Maps Show ‘Class Divide’ in Bedford, Greater Boston

At the heart of perhaps of the most historic part of the state, Census tracts indicate the "creative class" reigns in Bedford. 

The “creative class” has the highest share in Bedford, 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 Bedford, 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 Bedford, 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 Bedford into two Census tracts, more or less splitting the town in half along North Road and South Road. Let’s call them “West Bedford” and "East Bedford” for the sake of the chart below, which breaks down the percentage shares in each tract.

Tract Creative Class Share Service Class Working Class East Bedford 68 percent 25 percent 8 percent West Bedford 62 percent 26 percent 12 percent

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 posited that the "creative class" is the new working class. Do you agree?