2025 CCC State of the City Report

Much like our greatly out of date city seal, our 2025 state of the city report reveals a number of sizable anomalies.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

SCHOOLS 

Universal 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:

• Austin, Texas (the state capital) which in 2017 dedicated $681.62 million for infrastructure, and San Jose, California which in 2017 dedicated $728.9 million to infrastructure. Austin, Texas is 326.51 sq mi and has a somewhat comparable population of 979,882 (2023). ​
• San Jose, California is 181.36 sq mi and a relatively comparable 2023 population of 969,655, making San Jose the 13th most populated city in the United States.
• Cambridge has only 6.8 square miles to address in terms of our infrastructure needs and we rank 249th most populous city in the U.S. far below San Jose. 

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: 

1. Lean City – Emphasizes efficiency and streamlined governance.
2. Civic Trim -  Suggests cutting excess in government operations.
3. Urban Lite – A modern, catchy take on a slimmer government.
4. SmartGov Slim – Highlights both intelligence and efficiency.
5. The City Cutback Plan – Direct and clear about reductions.
6. Municipal Makeover – Implies restructuring for better performance.
7. Streamline City – Focuses on reducing bureaucratic inefficiencies.
8. The Civic Cleanse – Plays on the idea of detoxing excess.
9. GovFit – A playful way to suggest a "fit" and efficient government.
10. Civic Slimdown – Suggesting  budget trimming, and streamlining

City Tax Lien on Water & Sewage - Leaning into More Foreclosures 

Property 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. 

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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

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GOVERNMENT TRANSPARENCY, RESEARCH & COMMUNICATION

Data-Based Decision Making 

A 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. 

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And Look: No cars! No Seniors! No Stores!
​(The City's View of Life in the City)
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 Read "The Imaginary Future of Cambridge Transportation" (2.25.25) by John Pitkin HERE

We hear on good authority that leadership in the City transportation group is promoting the view that in the not to near future, all Cambridge residents and workers will be either riding bikes to get around or taking public transportation. Good luck with that one (especially considering how poor the public transportation system is here, and how little funding there will be in either the state or city budget to create more and better transportation of this type. None the less, City staff are out their promoting this "ideal" utopian model of the city with a view of bicyclists riding north in Harvard Square along JFK Street as a bus proceeds down Brattle street toward the river. The stores all are empty, and unlike most every day in Harvard Square where thousands of pedestrians are out and about, we have a single couple with a child walking along the sidewalk. The sun in this "The Cambridge Life" issue, is clearly setting (not rising) since we are looking South and West. This is a decidedly sterile perception of life in the city, clearly not a vibrant city, or even a livable one.

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HOUSING
What Residents Really Need (andWant) 

More affordable housing is what residents in the City really want, and we agree! Indeed CCC filed the Advancing Affordable Housing zoning petition in 2021 in order both to enable  multi-family housing citywide and promote more housing within our existing homes. What we did not was tear-downs, or more luxury single family homes, both of which we are getting in spades in our new citywide up-zoning. See our blog series on this: PARTS ONE-SIX: Cambridge YIMBY win? Initial Results and Reflections: HERE

The most recent MAPC Metro Boston study on population growth in Cambridge and the area out to 2030 sees a special need to address housing for those in two age groupings: 35-54 year olds and the 75+ age range. The latter group, until they are priced out of their own homes by the greatly increasing city property taxes and energy bills, or greatly diminished affordability of medical services and other needs with diminishing Social Security and/or medicare/medicaid will likely stay where they are. It is the former group, the 35-54 year olds that are in greatest need of smart (far smarter) city policy on housing. What we MOST need for this group are apartment buildings either owned by the city or in a private-public partnership that will keep rental prices to a moderate cost. What we do NOT need are high end luxury condos (with or without the 20% inclusionary) since many of these are local or outside investor properties that either remain vacant or become investor-owned apartments, with the owners taking a healthy slice of the rental cost allocations.  Some of these also could become starter homes, with a buy-back policy by the city when an individual or family choses to leave. 

Apartments is what both the Harvard and MIT students who spoke in favor of the up-zoning at City Council seemed to think they would be getting with the citywide residential upzoning. They clearly were mislead, but as we turn to to addressing the major corridors and squares apartments should be given top priority.

Market data from elsewhere also points to the problems with the "condo" prioritizing route even for creating apartments. We know that 85% of new condos in Ottowa went to investors. And now we have data from Vancouver too: 

We now have 6 months of condo inventory for sale in Greater Vancouver.”

The author writes that:  Per data 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

PART- OR FULLY PUBLICLY-FUNDED HOUSING 

The Corcoran Park affordable housing complex in the  Strawberry Hill neighborhood is in discussions about renovations and upgrading.
The city polled the residents and this is what they learned. The findings are summarized in the Cambridge Housing Authority slide show for the 1/9/25 resident meeting: Corcoran Park Modernization Project: HERE  

• Residents prefer low-rise, townhouse configuration with individual entrances
• Residents dislike 6 stories, prefer 3 stories
• Residents prefer high ration of parking to units, approaching 1:1 (In this case, design will be .81. parking spaces to units)
• Residents prefer private open space (patios) to parkland
• Residents prioritize parking over trees

We urge  City staff  to listen to the residents (although there ought to be a way in designing any new structures that both parking and trees can be maintained. 
We also urge City staff to take these interests to heart in other affordable housing examples. No one in Corcoran Park wanted 6 stories or 4 stories much less 8 or 9 stories. They each wanted to have their own entries. And as with other affordable housing developments maintaining parking is important. 

The Walden Square Affordable Housing is looking to finalize a FAR LESS THAN OPTIMAL design: one burying a road for nearby by residents to the adjacent park that must instead travel 3/4 of a football field through the complexes garage instead of another route through open air. Other designs were far better. And, here as too often elsewhere, the residents were not listened to. 

​The Baldwin neighborhood, one of our most dense city neighborhoods,  is facing significant density increase and demographic changes as two large and a cluster of smaller 100% part-publicly financed AHO projects go in. Neighbors who attend the associated HRI meetings report that their voices are not listened to. Most would prefer two smaller four story housing projects on Wendell St, rather than the proposed 8-9 story building now being proposed. HRI staff incorrectly  stated that residents self-select on parking and would not apply if they needed any. However, just up the street at Frost Terrace, some 50% of the residents own cars. Since residents of these buildings must work to provide the necessary monthly rental fees, these cars, like those of nearby neighbors and law students will be clogging nearby streets. 

We have serious doubts about why it is costing circa $1,000,000 per unit to build these projects, even though the land is given over by the city without cost (a policy that needs to be replaced with a 100 year low cost lease). So too does the current policy that allows affordable housing developers NOT to do necessary upkeep and repair work, but instead go back to the city for these expenses.

Recently the Cambridge Affordable Housing Trust (largely funded by state and city taxpayers, a majority from the Mass State Preservation Act and other funds from city coffers) approved a $3 million increase in addition to the $16 million the city gave to this public housing project for developer HRI (Homeowner’s Rehab) to buy the former Lesley property and $650,000 in pre-development funds. Also addressed in the February 28 Harvard Crimson article (HERE) is that funding for the massive, controversial 9 story Baldwin neighborhood project, is that this group is not maintaining their properties, so they have to go back to the city for more funds for repair costs resulting from deferred maintenance costs making the city spend more money (and time) than necessary. An earlier meeting on the Wendell Street project had turned raucous when Councillor Azeem showed up in what some participants called a “political speech” (HERE). The developer HRI had been called out for NOT paying for needed upkeep and repairs in other projects too (HERE). 
As we move increasingly to a more income segregated city, with those with far less wealth in income-limited separated high rises, we will also see a shifting tax burden, since none of the full or partially public-funded housing residents will have to pay city taxes for schools, garbage pick-up, street repair, city salaries and other costs. 

And, as was done with the Corcoran Park residents, it is critical the City Council hire an outside contractor to survey the residents of our various part-public funded housing developments on their living situations, building upkeep, management factors and other considerations. 

ENVIRONMENT & CLIMATE CHANGE

How well we will meet both our own climate goals and the broader environmental needs of our residents, area and more broadly remains in doubt. Environmental priorities here, continually get second place or lower as other imagined priorities get catapulted above them.


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In Linnear  park, the needs of our existing trees, dog walkers, and pedestrians is given second shrift over the interests of racing bicyclists. 

The recent citywide residential up-zoning likely will lead to a massive loss of our mature tree canopy and much needed green spaces leading to substantial heat island impacts, health issues, and decreased neighborhood livability. 

The Councillors who voted for this citywide residential  upzoning (and the staff who helped write it) also paid NO ATTENTION to  the impacts this would have on those now using solar energy. 

We don't have enough electricity in Cambridge much less New England to meet the current BEUDO goals for Electric conversions. There are also huge financial costs to residents and commercial interests alike. Already several of our part-publicly financed housing developments are keeping their boilers in play for the colder months when electricity was costing them far too much money. 

On February 24 the Cambridge 4 Trees group featured a presentation by State Senator Pat Jehlen and Representatives Dave Rogers and Steve Owens including:

• Asbestos excavation by the MBTA right at Russell Field 
• Unnecessary tree removal by the MBTA
• MBTA permitting the destruction of trees and the cooling corridor that Linear Park provides
• MBTA's role in raw sewage discharge to Alewife Brook

Our question to Cambridge City Council and Cambridge City Staff: Why are you not doing more in reaching out to the MBTA to redress these issues. City activism on new Memorial Drive plans had a significant impact. Why not here? 

And we face serious risks from flooding - particularly in those areas where our greatest number of new housing and commercial enterprises are going. 

image source: ​​https://climatecheck.com/massachusetts/cambridge

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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.