The rich cities (basically just the ones around Boston) in MA basically don't have anyone who does things themselves so there's minimal need for hardware stores. All the nuts and bolts get driven in from the suburbs in the back of tradesmen's vans as they go to work for the day. Basically everything in the Boston area is optimized for white collar professionals and college students. There's only the bare minimum of everything else.
Meanwhile I live in a "blighted shithole" in MA and anything I could possibly want to buy is likely within a 20min drive. Like, I needed a CV shaft for a (not obscure but not common) 25yo car last week and four(!) different stores had it in stock, two stores had multiple different options. If I lived in the Boston area I would have been dragging my ass to the massive Autozone in Framingham
Most of the tradesmen who work for our property management business live in Somerville, Medford, or Malden, I think. I haven't done an exhaustive poll, though.
(They all spend half their lives at thay same Home Depot, too.)
Meanwhile I live in a "blighted shithole" in MA and anything I could possibly want to buy is likely within a 20min drive. Like, I needed a CV shaft for a (not obscure but not common) 25yo car last week and four(!) different stores had it in stock, two stores had multiple different options. If I lived in the Boston area I would have been dragging my ass to the massive Autozone in Framingham