Big City vs. Port City

By: Chris Gasbarro

As a small city, Newburyport, has just 2% of the population of Boston - however, it accounts for 12% of Marketing agencies in Eastern Massachusetts.  Why is this seaside community attracting so many creatives?

The landscape of work environments is changing at pretty rapid clip.  With WeWork recently raising capital in the range of a Half Billion dollars - there's movement afoot for companies to see the future of how we will all work, some faster than others - and Newburyport is a community perfectly positioned for this future work renaissance.

The landscape, restaurants, character-filled buildings, history, coffee shops and maritime aesthetic - all contribute to an amazing "hallway" of the campus for the businesses that call Newburyport home. With a more connected and digital world, the historic streets of the city offer a contrast of analog that invites a slower and more authentic pace of connections.  The commute from the waterfront parking lot to State Street business fronts are lined with cobblestone paths, wagging tales of dogs, boutique retail windows and gas lamps - not the idling hours of car traffic our Boston-based agency friends.

Is there less inspiration and creativity in a coastal town vs. big city?  Maybe.  Yes, trendiness often eludes or adopts later...but in our connected and flat world with increasing trends of easy travel, are we  too reliant to grab inspiration from one place or from a diverse global landscape? Many of our local creatives still travel the globe 100+ days a year finding that inspiration, and finding inspiration from neighboring Portsmouth and Portland's only a 1-hour drive - leaving 200+ days to find local inspiration from an ideal New England city landscape.

For the time being we'll avoid the beer filled happy hours in the halls of a WeWork - we've got three bars within 100 feet with hundred-year-old authentic character, and that's how we’d like to maintain our inspiration.