The Housing Shortage – Are There Solutions?
By Phillip Sego and Suzanne Preston Blier Phillip Sego was an environmental advocate, lobbying for the Massachusetts Sierra Club from 1995 to 2015. In Cambridge, he has authored zoning petitions targeting the preservation of open space. Suzanne Preston Blier, a Harvard University professor, teaches a course on Cambridge history and civic issues, authoring an array of blogs with insights from the city databases. She has authored several articles on urban planning and the future of the city with a special focus on Africa and leads a citywide civic group, the Cambridge Citizens Coalition focused on neighborhoods, smart planning, and transparency. After reading articles and comments that appeared in local newspapers, we saw that there were misunderstandings about the causes and potential solutions to the complex issue of our housing shortage. Years of research as to what is causing housing shortages around the globe, what has worked to solve these shortages, and what has failed led u...