKnight Historic District, planned in 1881, has more than 900 of them, and the neighborhood around Forest Park has more than 600. Sixteen Acres holds much of the city's post-World War II building, and Indian Orchard grew up as its own mill town on the Chicopee River. Forest Park covers about 735 acres, with a zoo, Porter Lake and the Bright Nights holiday display. Union Station handles Amtrak, Hartford Line trains and intercity buses.

The city's 2018 Housing Study counted 61,851 housing units and a homeownership rate of 47 percent, and it reported that the city had focused new construction and rehabilitation in Old Hill, Six Corners, the South End and Memorial Square, neighborhoods hit hard by the foreclosure crisis; it proposed keeping those four and Brightwood as Neighborhood Revitalization Strategy Areas. Many of the homes built in late 2011 and 2012 replaced ones destroyed by the tornado of June 1, 2011, which hit the South End hard. Downtown changed in the late 2010s: Union Station reopened on June 24, 2017 after restoration, Hartford Line trains began serving it on June 16, 2018, and MGM Springfield opened in Metro Center on August 24, 2018. Springfield lies outside the MBTA system and does not appear on the state's MBTA Communities compliance list.

Homes in Springfield

The city's 2018 Housing Study found that 68 percent of Springfield's housing stock is single-family homes and duplexes, and that only 10 percent of units are in buildings with 20 or more units. It also found that 41 percent of units were built before 1940 and only 14 percent since 1980. The study counted 61,851 housing units (2016 ACS), with single-family homes alone making up 44 percent and a homeownership rate of 47 percent.