Maps Show ‘Class Divide’ in Acton, Greater Boston

Acton is a town celebrated for its past and present as a home of historic landmarks, so it’s no surpirse that Census tracts indicate the “creative class” has a stronghold here.

The “creative class” has the highest share in Acton, followed by the “service class” and finally a small “working class” share, according to a report by The Atlantic Cities, which uses a map to show how class lines divide within and among Census tracts.

Creativity reigns not only in Acton, but in many of the other affluent suburbs to the north and west of Boston, according to the Atlantic Cities report, which uses data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey. 

From the report:

Further west, the historic colonial towns of Lexington and Concord, as well as Newton, Wellesley, and Sudbury, are historically wealthy places filled with old mansions. The suburbs with greatest concentrations of the creative class are mostly to the north and the west. All of them have excellent school systems and easy access to the city via rail and highways.

In fact, the creative class—which includes professionals working in the science and technology, business, arts, media, law and healthcare industries—makes up about more than 41 percent of the metro area’s workforce. That’s just short of the service class, which includes food service, retail, clerical and administrative positions and comprises 43.4 percent of the regional workforce, the report says.

Members of the working class make up less than 15 percent of the regional workforce, according to the Atlantic Cities report, which contrasts that figure with the image of “Boston metro’s blue collar past as a port and center of textile and shoe manufacturing.”

According to the report, members of Metro Boston’s creative class earn an average of $84,403; the working class an average of “$42,765 in wages and the service class an average of $33,738. All three of those are better than the national averages.

Getting back to Acton, the local class lines do reflect the shrinking of the region’s working class, but the creative class has a significantly larger share while the service class a far smaller one than the metro area overall.

The Atlantic Cities report draws Acton into three Census tracts.

Creative Class Share: 55%
Service Class Share: 33%
Working Class Share: 12%

Now, You Tell Us:

What do you think about these so-called "class divides?" A commenter who posted on a simliar article published by Somerville Patch posted that the "creative class" is the new working class. Do you agree?