Pittsfield — Why do people come to Berkshire County? Why do they stay? Why do they leave? What does our future look like? Observers who have asked themselves those questions know they are complicated and perplexing.
But the Berkshire Regional Planning Commission, one of the few organizations in Berkshire County that actually gathers pertinent data, thinks it has found some answers. The commission, in partnership with 1Berkshire, a countywide economic development group, and the MassHire Berkshire Workforce Board, an employment services organization, recently released the results of the 2019 Berkshire County Survey that examined the attitudes, preferences, and needs of adults in the region. Click here to read it.
“The key finding is that people overwhelmingly enjoy living in the Berkshires,” commission planners Mark Maloy and Laura Brennan told The Edge in an email announcing the release. “People continue to reside in the county because of family, jobs and the scenic beauty of the region.”
The recent survey, which was an expansion and update on the commission’s young adults survey of 2015, was created in Survey Monkey, an online survey tool, and distributed by broad email solicitation, social media and through partner listservs and websites. There were 1,550 responses, with 81 percent of them coming from current residents. Female respondents outnumbered males by roughly 70 percent to 30 percent.
Read the rest of Regional planners’ survey: People enjoy living in the Berkshires yet population is declining on The Berkshire Edge
