 Map: 1924 Cambridge Zoning Ordinance Map (Cambridge Historical Commission) Here we address the findings of recent Economists on the questions regarding both upzoning and the removal of perceived barriers to housing development, such as restrictive zoning regulations and other factors. One of the most heated debates in housing policy and pricing revolves around the issue of removing zoning restraints to make it easier for developers to build more quickly without impediments from neighbors and housing preservation advocates. This is one of the central tenets of the debates in Cambridge. On the one side we have advocates like Abundant Housing and A Better Cambridge, and housing experts and/or economists they turn to. On the other hand, we have groups such as the Cambridge Citizens Coalition who have found ready allies in on-the-ground studies by other economists and planners such as Cameron Murray, the Chief Economist at Fresh Economic Thinking or Patrick Condon, the Massachusetts native, a Vancouver transplant urban planner and activist. Social media is ripe with related counter approaches, sometimes framed as NIMBY-YIMBY that provide neither facts nor insight. In the Cambridge Massachusetts debates about upzoning, affiliates of the political group A Better Cambridge were in contact with Harvard Professor of the Practice in the Economics Department, Jason Furman who in turn wrote a November 9, 2024 Opinion Piece in the Boston Globe, just as the Cambridge City Council final decision was moving toward completion. The article is titled “How Cambridge can increase its housing supply. The Cambridge City Council is advancing a plan that would reduce, simplify, and streamline restrictions” The core premise of the article is that Cambridge was not going to be able to meet its 2030 housing goals of 1,050 new units without some kind of major “reboot” in the form of a plan to “reduce, simplify and streamline…restrictions” and allow taller, larger structures on each property. This proposal was advanced by Furman as a “compromise between Cambridge’s 19th-century character and 21st-century housing needs.” We know now that the estimated new Cambridge housing goals of 1,050 new units are already being met in Cambridge by a combination of both the wide array of new affordable housing units and the new housing coming on board in Alewife. While the core premise of the Furman argument is misplaced, let us look further at the argument itself. Real Estate Developers and Development DiscussionsJason Furman cites as support for his position, a 2023 NYU Law and Economics Research Paper authored by three NYU Professors, attorney Vicki Been, Director of NYU’s Furman Center for Real Estate and Public Policy, well as Urban Planner Ingrid Gould Ellen and attorney Kathryn O’Regan, both at the Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service. Jason Furman’s father, Jay Furman, was a real estate and shopping mall developer, who also was a Founding Board Member and Endower of the Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy at NYU and for whom the center is named. In short, Jason Furman grew up in and likely benefited financially from the world of real estate investment and development. The research paper Jason Furman cites from this group in his Boston Globe Opinion, revisits the issue “Supply Skepticism.” The abstract reads in part “Although “supply skeptics” claim that new housing supply does not slow growth in rents…” the authors show that a) housing supply increases do slow regional rent growth; b) in some cases this lowers rents or rent growth in the surrounding area; c) new construction sparks a move to “free up apartments” across incomes; d) although new supply does advance gentrification, this does not significantly displace lower income residents, and; e) easing restricts on land use that remove constraints on development leads to more new homes over time, “but only a fraction of the new capacity created because many other factors constrain the pace of new development.” In essence the authors of this work, like Furman himself, argue while the larger area may benefit from increased housing supply (the targeted area may not). Only sometimes will rents or rent growth be lowered in the process. Building new apartments frees up others. The gentrification resulting from this change may not impact lower income tenants primarily. And finally, the removal of development constraints does very little to help the housing situation because of other factors in play. Furman notes accordingly that : “Even building more expensive units can have benefits for affordability that spread throughout the city and beyond. People in booming local industries like finance, tech, and pharma will still want to move to Cambridge. If the city doesn’t increase the number of housing units, would-be residents will outbid moderate-income locals for existing properties and upgrade them, increasing costs in the neighboring areas and leading to more gentrifying displacement.” What he is missing is that lower income and higher income potential buyers alike are being out bid here increasingly by investment firms, including international monies, that strip away any potential benefits. And the recently passed citywide luxury housing upzoning has only made things worse, as we have reported in a recent blogpost HERE PERSPECTIVES OF ANOTHER ECONOMISTA 2023 Journal of Urban Economics study by economist Evan Mast, is one of the sources cited by Furman. This article addresses the potential mobility benefits in building new housing, specifically that: “Constructing a new market-rate building that houses 100 people ultimately leads 45 to 70 people to move out of below-median income neighborhoods.” While Furnam identifies the work as “a study of 12 major cities” in his link to it, the study actually analyzes 52,000 urban residents living in 686 new market-rate multi-family buildings who move within their city, with the larger premise that “… in the long run, new housing can depreciate and gradually become affordable” He follows the movement for some six rounds of transition from one multi-family home to another. This is a very different scenario than in Cambridge, where many of our renters are students here for only a few years and where owners and longtime residents tend to stay for a longer period in their homes. Moreover, there is no incentive in the current Cambridge upzoning to construct apartment buildings as opposed to luxury condos or one- and two-family homes. One of the authors cited in this study is urban planner Yonah Freeman who has found the impacts of upzoning, decidedly mixed in a 2023 article in the Journal of Planning Literature: HERE Moreover here in Cambridge, historic homes are not like cars that depreciate every two years in value. Adding more high-end homes in lower income areas only increases the housing costs for those who live there do to increased property values and taxes. As this upzoning and deregulating decision is playing out across Cambridge and other cities, we are seeing the results at close hand, with much higher housing costs in high demand cities like Vancouver, Ottawa and Cambridge, MA, mixed results in Chicago, and some decreases in Austin, Texas where high rises are allowed closer to residential areas. In NYC city we are seeing increased gentrification and the decline of minorities among other lower income residents. Stated another way, the neo-liberal supply/demand, trickle down theories of housing, work no better than these same concerns in the political and economic arena more generally. Furman concludes his article with the following: “The economics are clear: When supply increases prices go down.” In Cambridge, what we are seeing is that increasingly we are losing housing supply, NOT adding to the housing supply with our recent upzoning. This is happening because as wealthier individuals and investment firms purchase smaller one-family, or various two-family and three-family homes to expand into much large one-two-and three-family residences. The Citywide luxury housing upzoning has only poured fuel on the fire, and these developers can now build out to within a few feet of the property line without restrictions, design review, or other impediments. WHAT OTHER ECONOMISTS HAVE TO SAYIn March 2025 an important study was published by three economists in the National Bureau of Economic Research. T The title of their study is "Supply Constraints do not Explain Price and Quantity Growth Across U. S. Cities." The lead author, Johannes Wieland is Associate Professor of Economics and holder of the Distinguished Endowed Chair in Macroeconomics and Public Finance at the University of California, San Diego. In 2024-25 he has been a visiting the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco as Senior Research Advisor. The second author is John Mondragon an Economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. The third author, Schuyler Louis, is a Ph.D. student in the Economics department of UC Irvine. The findings of this important study indicate that that constrained housing supply is relatively unimportant in explaining differences in rising house prices among U.S. cities. These results challenge the prevailing view of local housing and labor markets and suggest that easing housing supply constraints may not yield the anticipated improvements in housing affordability." What does matter? Income level Increases among other things. The authors state that "…using four standard measures of housing supply constraints from the literature, we find that cities measured to have more restrictive housing supply show the same growth in house prices, quantities, population and rooms per person in response to higher income growth from 2000–2020 as cities that seem less constrained. This is true across all the measures of housing constraints, if we extend our sample to cover 1980 to 2020, and if we instrument for housing demand using the plausibly exogenous increase in housing demand from pandemic-era remote work.” Furthermore, they observe that “Interpreting our empirical approach through a demand-and-supply framework where we allow for arbitrary correlations of income growth with other shocks, we show that our results imply that housing supply constraints are quantitatively unimportant in explaining rising housing costs across U.S. cities. In the simplest case, when income growth is uncorrelated with other housing demand and supply shocks, then the same income growth will translate into more house price growth and less house quantity growth in less elastic cities." In short, removing zoning constraints (allowing developers to build higher and larger, as of right, and without design oversight) will NOT bring the housing prices down.” In short, according to their set of metrics framed in macro-economic terms, places with high paying jobs, like Cambridge and Boston, causes housing prices to go up. Stated another way, it is income growth itself that causes housing prices to go up, and even if more units are built, the housing costs will change by statistically indistinguishable amounts regardless of how housing-constrained (meaning zoning-constrained) the setting is. Or to note more specifically, even though places like New York City and Vancouver build a lot more housing (even 10,000 units), this wouldn’t really affect the existing housing market since there are enough high-income earners to afford them. Basically, what is clear is that one should not undo zoning restrictions with an aim of building enough houses in desirable cities like Cambridge if one wants to stabilize housing prices or drive them down. Cambridge is one of those high demand, highly desirable centers where we can never build enough homes to satisfy the need. Removing zoning constraints is making the situation worse. Conceivably, the likely federal impacts on the local economy in terms of job displacement and economic losses, along with increased tariffs on critical goods such steel, aluminum, lumber and parts will slow the new housing market enough to stabilize the demolition of current housing to create new larger luxury housing, but only time will tell.Jason Furman cites as support for his position, a 2023 NYU Law and Economics Research Paper authored by three NYU Professors, attorney Vicki Been, Director of NYU’s Furman Center for Real Estate and Public Policy, well as Urban Planner Ingrid Gould Ellen and attorney Kathryn O’Regan, both at the Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service. Jason Furman’s father, Jay Furman, was a real estate and shopping mall developer, who also was a Founding Board Member and Endower of the Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy at NYU and for whom the center is named. In short, Jason Furman grew up in and likely benefited financially from the world of real estate investment and development. SUPPLY SKEPTICISM The research paper Jason Furman cites from this group in his Boston Globe Opinion, revisits the issue “Supply Skepticism.” The abstract reads in part “Although “supply skeptics” claim that new housing supply does not slow growth in rents…” the authors show that a) housing supply increases slow regional rent growth; b) in some cases this lowers rents or rent growth in the surrounding area; c)new construction sparks a move to “free up apartments” across incomes; d) although new supply does advance gentrification, this does not significantly displace lower income residents, and; e) easing restricts on land use that remove constraints on development leads to more new homes over time, “but only a fraction of the new capacity created because many other factors constrain the pace of new development.” In essence the authors of this work, like Furman himself, argue while the larger area may benefit from increased housing supply (the targeted area may not). Only sometimes will rents or rent growth be lowered in the process. Building new apartments frees up others. The gentrification resulting from this change may not impact lower income tenants primarily. And finally, the removal of development constraints does very little to help the housing situation because of other factors in play. Furman notes accordingly that : “Even building more expensive units can have benefits for affordability that spread throughout the city and beyond. People in booming local industries like finance, tech, and pharma will still want to move to Cambridge. If the city doesn’t increase the number of housing units, would-be residents will outbid moderate-income locals for existing properties and upgrade them, increasing costs in the neighboring areas and leading to more gentrifying displacement.” What he is missing is that lower income and higher income potential buyers alike are being out bid here increasingly by investment firms, including international monies, that strip away any potential benefits. And the recently passed citywide luxury housing upzoning has only made things worse, as we have reported in a recent blogpost HERE MOBILITY: ANOTHER ECONOMIST IN PLAYA 2023 Journal of Urban Economics study by economist Evan Mast, is one of the sources cited by Furman. This article addresses the potential mobility benefits in building new housing, specifically that: “Constructing a new market-rate building that houses 100 people ultimately leads 45 to 70 people to move out of below-median income neighborhoods.” While Furnam identifies the work as “a study of 12 major cities” in his link to it, the study actually analyzes 52,000 urban residents living in 686 new market-rate multi-family buildings who move within their city, with the larger premise that “… in the long run, new housing can depreciate and gradually become affordable” He follows the movement for some six rounds of transition from one multi-family home to another. This is a very different scenario than in Cambridge, where many of our renters are students here for only a few years and where owners and longtime residents tend to stay for a longer period in their homes. Moreover, there is no incentive in the current Cambridge upzoning to construct apartment buildings as opposed to luxury condos or one- and two-family homes. One of the authors cited in this study is urban planner Yonah Freeman who has found the impacts of upzoning, decidedly mixed in a 2023 article in the Journal of Planning Literature: HERE Moreover here in Cambridge, historic homes are not like cars that depreciate every two years in value. Adding more high-end homes in lower income areas only increases the housing costs for those who live there do to increased property values and taxes. As this upzoning and deregulating decision is playing out across Cambridge and other cities, we are seeing the results at close hand, with much higher housing costs in high demand cities like Vancouver, Ottawa and Cambridge, MA, mixed results in Chicago, and some decreases in Austin, Texas where high rises are allowed closer to residential areas. In NYC city we are seeing increased gentrification and the decline of minorities among other lower income residents. Stated another way, the neo-liberal supply/demand, trickle down theories of housing, work no better than these same concerns in the political and economic arena more generally. Furman concludes his article with the following: “The economics are clear: When supply increases prices go down.” What we are seeing in our city is that increasingly we are losing housing supply, NOT adding to the housing supply with our recent upzoning. This is happening because as wealthier individuals and investment firms purchase smaller one-family, or various two-family and three-family homes to expand into much large one-two-and three-family residences. The Citywide luxury housing upzoning has only poured fuel on the fire, and these developers can now build out to within a few feet of the property line without restrictions, design review, or other impediments. "IT IS NOT THE ZONING" OTHER ECONOMISTS INSISTIn March 2025 an important study was published by three economists in the National Bureau of Economic Research. The title of their study is "Supply Constraints do not Explain Price and Quantity Growth Across U. S. Cities." The lead author, Johannes Wieland is Associate Professor of Economics and holder of the Distinguished Endowed Chair in Macroeconomics and Public Finance at the University of California, San Diego. In 2024-25 he has been a visiting the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco as Senior Research Advisor. The second author is John Mondragon an Economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. The third author, Schuyler Louis, is a Ph.D. student in the Economics Department of the University of California at Irvine. The findings of this important study indicate that constrained housing supply is relatively unimportant in explaining differences in rising house prices among U.S. cities. "These results challenge the prevailing view of local housing and labor markets and suggest that easing housing supply constraints may not yield the anticipated improvements in housing affordability.: What does matter? Income level increases among other things. The authors state that "...using four standard measures of housing supply constraints from the literature, we find that cities measured to have more restrictive housing supply show the same growth in house prices, quantities, population and rooms per person in response to higher income growth from 2000-2020 as cities that seem less constrained. This is true across all the measures of housing constraints, if we extend our sample to cover 1980 to 2020, and if we instrument for housing demand using the plausibly exogenous increase in housing demand from pandemic-era remote work." Furthermore, they observe that "Interpreting our empirical approach through a demand-and-supply framework where we allow for arbitrary correlations of income growth with other shocks, we show that our results imply that housing supply constraints are quantitatively unimportant in explaining rising housing costs across U.S. cities. In the simplest case, when income growth is uncorrelated with other housing demand and supply shocks, then the same income growth will translate into more house price growth and less house quantity growth in less elastic cities." In short, removing zoning constraints (allowing developers to build higher and larger, as of right, and without design oversight) will NOT bring the housing prices down." And, this may encourage housing cost increases as larger and more expensive homes are constructed. CONCLUSIONSIn conclusion, economists have come at the issue of zoning and housing from a variety of vantage points. Jason Furman weighs in via the potential broader area impacts of adding more housing, but without much data on the actual success of this solution in bring down existing home prices or rents. The group he cites at the Furman Center for Real Estate and Public Policy, point out that such efforts slow housing price increases, but also come with concerns about gentrification and do not necessarily bring rents down. Another Economist cited by Furman, focuses only on occupants of multi-family housing (apartments largely) who move from one unit to another. In this case, when new apartment units are built, some residents move to these newer units, leaving behind others for lower income residents. Finally we addressed the recent study of three economists who write that there is no evidence that zoning and related constraints on building, bring up housing prices, or that lowering those constraints results in housing prices coming down. The biggest factor in increasing home prices are increasing incomes. High incomes bring higher cost homes.
Extrapolating from their data, in places with high paying jobs, like Cambridge and Boston, housing prices will rise with the influx of individuals receiving salaries than those already here.. Stated another way, it is income growth itself that causes housing prices to go up. And, even if more units are built, the housing cost changes will be statistically indistinguishable regardless of how housing-constrained (meaning zoning-constrained) the setting is. In short, even though places like New York City and Vancouver build a lot more housing (even 10,000 units), this wouldn’t affect the existing housing market since there are enough high-income earners to afford them. Basically, removing zoning restrictions solely with an aim of building enough houses to lower costs in high demand, highly desirable cities like Cambridge will not stabilize housing prices or drive them down. One can never build enough homes to satisfy the need. The recent decision by Cambridge City Council to upzone the city and remove key zoning constraints is making the situation of high housing costs even worse.
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 Billionaires versus Boomers: Who Is to Blame for the Housing Crisis? It seems that the answer is boomers according to a March 13 Boston Globe article by housing reporter, Clarence Sperance titled “Banking on a Silver Tsunami of Baby Boomer Homes to Hit the Market You’ll be Waiting a While” HERE It may not be worth mentioning that the vast majority of Cambridge Baby Boomers (age 59-77) and the Silent Generation (age 78 up) worked incredibly hard to earn enough money to purchase homes in Cambridge, but taken together they account 48.2% (38.7 + 9.5 %) of Massachusetts home owners. We can all agree that is an awful lot of housing. And many Boomers continue working at the top of their careers, while others live within their means on fixed incomes and/or other sources.
But are they to blame for the housing problems we face. No. A key factor according to the Metropolitan Area Planning Council report titled, “Homes for profit: Speculation and Investment in Greater Boston” notes that “A large and increasing share of homes are sold to large investors.” This, they note, “…prevents potential homebuyers from competing in the market, and raises rents for tenants.” As they point out “These investor-buyers then raise rents up to 70%, effectively evicting long-term renters, or simply evict them with no cause. The root cause: “Individual families are out-bid by investors, who can pay cash with no conditions.” This is all laid out in the letter to constituents by State Senator, Pat Jehlen HERE. In the Globe article, instead, special attention was given to “empty nestors” the refusal of people age 55 and up who have no children at home not downsizing (moving elsewhere, or dying) because their property “has the potential to more than make up for the estimated 4.5 million unit national home shortage.” Then we read that there are simply “not enough of those older families” to make up the housing shortfall according to Zillow’s chief economist. They tend to own some 25% of the larger homes in the area (3 plus bedrooms), in contrast to millennials (ages 27-42) with families who only own 12.5% of the larger homes. What is not stated is that in the Boston area, many of the late 20s to mid-thirty-year-olds are in graduate school, post doc programs or internships and residencies. In short, their numbers likely are in part diminished by 1) a need to pay tuition and pay back student loans (decreasing the amount of money they have for down payment); 2) the fact that their residency here may be seen as shorter term as they look for long term full positions. In short, one size does not fit all. Boomers likely also are staying in their homes longer because their homes are their single greatest investment and to move elsewhere (even some place smaller) is likely to have diminished financial returns. Aging in place, as noted in the article, is an increasingly preferred outcome, particularly after the news about increased deaths in senior living complexes in Cambridge and elsewhere during COVID. That said we have only 14% empty nesters in Massachusetts compared with national statistics of 16%. Vacation homes are also being blamed as part of the problem, even though most such homes are far from where people need to be for work. But blaming the owners of vacation homes for the housing crisis in metropolitan Boston seems more like wealth and/or class envy. Governor Healy has blamed single-family-only zoning on the housing shortage (HERE), as the Harvard Gazette has noted “You’re going to have a hard time solving the affordability problem through zoning” (HERE). “The solution is not to wait and hope for existing homes to come on the market. It’s to help the builders build more housing…. It means loosening some of these building restrictions in the metro area and allowing for more construction” according to Divounguy of Zillow. To this we can say three things:
All this reconfirms what a recent study by economists Schuyler Louie et al. in the National Bureau of Economic Research (March 2025) are already saying that "...constrained housing supply is relatively unimportant in explaining differences in rising house prices among U.S. cities. These results challenge the prevailing view of local housing and labor markets and suggest that easing housing supply constraints may not yield the anticipated improvements in housing affordability." What does matter? Income level increases among other things. HERE With the arrival of biotech and infotech in Cambridge and the Metropolitan Boston area, we have seen an extraordinary rise in such income levels. In this context too, the reference to money as a key agent (very high salaried employees is not actual billionaires) can be seen to factor in as well. Why is this perspective, and that of other economists such as Cameron Murray and urban planner Patric Condon, not taken up by local reporters? A key factor may reflect financial interests on the part of the newspaper. While The Boston Globes total annual revenues are estimated to be between $100 million and $500 million, a detailed breakdown of these revenues, including classified advertising, is not publicly disclosed. However nationally a significant amount of such advertising revenue is said to come from real estate and developer interests. It is likely to be the same here. While it is very important that this local paper and others continue to thrive, it is also critically important that their reporters address issues in a critical and thorough-going way.  PART EIGHT: SUMMARY OF YIMBY POSTS & MORE NEWS PART ONE -- “Take a Look. It’s Already Happening” HERE Part One introduces the recently ordained citywide up-zoning petition and what is presented as a real YIMBY (Yes in My Back Yard) win by both the eight City Councillors who voted for it and its various supporters. We look at a recent realtor's letter to an East Cambridge single family home owner urging them to sell, as well as a series of properties that are part of our current and now far more impactful city gentrification upzoning project. The specific properties addressed here include: Huron Ave. (West Cambridge), Henry St. (Cambridgeport), Jay and Kinnaird Streets (Riverside), as well as a Harvard Square-adjacent property, that of one time boarding house of famed African American abolitionist and author, Harriet Jacobs. PART TWO -- "YIMBY Present and Past" HERE Part Two explores the Kirkland Street property featured in two recent Boston Globe articles by their YIMBY housing staff writer, Andrew Brinker. We zero in on both the history and likely future of this home in the Kirkland Village area. Most likely it will become two very expensive single family homes, one close to the street, the other in the rear, adjacent to the property line. This project will increase the property values (and taxes) of nearby residents. But two very lucky wealthy families may be able to live here. We also take up the history of the existing more modest home on the site and the goals of the circa 1900 "American Dream Housing" that. unlike the current "gilded age" housing dream today, actually cared about creating affordable housing for young families. PART THREE -- "Strawberry Fields Forever" HERE Part Three focuses on on one specific Cushing Street project in Strawberry Hill in the western section of the city, a neighborhood abutting both Fresh Pond and Mt. Auburn Cemetery. This area, like Riverside, is likely to be hit especially hard with the up-zoning changes, as wealthier individuals acquire larger and more expensive luxury single-family homes and duplexes. Here we especially focus on the advertising language used by the site's realtors to showcase the investment potential of this property, one that already was being upgraded to more expensive luxury homes, and likely now will be upgraded even more. We have edited this post to add the Feb 23, 2023 Andrew Brinker article on the Massachusetts state push on this effort, noting how a onetime Cambridge resident and A Better Cambridge co-founder along with his ally Councillor Burhan Azeem are part of this expanded effort. We conclude with the Beatles' famous song lyrics and their relevance today. PART FOUR -- "A PRIMER: Our Revolutionary YIMBY Success Story" HERE Part Four looks at the "Primer on Multi-Family Upzoning" created by Councillor Azeem and posted on his Social Media sites in conjunction with his celebration of the pro-builder Cambridge zoning success. He compares Cambridge's up-zoning criteria and perceived impacts to Paris (although absent design oversight, related city plans, or even the ability for legal appeal. We remind him (and our readers) that Haussmann's Paris with its large boulevards, not only is inapplicable to the small quirky streets of Cambridge without massive neighborhood and district demolitions, but also that Haussmann's plan destroyed the historic Medieval center of Paris, forcing out Jewish and other residents along with the businesses that once were thriving here. PART FIVE -- "Cambridge is Number 1!!!" HERE Part Five explores the celebratory Social Media posts (X/Twitter and BlueSky) by Councillor Azeem and related comments and questions about this citywide YIMBY up-zoning by others. Some of the responders ask good questions, such as what is to prevent one from creating new (more expensive) single family homes and what will be the green space impacts. We also address here the investment property acquired by Councillor Azeem in the period this zoning was being made public and some of the related concerns about whether the City's Plan E government framework was being followed in this case. PART SIX -- The Role of Students in our Recent YIMBY Victory HERE Part Six addresses the fallacious information conveyed to and provided by Councillor Azeem and the ABC group to many of the Harvard and MIT students who spoke at City Council meetings on the YIMBY up-zoning. Salient among these issues is the claim that this zoning petition would promote the building of apartment buildings citywide with lower cost housing for them. We also address the student views, that they as lower income (student) residents should expect to benefit from related inclusionary projects when their salaries are likely to rise considerably upon graduation. Our affordable housing is intended instead for lower income local working families or those without other means. We don't let ourselves off the hook here, urging far more engagement in educating both city residents and the many wonderful students who live here on these issues and what the impacts of this up-zoning are and likely will continue to be. Cambridge YIMBY win? Initial Results and Reflections (Parts I to VI): HERE PART SEVEN - Updates Updates" HERE As of March 16 there have been six projects that appear to have been directly impacted by the citywide rezoning. 26 Jay Street in Riverside 24 Newell St in Area 9 121 Rindge in North Cambridge 131 Thingvalla in Strawberry Hill 161 Cushing Street in Strawberry Hill 18 Clinton St in Mid-Cambridge This blogpost discusses each in turn. UPDATE (March 17, 2025) the website of the Harvard Undergraduate Urban Sustainability Lab website supporting the upzoning (addressed in Part 6) with its links to A Better Cambridge has now been taken down: https://www.huusl.org/morehomes UPDATE (February 25, 2025) Councillor Azeem Responds: On February 25, 2025 Burhan Azeem emailed Suzanne Blier via his city council email account to commend her on CCC's 6-part blog posts on the luxury housing upzoning passed by City Council on February 10. He incorrectly assumes this 6-part blog series, and our strong opposition to this citywide up-zoning petition did not target any one Councillor. In exploring the role of the various student speakers, we did uncover his specific role in garnering the attention and interest of students with the promise of more apartments which are highly unlikely as a result of this zoning. His email is below.  On March 3, 2025 he posts on both X and Bluesky a request for supporter donations because his work has "ruffled feathers," may have made his reelection more difficult as a result of his leading role in this upzoning matter. Below is this post.
 The City Staff is proposing new design guidelines for the city. You can read them HERE. These will come before the Planning Board on March 18, 2025 before being presented to the public shortly after.
We note at the outset that there is very little here on single-family, two-family, and three-family homes in our residential neighborhoods. These are now going to be entirely without design oversight since the rezoning passed, and only will get a short look over by inspectional services. We need specific design criteria in place for these units, on everything from materials and facade treatment, to setbacks, roof decks, trash storage, and parking. And we see nothing specific in terms of criteria on different neighborhood contextual elements across of city neighborhoods although "site context" is noted as of importance. We also contacted several architects and urban design people and here is what they are telling us: We learn for example from John La Freniere that: "The introduction claims that "Cambridge is a walkable city where daily destinations are generally close to home". Since the recent zoning change has been justified as being necessary to ease the huge housing shortage in the city, it is clear for many people working here it is not home. They are not walking here. Similarly, do most working residents actually work in Cambridge? The premise that cars are somehow superfluous is false. Even people who when they move here happen to work in Cambridge may have their jobs switched to Waltham or elsewhere. We are not NYC. There is not the population size for Cambridge to be some sort of work/residence island which allow businesses and those who work elsewhere to thrive without any parking requirement for new construction." As to the design criteria, he notes that: "The new Guidelines are purely aspirational. "By right" developments which are now much of the city have no obligation to conform to guidelines or "advice" from the public or City reviewers. Though many pages are devoted to what is "good design," it is confusing. In the introduction it does say design should address massing, context and local design patterns, but with no enforcement, why should anyone bother?" Furthermore "The 200 pages of urban design guidelines feel non-hierarchical. What is most important? "Sustainability" responses such as fins to shield solar gain are given equal weight as massing concerns, or breaking up of a flat facade. This seems to be a catalogue of possible design moves, whether landscaping, massing, facade articulation, textures of materials, There is no synthesis or hierarchy of ideas -- the illustrations are all individual vignettes. What if vertical fins are used on a 3 story box apartment building in the middle of a row of 2-family houses. It can be justified as an environmental move in the guidelines but it would obviously be a terrible contextual design." His conclusions are that the guidelines do "...not say what is most important where, which is what Urban design is all about. While there are different ways to respond to different things, in an effort to be so comprehensive, there are in the end, few actual rules to follow." Another architect long involved in the city's planning efforts also picked up on the bike infrastructure, stating that "I question the selection of the photo featuring a bicycle parking station in Harvard Square as the intro to the Streetscape section. They are much better tucked into unused corners instead of bordering heavily traveled pedestrian sidewalks." He also "...noticed there are few photos of streets with parked cars - presumably because they aren’t so nice, although parking is essential in residential neighborhoods." This architect also noted that "...while the illustrations include some handsome new designs, this may not be all that helpful to staff and judiciary boards since these reviews must be careful to follow specific guidelines, and other groups such as the Planning Board have to be "...able to look at overall impacts and quality to get the best outcomes. How do you write that into the guidelines?" He suggests as well that it would be important to include a specific "comparison with 1993 Policy Plan." We agree, because only then can we see what specifically has changed - and why." He also noted several lacuna in the plan. Among these, the "[d]iscussion of Flood Resilience is...a concern;: This section "...is a slender skeleton of principles given the scope of potential flood events. There probably should be a procedural requirement for a narrative presentation of risks and solutions." One needs to look both at East Cambridge and in the Alewife area. The proposed plan also is missing a discussion under Noise impacts of the need for "...conformance with the city’s pretty stringent Noise impact ordinance, which in some places, like East Cambridge, exceed the background noise level in residential areas." In addition to this, the plan supports the massing of large buildings up to the street wall but "This can be overdone, and pedestrian usable setbacks are often a good idea." He cites both Harvard's Holyoke/Smith Center Plaza and North Point on the north side of West Street are good alternative examples. Science Is Real: Cambridge House Flipping & Cost Factors in Luxury Upzoning Building Height Choices3/12/2025  The results of the February 10, 2025 citywide luxury housing are now rolling in as we have been posting in our Updates and Summaries to our 6-Part YIMBY Blogpost series: HERE And, the results are not good. This is just as we had anticipated, along with the Metropolitan Area Planning Council, and State Senator Pat Jehlen in her Letter to Constituents HERE: Indeed, it is our once lower income neighborhoods that are getting hit hardest with new, larger, and far more expensive homes – single family, duplexes, and three far larger more expensive homes replacing a current triple decker. The tallest of these new proposed structures are three stories, not four stories or higher. And tragically, every one of these new structures is replacing older more affordable housing in the neighborhood. Why are these new units costing more? As we read in a recent Medium post o housing costs “…new housing will pretty much always be more expensive than comparable old housing, in the same way that a 2025 car will be more expensive to purchase than a 2010 model of the same car — new things Just Cost More.” HERE Why? The answer is in the science of building and related factors of cost which the pro-development political forces that brought this zoning petition to City Council never thought to look at. But others have and here is what they have to say: In the blog cited above, “How Much Does it Actually Cost to Build Housing,” the author writes: “Going from 3 stories to 4 stories fundamentally changes the type of building you are creating. You need different building practices…and lose building space to expensive things like elevators, which under ideal conditions do not housing anyone.” They add ““If you move into say, demolishing existing multifamily, that results in *much* higher land costs in addition to concerns of displacement and loss of naturally occurring affordable housing.” And for good measure they provide the following graph of the national average construction costs per story.  Above graphic shows the national average construction costs per story from “Returns to Scale in Residential Construction: The Marginal Impact of Building Height” by Michael D. Eriksen and Anthony W. Orlando, Real Estate Economics, 12 August, 2021. Here as the Medium author who reposts this graphic showing the national average construction costs per story point out you will “Note the strong break points going from three to four stories, and from seven to eight stories. This explains why developers… love 3 story buildings — they’re far and away the most cost effective height for multifamily until you hit 7 stories….In fact, here’s a graph of national average construction costs per story. Note the strong break points going from three to four stories, and from seven to eight stories. This explains why developers in Denton love 3 story buildings — they’re far and away the most cost effective height for multifamily until you hit 7 stories….” In another Medium blogpost, titled “Facts Matter in Housing or at Least they Should” (February 23, 2025) the same author notes why the science of building is so important to any housing discussion. “Science is real.” HERE The author saliently observes that: "If you care about protecting existing communities, I personally think the communities you should prioritize most are those most at risk of displacement and homelessness. This means poor communities. Poor communities largely live in existing multifamily. If your proposal to add more housing is to redevelop already multifamily areas, that means you want to displace poor people. Straight up. Go do a pro-forma on redevelopment and get back to me. Research confirms this neighborhood level upzoning is basically the worst way you can do upzoning. Housing shortage hits hardest and fastest for the lowest income neighborhoods (see chart below), and that results in aggressive single-family-to-single-family redevelopment in poor neighborhoods, as displaced middle class people move into poor neighborhoods, but expect to live in a physical building that “suits” their income bracket. Middle class people, by and large, don’t want to live in a 900 sq ft home from 1920 in a poor neighborhood with limited city services. They’ll contemplate living in a 1500sqft new build home or a “flipped” 1200 sq ft home in a poor neighborhood with limited city services. This redevelopment/flipping process removes affordable housing from the market without even adding supply to improve broader market dynamics." In brief: the new generation of home owners wants a size considerably larger than the earlier generation. So much of what is in play in the new zoning based Cambridge house flipping developer agenda is to make the same plot of land work harder to create larger units than were on the plot previously - to a net loss of trees and green spaces, impacting not only this property, but also the neighbors who are also key beneficiaries of them. Much the same thing in noted in the generally pro-developer journal Strong Towns in an article titled “Why are Developers Only Building Luxury-Housing” by Daniel Herriges (7.25.2018). He begins HERE with a direct assessment: “Stop me if you've heard this one before: 'Developers in my city are only building luxury housing. They're not building anything that ordinary people can afford." Under the sub-heading "New Construction is Expensive" we read: "It's not a new observation that construction cost alone situates brand new housing outside the budget of lower-income households. The same has been true in other eras. So how do these households afford housing at all?"
Under the sub-heading "Supply and Demand are Out of Whack" he takes up the terminology luxury housing: "Understand that when you talk about 'luxury housing,' you're really talking about luxury locations. If you build almost anything in Tribeca or Beverly Hills or Back Bay, someone will pay top dollar for it. What makes a location a luxury location? Scarcity. It's when relatively few people can actually live there, in comparison to the number of people who would like to live there...." Cambridge would certain count in this group as well. Further on we learn that "One consequence of this is the proliferation of single-family teardowns in desirable urban neighborhoods. If the land is valuable, and all you can build on it is a single-family home, why not build a very expensive single-family home? Sightline has documented the spread of large homes in Portland that don't add any net new housing to the city, but were the most profitable thing developers were allowed to build on their lots. And towards the end he states that: “'Build, Baby, Build'-by-any-means cheerleading may be a too-simplistic answer—especially if, in the process of zoning for very targeted areas of high density to encourage more building, your city ends up inviting speculation by land owners hoping for windfall gains. (Such speculation drives up land prices and works against affordability.)." And this is where the Cambridge situation becomes especially interesting, not only because we have so few vacant spaces to build new housing, and most lot sizes are so small that they only allow the expansion of the existing footprint of a structure. The author argues that ending single-family zoning will rectify the situation in places like cambridge. He writes: "Neighborhoods composed of single-family houses are declared almost entirely off-limits to development. In the remaining areas, we thus make sure that intense pent-up market demand is concentrated like a fire hose, and that development is undertaken primarily at large scales (giant apartment complexes) and in needlessly expensive ways." However for an array of reasons, including the science of building and factors around story heights, as well as the insatiable desire for more single family homes in Cambridge, this idealized overly optimistic view of "supply/demand" functionality simply will not work. And in the mean time, housing costs are going up for everyone. LESSONS LEARNED: Science is Real. The reason why we are seeing so many new three story structures with the upzoning (and luxury homes of this size generally) is because they are the least expensive to build and guarantee the highest returns to developers. The next "price point" where a developer can expect some viable returns is at 7 stories: NOT the 6 stories that are allowed in the new upzoning plans, and even then once one removes 20% inclusionary units (2 of 10) for affordable housing, most developers will back off entirely. We also learn that "house flipping" in Cambridge is based on the new market for much larger homes than a generation or two ago, meaning that the new larger units take up more space on the lot, with the concomitant removal of critically needed mature trees and green spaces.  The "Attention Cambridge Property Owners" advertisement to Cambridge home owners to sell their properties to this investor-oriented realtor, has been causing quite a bit of discussion here, particularly since many residential properties in the city have increased dramatically in value since the Cambridge citywide luxury housing upzoning passed on February 10, 2025. Senator Jehlen's emailed newsletter to her constituents in Cambridge and Somerville is a particularly thoughtful one: here;. We permission it below with her permission:  Dear Neighbor, There's a strong consensus that we need hundreds of thousands of new housing units in Massachusetts. Governor Healey said in her State of the Commonwealth address that housing is our greatest challenge. The Metropolitan Area Planning Council's recent report, Homes for Profit: Speculation and Investment in Greater Boston, uncovered another problem that prevents potential homebuyers from competing in the market, and raises rents for tenants. A large and increasing share of homes are sold to large investors. Individual families are out-bid by investors, who can pay cash with no conditions. These investor-buyers then raise rents up to 70%, effectively evicting long-term renters, or simply evict them with no cause.  Across the metropolitan area, the report found that investor purchases increased from 16% of housing sales in 2004 to 23% in 2018. Three-family homes are commonly purchased by investors. (Though the report goes through 2022, this chart stops in 2018 for reasons related to methodology.) One of my previous newsletters focused on the importance of 3-deckers for potential homebuyers, and the decline in home ownership in Somerville.  I wrote, "When I moved to Somerville, 3-deckers were the way many working families were able to buy their homes, with multiple generations in the apartments or tenants helping pay off the mortgage...Now, when 3-deckers and even condos are sold, they are fast increasing as a way for investors and corporations to make profits, rather than a chance for homeownership." The report finds more evidence for this across Greater Boston, especially in Gateway Cities.  At least in our district, three-deckers are being converted to the ubiquitous luxury condos, removing relatively affordable rental units. Tenants are priced out or evicted, and the new condos are not within the budget of working families.  Flipping raises prices Between eight and ten percent of residential buildings bought between 2014 and 2020 were flipped - i.e. sold within 2 years. Large apartment buildings and 3-family homes are the most likely to be flipped, and the largest investors are the most likely to flip. This chart shows that when properties are flipped, the sales price increase for large investors is over 70%. The property may have been renovated, but it has become far less affordable for buyers or renters.  Neighborhood by Neighborhood Impact This map in the report allows you to look at different kinds of investor activity by census tract, by municipality, and for the state. It is really fascinating. For example, here's a summary for our district. Even within communities, neighborhoods are very different. For example, in census tract 25017351500 (East Somerville), over half the 3-deckers and almost 2/3 of 2-families were sold to investors, although other statistics for the neighborhood don't show investor activity that different from the rest of the city. East Somerville has lower income, higher poverty, and lower housing prices than the rest of Somerville. The report finds that, in general, in neighborhoods like East Somerville (high-density, lower-priced, high shares of renters and immigrants), there are high rates of investor purchases, of foreclosures and cash sales, and rapid price escalation. (To help locate census tracts, look here.) On the other hand, in Winchester, there are few multi-family homes, and zero three-family buildings were sold. One example of Investor Purchase In this case, the self-described young "small property owner" ended up allowing a mother to stay two years so her son could graduate from Somerville High, thanks to tenant organizing by CAAS.  What do you see in your neighborhood? Do you see examples of neighborhood change due to investor activity? Tell me what you've noticed. Or explore the maps and make observations about different neighborhoods. And tell me if you think you can recognize houses that have been, or are being renovated, by investors. "You can't build old and cheap" At a recent meeting about Somerville zoning and the Somernova proposal, one resident made this insightful comment. The cheapest, fastest, and most environmentally friendly way to reduce housing costs is to remove existing homes from the speculative market. Of course we need a lot more housing, but we also need tools to protect naturally-occurring relatively-affordable homes. Who buys ugly houses? I've always wondered about these signs saying "We Buy Ugly Houses." (This sign is near Porter Square.). Here's the Ugly Houses Boston website, which says they are America's #1 home buyer. I don't know who the local franchise owners are, and they get generally favorable reviews. But this ProPublica report, "The Ugly Truth Behind 'We Buy Ugly Houses," suggests "caveat venditor;" [seller beware]. The article says the company, HomeVestors, targets, misleads, and pressures vulnerable people, often older people or those in financial difficulty, to sell their homes quickly for far below market value.  Policy recommendations MAPC recommends policies such as: - Local Option Right of First Refusal - Local Option Rent Stabilization - LLC Transparency - Local Option Transfer Fees - Deeds Excise Fee Increase - Assistance to Renters and Homebuyers - Foreclosure Protections - Higher local tax rates for non-owner occupied homes I'm lead sponsor of bills for the first two recommendations. I've included others in my testimony in favor of Governor Healey's Affordable Homes Act, which had a hearing last Thursday. I'll share some of my testimony soon. Stay warm, stay safe, stay in touch,
 On March 4, 2025 the City Council Housing Committee fresh off its Luxury Housing upzoning YIMBY success, will venture into new upzoning plans for squares and corridors. Here is what we would like to see; In brief: One size does NOT fit all. Don’t cherry pick to exclude sites like Central Square or River St). Be responsible: 5-6 stories is what Envision planners likely were exploring; Maintain design oversight and legal rights of abutters; Provide step downs to neighborhoods; Preserve historic buildings. Address specific city need for apartments (not luxury condos). Provide critical green space and courtyards. Highlight financial impact studies on infrastructure and resident cost increases; Require developers to pay a percent of this. Take care not to create canyonization as current proposals for 20+story heights in Central Square and 18+story heights in Porter Square are threatened to do. See the graphs below from MAPC and problems in Vancouver. As noted in a recent Vancouver Sun report calls their recent upzoning efforts on the corridors the “Uglification of Metro-Vancouver Mass-Upzoning”(11.28.24) HERE. Let’s not make the same mistake in Cambridge of leaving out green spaces, trees, inner courtyards and more. As noted in this article: “Politicians are asking tower developers for fewer aesthetic features and community amenities. But residents lose, and prices still don’t go down.” 1) One size does NOT fit all, and keep Central Square & River St in this process (don’t cherry pick); 2) 5-6 stories is what Envision planners were exploring; 3) Maintain design oversight and legal rights to challenge; 4) ) Provide step downs to the neighborhoods; 5) Specify apartments (not luxury condos) for projects six stories or higher); 6) Require financial impact information of new infrastructure, property value increases; 7) Insist that developers to pay a percent of property value increases be used to fund infrastructure and/or energy cost increases 8) Keep our historic buildings and keep it livable. 8) Add lots of viable green spaces, trees, and interior courtyards.  Note: What students speaking and writing to Council during the luxury up-zoning debates had thought they were getting was more apartment buildings. That will not happen, but Council should here support mainly apartment buildings on the corridors and squares for this purpose. More investor-driven luxury condos will simply increase housing costs of renters and are far more likely to remain empty.  The author who published the above graph writes that: Per data on Vancouver I’ve compiled through Altus Group: inventory is piling up. “Developers are sitting on a lot of available inventory. This inventory is predominately off market, and not listed on the MLS. Let’s call it shadow inventory:" HERE And recall that 85% of all new Ottawa condos were purchased by investors. Background on these points:
 Editor's note: this letter from two long-time CCC associates, was forwarded to us as a response to an email sent to constituents by Councillor Nolan on February 28, 2025. In her letter, Nolan details why she supported the recent February 10 up-zoning ordinance that eight Cambridge City Councillors ordained. We publish it here with the authors' permission: Councillor Nolan 1. Thank you for your lengthy explanation of your vote in favor of less green space, increased congestion, less parking, unsafe bike lane design, inappropriately high density housing in formerly quiet single-family neighborhoods, massive gains to developers with no stake in the preservation of Cambridge neighborhoods and the slow but sure destruction of essential neighborhood amenities in favor of your 6 story projects. 2. Oh, and thanks very much for your vote to deprive abutters from the right to object to ill-conceived projects justified in the fiction of providing "affordable housing." Sounds un-democratic, but hey, depriving homeowners of their property without due process seems right in line with your notion of fair play. 3. The upzoning that you and your friends on the City Council voted for is not supported by any evidence that it accomplishes the stated intent, and will, in the end, do nothing good for Cambridge, but will certainly profit developers who paid dearly for this legislation. 4. I will of course register my unequivocal opposition to what you and your allies on the City Council have done when you each next stand for election, and will urge everyone I know in Cambridge to cast a "no" vote as to the candidacy of each. Respectfully Submitted, Lawrence G. Cetrulo, Esq. Lynn T. Cetrulo  Much like our greatly out of date city seal, our 2025 state of the city report reveals a number of sizable anomalies. Glance at the seal and you will note that Harvard's Gore Hall no longer exists, , the famed Washington elm is no more (and the story itself is a fiction); Harvard is no longer the only university "game" in town; and very few of our residents read Latin. Anomalies aside, "Resilient, Unbowed, and Strong" reads the Harvard Crimson article on the State of the City event featuring Mayor Simmons and the City Manager, Yi-An Wang. There was much celebration of our push for new housing, universal pre-K, new CARE policing policies, and show of commitment in the face of our national crisis. CCC's 2025 Report is is both a response and report card. We divide the evaluations between both City Council and the City SCHOOLSUniversal Pre-K Universal Pre-K is no doubt our best new addition to the City. However, we very late to the table on this one, with Boston starting this in 2019 and already integrating 3 year olds. Moreover, universal pre-K in Cambridge had a disastrously disorganized beginning, Parents found it exceedingly difficult to found information on signing up. And problems seem to have continued even later. Where has the oversight been? Why are we not bringing our commercial and institutional employers as a public-private engagement for this important project, including issues around transportation, afterschool programs, and the citing of pre-K class rooms. On other school matters: The Boston Globe has pointed out our increasingly racially segregated school system - a very bad problem, largely the result of the affordable housing decisions we are making, that largely is doubling the density of occupants in existing segregated developments and is bringing other large/tall housing that likely will have a segregated housing feature to them. Communication between parents and staff leaves much to be desired. School Bus timeliness and reliability is sub-par. School Building and Renovation costs are far too high. More Cambridge Parents are taking their kids out of the school system. School Segregation is increasingly a problem. City Finances & Budgeting: Our Peril "Cambridge officials agree that the city's rising budget poses a major problem. They just need to figure out what to do. Over the past five years, the city budget has swelled by 7.1 percent annually, hitting nearly $1 billion for fiscal year 2025." Harvard Crimson Oct 29, 2024 Our budget now is $955.58 million, just short of a billion. Monaco, Liechtenstein, Malawi, New Caledonia, Barbados, Montenegro all have national budgets at around $1 billion per annum. Other comparable cities in terms of budget size include:
Like other cities, a key part of this is needed infrastructure changes related to climate change, but also massive expenses for our schools (buildings etc), increasing city staff numbers, and increasingly debt financing. This is hitting all of us very hard in terms of very sizably increased taxes. Update from the Feb 26, 2025 finance committee meeting: we have now entered into a constrained time period because of factors such as a fall-off in new construction, as well as the debt service for city capital projects kicking in, and the remainder of funding for universal pre-K policy kicking in. What gives? Bicyclists speak in jargon-y catchy terms like "road diet" (for the removal of car lanes), and what we really need is a catchy phrase for Cambridge city government diet.  We just received another A+ credit rating. This is a plus, and now we need real restraint. Here are some catchy terms for a city government "diet" thanks to ChatGPT:
City Tax Lien on Water & Sewage - Leaning into More ForeclosuresProperty taxes (impacting renters and home owners alike) are rising way to quickly. And as we are seeing increasingly nationally, the division of the tax bill into separate taxable pieces is still a tax. The ramifications of not paying on time are severe, with some people fearing that might lose their homes as a result of just a few months financial shortfall.  Yes, a potential lien for water and sewer in Cambridge, MA is a form of taxation. When a city assesses water and sewer charges, it automatically obtains a lien on the property. If the property owner doesn't pay, the city can take the property through a process called a tax taking. It is not at all clear however whether legally a municipality can take an entire property for this reason. Have you looked at your Electric and Gas Bill Recently?The rate increases have been startling. And as with the City, things are increasingly being separately calculated so as to suggest that one is not paying as much as one is really paying. Your EverSource bill is reflecting the fact that transmission, distribution, and public policy costs are coming in at a higher amount than what they are actually supplying. How is this even possible?  https://www.eversource.com/content/residential/account-billing/manage-bill/about-your-bill/understanding-your-bill One answer is that the City has agreed that all that extra electricity infrastructure we need to provide enough power for the big biotech and infotech companies, and the new citywide criteria to meet the BEUDO gas-to-electric conversions of new buildings (and in some older buildings) must be born (shared) by all our taxpayers - you, me, as others in the area. So when you see a new biotech company coming to Cambridge or a new larger single family home going up nearby, your own energy bill will likely be increasing to accommodate the need for an improved electric power grid to support them. And, with all the new fully electrified buildings now being promoted by the upzoning we will need to find sites outside of East Cambridge to put the necessary electricity related infrastructure. Most likely these will need to go now into specific residential neighborhoods. That should be another fun discussion. Participatory Budgeting One of our premier city policies is participatory budgeting, a project where residents get to suggest proposals and other residents then get to vote on which ones we support. In 2024 we provided $2 million to said projects. It is a great idea, particularly when residents are increasingly getting the feeling that neither the City Councillors nor the City Staff really is listening to what the residents want and need. However, even this system does not appear to be working as intended. We know of at least two winning projects that NEVER have actually been enacted. Many of these seem like they should be part of regular city planning (expanded space for street trees and pedestrian safety measures) or should come out of the regular city budget (like rat reduction traps, public toilets) and smart recycling and trash compactors) or come from private/public/non-profit collaborations (menstrual and infant hygiene products, supplies for the unhoused) in the last cycle there also seemed to be a lot of infrastructure linked to bicycling when this is already heavily prioritized in terms of city funding.
Here are this year's pre-selected projects: Voting Starts March 6, 2025 https://www.cambridgema.gov/ParticipatoryBudgeting  Again many of these should be part of the regular city budget, including items such as such as Electric Vehicle Chargers, Safe Street Speed Bumps, a place to safely dispose sharp objects, and lice combs in public schools, as well as various school sport and club items. Shade structures in parks seems silly, when instead we should be requiring anyone who cuts down a mature tree to plant a mature tree elsewhere in the City (for example in our parks). Boston has just funded its first Participatory Budgeting Program: HERE These include: Fresh Fruits, Vegetables & other goods for Food-Insecure Residents: Rat-Proofing trash cans; Incarcerated Youth Reentry Programs; Rent Help; Community Gardens GOVERNMENT TRANSPARENCY, RESEARCH & COMMUNICATIONData-Based Decision MakingA February 27, 2025 Award followed an earlier June 23, 2023 Award for data-based decision making: Really?We are not convinced! Here are some facts. The recent citywide multi-family up-zoning debacle was clearly NOT data driven, since the city kept coming back on different weeks with different data. The same is true of the actual number of people on our affordable housing list. Whereas once it was claimed to be c.23,000. We now know the real number is closer to 3,500 for Cambridge residents and workers who meet AHO financial need criteria. And why is it costing taxpayers c.$1,000,000 a unit to build an "affordable" housing unit (with zero land costs) while it costs $400K-S650K to build a luxury condo unit replete with marble countertops and jacuzzis. And what about bicycling numbers (people who actually bike to work 5 days a week, 50 weeks a year? And what about actual parking need numbers: At one affordable housing complex we have learned that 50% of the residents own cars. Yet city and affordable housing staff insist no parking is necessary or needed and tenants self select knowing there will not be parking. And is there anyone outside the clerk a few City Councillors, and a couple of Cambridge civic activists who can find anything on the City website? If the data are hidden, it is not much use. Where are the city data police? We need to make sure with acquire, use, and make available the accurate data.  Communications from the City, including their new listserve, leave much to be desired. It is excruciatingly difficult to find out where to find things on the city websites. There is far too much that is in play that remains deep grey opaque rather transparent and clear. Councillors if they bother to reply too often have template answers. Councillor newsletters are few and far between. We commend the City Clerk, Diane LeBlanc and Naomie Stephen, Executive assistant to the City Council especially for their work in helping residents attending Council meetings in person or on zoom. What we increasingly need now is timely if not live updates on various city council and other committee meeting decisions and votes. A far more transparent and easy to use city website is also critically important. Why not put together an ad hoc resident and professional committee to look at both? PLANS FOR CITYWIDE TRANSIT OUTSIDE BIKES? NOPE!Cambridge was once a U.S. leader in the transit industry, and thought and planned about future.
Cambridge was home to one of the world’s first monorail systems — an experimental track in place from 1884 to 1894. Source: "The Cambridge monorail that wasn’t by Wade Roush Boston Globe Dec.27, 2018: What are we doing now by way of innovative or simply functional public transportation systems to meet the needs of all residents across the city to get to where they need to go for work, meetings, shopping and other needs? Very little, although the presentation on the Net Zero Transportation Plan in Health and Environment on Monday February 24, 2025 spent good deal of time on the idea of establishing better bus routes, promoting special on-demand shuttles for seniors, coordinating of various existing shuttles and making them available to residents: HERE Alas we are behind some other urban centers in terms of public transport (particularly for those not on the red line subway or bus system and funding at this juncture for more than incremental changes may be difficult. And Look: No cars! No Seniors! No Stores! |
| image source: https://climatecheck.com/massachusetts/cambridge | |
For a city where we have some VERY well educated residents, and a variety of excellent local and area universities, if we had to grade the City Council and City Staff on how they are doing it likely would be a D if not an F.
Last fall the Office of the Cambridge City Manager mailed a 24-page edition of The Cambridge Life magazine to residents. On the cover was an idealized street scene of Harvard Square with the shapes of two cyclists in cool colors riding along a separated, flex-post cycle lane in the foreground; on the far side of the intersection are much smaller shapes of a mom, dad and child walking with a dog along a sidewalk. An MBTA-like bus is approaching from the direction of a high-rise building in the distance, washed in gold light from the sun beyond. The streets are uncluttered by private vehicles of any description. We see no car, truck, motorcycle, ambulance, scooter, or Segway. Nor do we see crosswalks, traffic signs or signals, or anyone who deviates from the image of a young, fit, prosperous demographic.
It is not the reality of today. It is a future-scape free of all hazards, one that exists only in the imagination. It is a “Vision Zero,” to which the cover and the main article proclaim the City’s “unwavering commitment.”
“We’re not just fixing today’s problems; we’re looking to the future 25, even 100 years out,” says a City engineer in an article.
The City Manager’s introduction is focused on the present. It highlights a list of current realities: Cambridge’s national recognition as a “paradise” for walking and biking; increased congestion; streets that are becoming “complex to navigate;” three cyclist fatalities in the summer of 2024; and complaints from “seniors and residents with disabilities that it is harder to travel around the city or receive services.”
The 14 articles in the issue address only one of the four problems in the manager’s list: cycling safety. There is nothing about increased traffic and congestion, confusing street designs, or access for service providers, delivery of goods, or visitors from outside Cambridge. One sentence is devoted to a current issue which is not mentioned in the Manager’s statement: the “loss of parking resulting from the installation of separated cycle lanes.” The needs of businesses for deliveries and customer parking are mentioned nowhere.
In an article on equity and accessibility, the Manager’s Office affirms that the City is listening to citizens’ concerns—just not those about traffic or parking. “Ensuring that the City remains accessible to all residents requires careful planning and dedicated advocacy. That’s where Cambridge’s various committees – Pedestrian, Bicycle, and Transit committees—step in.”
In his introduction the City Manager says, “This issue highlights how we are seeking to balance the competing challenges on our streets.” Taken as a whole, from cover to cover, the “Transportation Issue” reveals a City that is planning for a future without cars, focused on the current priorities of cyclists, and without the dedicated advocacy needed to plan for vehicle traffic and parking.
The question must be asked of City leaders if this publication is an accurate statement of Cambridge’s transportation policy.
This article is cross-posted from Substack.
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Notes:
https://www.cambridgema.gov/-/media/Files/Publications/Issues/thecambridgelife/TCL_Transportation_Fall2024_Digital.pdf
The Cambridge Life is a semi-annual publication of the City of Cambridge Public Information Office that is mailed to residential households in February and September.
It is not the reality of today. It is a future-scape free of all hazards, one that exists only in the imagination. It is a “Vision Zero,” to which the cover and the main article proclaim the City’s “unwavering commitment.”
“We’re not just fixing today’s problems; we’re looking to the future 25, even 100 years out,” says a City engineer in an article.
The City Manager’s introduction is focused on the present. It highlights a list of current realities: Cambridge’s national recognition as a “paradise” for walking and biking; increased congestion; streets that are becoming “complex to navigate;” three cyclist fatalities in the summer of 2024; and complaints from “seniors and residents with disabilities that it is harder to travel around the city or receive services.”
The 14 articles in the issue address only one of the four problems in the manager’s list: cycling safety. There is nothing about increased traffic and congestion, confusing street designs, or access for service providers, delivery of goods, or visitors from outside Cambridge. One sentence is devoted to a current issue which is not mentioned in the Manager’s statement: the “loss of parking resulting from the installation of separated cycle lanes.” The needs of businesses for deliveries and customer parking are mentioned nowhere.
In an article on equity and accessibility, the Manager’s Office affirms that the City is listening to citizens’ concerns—just not those about traffic or parking. “Ensuring that the City remains accessible to all residents requires careful planning and dedicated advocacy. That’s where Cambridge’s various committees – Pedestrian, Bicycle, and Transit committees—step in.”
In his introduction the City Manager says, “This issue highlights how we are seeking to balance the competing challenges on our streets.” Taken as a whole, from cover to cover, the “Transportation Issue” reveals a City that is planning for a future without cars, focused on the current priorities of cyclists, and without the dedicated advocacy needed to plan for vehicle traffic and parking.
The question must be asked of City leaders if this publication is an accurate statement of Cambridge’s transportation policy.
This article is cross-posted from Substack.
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Notes:
https://www.cambridgema.gov/-/media/Files/Publications/Issues/thecambridgelife/TCL_Transportation_Fall2024_Digital.pdf
The Cambridge Life is a semi-annual publication of the City of Cambridge Public Information Office that is mailed to residential households in February and September.