In 2018 the U.S. Treasury designated 34 census tracts in this region as Opportunity Zones, home to about 133,539 people. The designation makes investments in those tracts eligible for a federal capital gains deferral programme, it was drawn from income data, and it is one of the most misunderstood labels a listing can carry.
What the programme is, in one attributed paragraph: under the 2017 federal tax law, an investor who reinvests capital gains through a qualified Opportunity Fund into property or businesses in a designated tract may defer and partly reduce federal tax on those gains, under IRS rules with their own deadlines and tests. None of that touches an ordinary home purchase. Buying a house to live in, in or out of a zone, gets nothing from the programme, and a listing that waves the label at a residential buyer is decorating.
Where the Zones Are
The map is a map of the region's lowest-income tracts as they stood in the mid-2010s census data, which is what the law required. Springfield holds 7 of the 34; Holyoke, Pittsfield, North Adams, Adams, Greenfield, Northampton and Orange hold two each. The median household income in these tracts at designation ran as low as $12,628.
The two strangest rows are rural: one tract spanning Charlemont, Colrain, Hawley, Heath, Monroe, Rowe, and another spanning Erving, Warwick, Wendell. Census tracts must hold a few thousand people, and in the hilltowns that takes several towns, so six entire municipalities sit inside one designated tract. An investor's programme designed for city blocks technically covers some of the emptiest land in Massachusetts.
Every Designated Tract
The Opportunity Zone Tracts in Western Massachusetts
Download CSV, same columns, same definitions
Every federally designated Opportunity Zone tract lying in the 101 towns: its municipality or municipalities, tract number, and the population and median household income in the census data behind the designation.
| Municipality | Census Tract | Population | Median Household Income |
|---|---|---|---|
| Adams | Census Tract 9221 | 2,476 | $41,829 |
| Adams | Census Tract 9223 | 2,070 | $52,569 |
| Agawam | Census Tract 8132.07 | 4,751 | $46,592 |
| Amherst | Census Tract 8203 | 6,829 | $39,144 |
| Charlemont, Colrain, Hawley, Heath, Monroe, Rowe | Census Tract 401 | 4,583 | $53,160 |
| Chicopee | Census Tract 8108 | 3,913 | $41,955 |
| Easthampton | Census Tract 8224.02 | 5,395 | $55,417 |
| Erving, Warwick, Wendell | Census Tract 404 | 3,426 | $55,489 |
| Greenfield | Census Tract 413 | 4,479 | $34,622 |
| Greenfield | Census Tract 414 | 2,855 | $33,967 |
| Holyoke | Census Tract 8114 | 2,674 | $18,060 |
| Holyoke | Census Tract 8117 | 2,144 | $17,719 |
| Ludlow | Census Tract 8104.03 | 4,215 | $45,888 |
| Montague | Census Tract 407.01 | 4,029 | $40,526 |
| North Adams | Census Tract 9214 | 1,592 | $36,231 |
| North Adams | Census Tract 9353 | 3,941 | $31,563 |
| Northampton | Census Tract 8219.03 | 3,237 | $33,147 |
| Northampton | Census Tract 8216.02 | 3,941 | $53,125 |
| Orange | Census Tract 405.02 | 3,463 | $37,308 |
| Orange | Census Tract 405.01 | 4,246 | $36,902 |
| Palmer | Census Tract 8103 | 3,295 | $56,500 |
| Pittsfield | Census Tract 9001 | 3,289 | $20,310 |
| Pittsfield | Census Tract 9002 | 4,227 | $28,692 |
| South Hadley | Census Tract 8211 | 7,048 | $51,073 |
| Springfield | Census Tract 8012 | 2,317 | $12,907 |
| Springfield | Census Tract 8018 | 4,011 | $26,507 |
| Springfield | Census Tract 8011.01 | 1,963 | $12,628 |
| Springfield | Census Tract 8017 | 7,728 | $31,712 |
| Springfield | Census Tract 8019.02 | 3,365 | $14,176 |
| Springfield | Census Tract 8009 | 4,003 | $16,215 |
| Springfield | Census Tract 8006 | 2,951 | $16,107 |
| Ware | Census Tract 8201.02 | 3,390 | $38,728 |
| West Springfield | Census Tract 8123 | 5,749 | $30,848 |
| Westfield | Census Tract 8127.02 | 5,944 | $36,000 |
The line under each Median Household Income is its margin from this table's middle of $36,116: left of centre is below it, right of centre is above, and both sides are drawn to the same scale. The middle is this table's own and does not move when you sort. It is a distance, not a position in a league table, and nothing here is ranked.
What These Columns Mean
- Municipality
- The town or towns the tract lies in. Two rural tracts each span several hilltowns.
- Census Tract
- The designated tract, as the Treasury named it in 2018.
- Population
- The tract's population in the census data behind the designation.
- Median Household Income
- The tract's median household income at designation. Low income was the qualifying test.
Cite: RE413. “The Opportunity Zone Tracts in Western Massachusetts.” Updated September 19, 2026. https://www.re413.com/news/opportunity-zones-western-mass/, underlying sources at https://www.re413.com/sources/.
What This Does Not Mean
A zone is not a verdict on a neighbourhood, in either direction. The designation marks where incomes were low in one census window; it is neither a warning about the streets inside it nor a promise that investment arrived. Whether money actually flowed to a given tract is not published anywhere systematically, and this site will not guess.
For an investor, the only advice this page will give is about paperwork: the rules are IRS rules, the deadlines are statutory, and the professional who files your returns is the person to ask. For everyone else, the tract map is context for the county's economic record and who is arriving, which carry the region's actual direction.
Sources
- U.S. Department of the Treasury and MassGIS. Opportunity Zone tract designations and boundaries, with the census profile behind each.
"Figures through" is the period the publisher's data describes; "checked" is only when we last asked. The full sourcing: sources and method.