Mass. big cities grow amid losses

Boston and Massachusetts' four other biggest cities gained residents over the past decade, but 2010 Census figures released Tuesday showed population shifting from several other old industrial cities and from resort areas at opposite ends of the state.

Boston, the state capital and the most populous city in New England, registered a 4.8% increase since 2000 to 617,594 residents. Hispanics, whose numbers increased by 27%, provided 80% of the city's net growth, but the city also came close to logging its first net increase in white residents since 1950.

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Two of the state's other five largest cities also increased population above the statewide rate of 3.1%: No. 2 Worcester (4.9%) and No. 5 Cambridge (3.8%). No. 4 Lowell grew by 1.3% and No. 3 Springfield by 0.6%.

Several other older cities lost population, including Brockton, Fall River and Somerville. Fall River, once one of the nation's greatest textile centers, is surrounded by smaller communities in the state's southeastern corner that recorded big gains.

Reflecting a national trend, Massachusetts logged substantial increases in Hispanics (46%), Asians (47%) and blacks (27%). The non-Hispanic white population dropped 4% over the decade, although the state remains overwhelmingly white.

Cape Cod and the Berkshire Hills of western Massachusetts both lost population. The cape's slump can be attributed to an aging population, largely seasonal employment and the fact that much new residential construction is for second homes, says Rachel Cobb, a political scientist at Suffolk University in Boston.

Berkshire County's population dropped 2.8%. Barnstable County, which covers most of the cape, declined 2.9%. Because Massachusetts will lose a U.S. House seat as a result, these losses could be significant in creating a new map of congressional districts, Cobb says.

Much of the state's growth was centered near the Interstate 495 beltway around Boston.

The day began on a discordant note when Secretary of State William Galvin announced that Boston had lost 2.5% of its population. Mayor Thomas Menino's office rushed to the city's defense, Galvin's office said it had "miscalculated," and by the end of the day, Boston was again, as New Englanders like to say, "the Hub of the Universe."