Jobs. Worcester used to be an industrial manufacturing city, now those jobs are in china. These days if you want an upper middle class salary, you need to commute to Boston, which gets old fast when your two hour commute makes you late for work. There is some insurance, banking, biotech, etc, but the people I know that work in Worcester don’t get paid a lot. More money from jobs makes more restaurants, theaters, concert venues, etc. Right now if you have an awesome spot in Worcester, nobody has the money to go there regularly.