Berkshire Benchmarks Releases State of the County Update

Print Story | Email Story
PITTSFIELD, Mass. — The Berkshire Benchmarks data team recently released a State of the County Update for 2023. 
 
This brief report builds on the Berkshire Benchmarks State of the County Report published in May 2022 and highlights notable changes in regional indicators over the past year. The berkshirebenchmarks.org website has also been updated to reflect the most current available data. 
 
The purpose of the Benchmarks initiative and report is to highlight the region's successes and challenges.
 
The 2022 Berkshire Benchmarks State of the County report provided a comprehensive overview of our region's performance across eight sectors: Economy, Education, Environment, Government, Health, Housing, Social Environment, and Transportation.  
 
In the future, the Berkshire Benchmarks team will continue to monitor these and other indicators to aid with the regional understanding of changes in these sectors and whether the work happening throughout the region is having the intended impact. 
 
Berkshire Benchmarks is a collaborative initiative managed through Berkshire Regional Planning Commission (BRPC). Our sources are publicly available data, including the U.S. Census Bureau, the American Community Survey, various Massachusetts data sets, and periodic surveys of Berkshire County residents. 
 
Berkshire Benchmarks aims to work with the community to understand priorities and help inform the region on how we are doing and if we are improving. Berkshire Benchmarks enhances the region's access to quality data and analysis. 

Tags: BRPC,   

If you would like to contribute information on this article, contact us at info@iberkshires.com.

Smith Single Gives Pittsfield Little Leaguers Walkoff Win

By Stephen DravisiBerkshires.com Sports
HOLDEN, Mass. – Colton Smith singled on a hard comebacker to the mound in the bottom of the seventh Thursday to give the Pittsfield Little League 12-year-old All-Stars a 3-2 win over Holden in the Section 1 Tournament.
 
The win propels Pittsfield to the final round of the four-team double-elimination tournament. It will be home on Saturday at 1 p.m. at Deming Park against the winner of Friday’s game between Holden and Westfield, a 16-0 winner over Quabbin on Thursday night in the losers’ bracket.
 
Pittsfield Thursday got seven strong innings on the mound from Carmelo Coco and Hector Reyes-Colon, who also hammered a solo home run in the top of the fourth to give his team a 2-1 lead at the time.
 
But Holden, which was down to its last strike in the top of the sixth, got an RBI single from Lukas Ojerholm to stay alive.
 
After Holden reliever Declan Wardwell stranded a runner at first in the bottom of the sixth, the teams went to extra innings, where Little League employs the “ghost runner,” starting each half inning with a runner on second base.
 
Smith came up huge behind the plate for Pittsfield in the top of the seventh, throwing out the ghost runner attempting to steal third for the first out of the inning.
 
Reyes-Colon then got a groundball to the mound for out No. 2 and a slow roller up the first base line to Brody Hamilton, who tagged out the batter to get Pittsfield back in the dugout.
 
View Full Story

More Pittsfield Stories