We Can Do Better

Cambridge has been changing rapidly during the last 10-15 years. Since the economic slowdown of the 70s, former City Manager Robert Healy's constant focus on "the bottom line" has made us comparatively quite wealthy. But with over 20,000 residents having been forced out of Cambridge, clearly something is wrong.

Cambridge is a great place to live. The universities and rich culture make this city very attractive. Empty nesters have been flocking here from their suburban homes; students stay after they graduate. Its proximity to Boston, attractive cityscape, quiet neighborhoods, great restaurants, and well-funded public schools make it a really nice place to live. Add in the city’s commitment to human rights and other issues, it’s not surprising that so many people want to live here. But besides Cambridge’s superb quality of life, the one factor that has always driven people to come is JOBS. Cambridge has attracted tech, biotech, pharmaceutical research companies, offering them an unmatched pool of highly educated professionals and support staff. Long gone are the days that we needed to attract new businesses; now we can’t build fast enough to provide the insatiable hunger for commercial space.

It wasn’t long ago that Cambridge had been in an economic decline. The 1950s saw a sharp decline in domestic manufacturing, leaving the City with numerous abandoned factories. It wasn’t until the 1980s that things began to turn around. The city actively pursued corporations to locate here, offering various incentives.  By the 1990s, the Kendall Square, North Point, and Fresh Pond areas began to take off. The city’s rezoning encouraged greater commercial density, and requests for even more were typically granted.

Back in the 1990s, the Cambridge Citizens for Livable Neighborhoods estimated that 1 MILLION people wanted to move to Cambridge. By 2005, with the rapid expansion of biotech, the number has undoubtedly grown even more.

These changes in Cambridge’s real estate market made realtors giddy with joy. Real estate investors were eager to churn properties. Developers looked for zoning nuances to turn simple 3-family middle income buildings into six luxury condos. Everyone thought they struck gold. Everyone – except the 20,000 who were forced out of their apartments.

“BUILD-BUILD-BUILD” shouted the real estate industry. They claimed that the only solution we had was to harness the economic power of supply-and-demand, as if we were selling eggs. Building a few thousand high-priced condos with the belief that the law of supply-and-demand will somehow alleviate the problem is naïve, we cannot (and should not) fit 900,000 more people here. Furthermore, this strategy hasn’t worked anywhere in the United States.

Encouraging ever-increasing commercial development has exacerbated the problem. Traffic getting into Cambridge has become horrendous, and new employees who try to commute soon want to move here. The enormous influx of high-salary professionals has driven housing prices to ever-increasing levels. This places our housing stock beyond the reach of anyone who doesn’t earn six-figures.

We also should not lose sight of what we want to preserve in our city… do we want a Manhattan-style urban environment? Do we want round-the-clock gridlock traffic, dangerously crowded trains, and overburdened city services?

Building more affordable housing an admirable goal. But so far, we’ve added only a tiny handful of units. For every one we add, we’re losing 5-10 existing units. For example, while some celebrated the City Council’s “deal” to add 24 affordable units, they failed to see that this 500,000 square foot commercial development will employ 3000 people, approximately half of whom will seek local housing. The potential loss: 1500 units.

At the same time, developers are making millions upon millions of dollars. It’s quite obvious that we’re being misled. The law of supply and demand isn’t applicable to housing, especially when the disparity is so huge.

Our leaders have a choice to make. Either Cambridge can continue with the same clearly failed policies, or we can be bold and adopt policies that stop or slow the rapid erosion of our middle-income housing. We don’t have to succumb to the developer-enriching real-estate grab, destroying swaths of our neighborhoods, choking the streets with never-ending traffic, placing even more people on our over-burdened transit system. We can do better.