Mark Erlich, executive secretary and treasurer of the New England Regional Council of Carpenters, is not an optimist. With an industry career spanning four decades, Erlich has been through many economic highs and lows, and so Boston's current private-sector building boom does not greatly impress him. In fact, he says it's kind of odd.
"In past down cycles there usually hasn't been that much of a discrepancy between [activity in] Boston and the rest of New England," says Erlich, who is based in the city. "But this time, the drivers of economic growth are particularly favorable in Boston. Life sciences or biotech, health care, higher ed and residential—they're all [aggressively] growing here but not elsewhere" in the region.