Cities losing clout in Massachusetts?

I'm still thinking about this Commonwealth Magazine piece about the loss of political clout of cities in Massachusetts, which the authors tie to the inability to get reform on school funding:

Over many decades, the population in Massachusetts has become increasingly suburbanized. This shift has led to many consequences, the most important being a change in the makeup of legislative districts. As the population has shifted from urban centers to suburban areas, legislative districts have been adjusted to accommodate the increased population in these formerly rural locations.
In 1966, the 39 original cities in Massachusetts constituted 57 percent of the state’s population and 51 percent of the aggregate turnout in the state election that November. By 2018, those same cities made up only 45 percent of the state’s population and accounted for just 37 percent of the vote in the November election. While the total population of the Commonwealth has increased over that time by 27 percent, the impact of voters in Massachusetts cities is nearly a third less than what it used to be.