When I boast to out-of-town friends about why I love Greenfield, one of the first things I say is that this is a community that cares about community. This is a town that built and sustains an excellent community college. This is a town that built a world-class library that, in three short years, has become the envy of communities like ours across the region. We do hard things well when we decide they matter.
So I am genuinely stymied when I see our town push back against visionary housing developments like Stone Farm Lane, or watch us spend months arguing about whether an empty parking lot contiguous to downtown should be used for housing. Step outside our little bubble and look at what the evidence is telling us — clearly, consistently, and from every direction. Housing builds strong communities. Housing — of all types, all sizes, all price points — improves local economies, stabilizes families, and makes the towns we love more livable for everyone.
We don’t have to theorize about this. We can look at Austin, Texas, which not long ago was a cautionary tale of skyrocketing rents and displacement. Over the past decade, Austin pursued an aggressive, unapologetic pro-housing agenda: loosening parking requirements, legalizing small multifamily buildings, streamlining permits, and enabling denser construction downtown. The result? Austin added roughly 120,000 homes — a 30 percent increase in its housing stock — and rents have now fallen back to 2019 levels, the steepest decline of any major American city. More striking still, rents fell hardest not in luxury towers but in the older, modest apartment buildings where working-class and lower-income residents actually live. More supply freed up more options across the entire market.
This is not a quirk of the Texas economy. It is how housing markets work. When communities build enough homes — at enough variety — the whole system breathes easier. Economists call it filtering: new residents move into newer units, which frees up older ones, which lowers pressure across the board. A 2025 study in the Journal of Political Economy found that a one percent increase in local housing supply reduces average rents by nearly 0.2 percent, with the strongest effects felt in the most modest units in a neighborhood. Building housing for some people eventually creates breathing room for everyone.
The benefits reach far beyond rent. Public health researchers have established that stable, affordable housing is one of the most powerful determinants of health we have. When families are not rent-burdened, they spend more on food, medical care, and their children’s futures. Recent research found that moving low-income households into more affordable, stable housing led to 18 percent fewer emergency room visits and 20 percent more primary care visits — reducing public health costs significantly. Housing is not just an economic issue. It is a health issue. It is a children’s issue. It is a dignity issue.
Back in Greenfield, we have been handed two gifts and have nearly fumbled both of them. The Stone Farm Lane proposal — 22 compact, ecologically thoughtful condominiums on a 32-acre parcel held by the Valley Community Land Trust — was exactly the kind of creative, community-minded development we should be celebrating. Instead, months of contentious public hearings drove the developer to withdraw the permit application. The Hope Street parking lot debate produced a ballot referendum, a bitter civic argument, and far more heat than light — all over whether a patch of asphalt near our downtown should become homes. Greenfield voters ultimately did the right thing, upholding the City Council’s decision to move forward. But we should not have to fight that hard for common sense.
I understand the anxieties. Parking, traffic, neighborhood character, the fear that change means loss — these are real feelings, and they deserve honest conversation. But feelings are not a housing policy. And “not here, not now” is not a vision for a town that prides itself on caring about its neighbors.
Greenfield has earned a reputation as a community willing to invest in itself. The library proves it. The college proves it. Now we need to extend that same civic generosity to the question of who gets to live here — and whether the people who work here, teach here, care for our elderly, and cook our food can actually afford to stay. Housing is not a threat to the community we love. It is how we keep it.
Mitch Anthony is proud to call Greenfield home. He is past president of the Greenfield Community College Foundation and currently serves on the board of the Greenfield Public Library Foundation.