Greater density is not the solution
The organization A Better Cambridge favors increased density through more infill housing in Cambridge, claiming that this is good climate policy and citing an essay posted Sept. 26 on Medium by Jonathan Behrens as justification. The implications of this article being promoted by ABC are disturbing – and may be based on a misinterpretation of the data.
According to Behrens, “for infill to help, you need somewhere that both has lower emissions than nearby wealthy cities and has enough wealthy households wanting to move there.” He asserts that since Cambridge has “very low household carbon emissions compared to the surrounding area,” a good policy to lower climate emissions would be to build more infill housing in Cambridge precisely because that housing is likely to be occupied by relatively wealthy people. The idea is that these people would otherwise live more carbon-intensive lifestyles in suburbia. His proposed approach would lead to a wealthier Cambridge community with more price pressure driving out low-income people.
This is clearly a terrible policy from an affordable-housing and equity point of view. It is consistent with A Better Cambridge’s support of the Missing Middle proposal, which would have promoted development of new housing primarily for affluent homeowners but is definitely not what is needed for equity in Cambridge!
But is his argument correct regarding high-income people living in cities rather than suburbs? Would turning Cambridge into a haven for even more affluent homeowners really be a plus for the climate? Behrens’ argument is based primarily on a recommendation from a California study for more infill housing in San Francisco. But San Francisco, while similar to Cambridge in average income and density, is very different in other ways. For San Francisco, the main alternative to city living would probably be a commute from a fairly distant suburb. For Cambridge, the main alternative location would probably be another inner suburb such as Belmont or Newton – and according to the data map that Behrens presents, these other inner suburbs have very similar carbon footprints to Cambridge. It is the outer suburbs (near to the Interstate 495 belt) that have typically higher carbon footprints, and these would not likely be the location of choice for more affluent homeowners.
In addition, building infill housing in Cambridge often results in loss of tree canopy and open space, which we know is a negative for the climate as well as for other ecological issues such as water absorption, which is relevant for climate resilience.
Another flaw in Behrens’ argument is his assumption that Cambridge has “strong public transit infrastructure” and presumably that the new affluent homeowners that he wants would use public transit rather than drive cars. This is very questionable. Anyone who uses public transit in Cambridge (especially buses) is aware that system is underfunded and often unreliable, and the riders are mostly working-class rather than affluent.
Contrary to Behrens’ description of Cambridge as “a wealthy inner ring suburb of Boston,” Cambridge is not a uniformly wealthy city. We have a significant lower-income population many of whom are struggling to hold on in a real estate market pressured by excessive development (for example, replacing existing rental housing with new condos for the affluent). The upper-income folks generally have cars (often two per household), and the increase in traffic on Cambridge streets that has accompanied excessive development is very noticeable. Even more development likely means even more cars, more congestion and a lot of carbon emissions from frustrated drivers sitting in traffic.
So let’s not rush to destroy open space and tree canopy to build housing for the affluent. Cambridge is already one of the densest cities in Massachusetts and the country. Cambridge needs more carefully planned development aimed at affordability and equity and including green design and preservation of open space, not the corporate and developer-driven pattern we see now that is bad both for climate and equity.
Jonathan Harris, Marie Avenue
Jonathan Harris is a visiting scholar at Tufts University’s Global Development and Environment Institute.
High density didn’t work in New York City. Won’t work in Cambridge.
(1) When we build new housing in Cambridge, it’s often higher-income people who live in it. These higher-income people are often freeing up spots elsewhere in Cambridge, reducing competition for lower- and middle-income people.
When we don’t build new housing in Cambridge, higher-income people still live here, in the housing we already have, but low-income people are pushed out.
Darrell Owens, a writer in California’s East Bay, has a good story about this – “Where Did All the Black People in Oakland Go?”: https://darrellowens.substack.com/p/where-did-all-the-black-people-in – areas of Oakland which saw more new housing growth saw less displacement.
(2) The claim that “the increase in traffic on Cambridge streets that has accompanied excessive development is very noticeable” seems suspect. This might be true of commercial development, but seems unlikely to be associated with residential development. According to city staff, while the number of housing units has increased since 2003, the number of residential parking permits has DECREASED. Higher density -> less cars.
See packet page 9 of this very informative City presentation about parking: http://cambridgema.iqm2.com/Citizens/FileOpen.aspx?Type=1&ID=2480&Inline=True
Oops, sorry, one last point:
(3) While this post seems to be focusing primarily on market-rate housing, the piece that started this whole discussion is from prominent climate think tank Rocky Mountain Institute: https://rmi.org/building-mixed-income-housing-in-wealthy-urban-neighborhoods-can-improve-climate-and-equity/
That piece specifically calls for mixed-income housing – both market-rate AND affordable. Which is what A Better Cambridge has been calling for! All new large housing developments are at least 20% affordable thanks to the inclusionary zoning rate ABC supported, and ABC was a major player in the passage of the Affordable Housing Overlay which has put over 350 units of affordable housing since it was passed less than a year ago.
@Angstrom covers great points.
I’ll +1 those, and add on that I _am_ a high-income person, who lived in Central Square & now lives in Porter Sq (just over the line in Somerville).
I’ve lived car-free since 2002 (my entire time in metro Boston) until the pandemic arrived last year (and I’m already looking to cut my lease short).
If we don’t create room for people close to jobs & amenities, they don’t disappear, they go elsewhere & end up participating in sprawl, which removes _far_ more trees than infill development ever will.
So if the author here is concerned about climate impacts via tree removal, they would be better suited to look to spiraling single-family developments in far-flung exurbs, instead of Cambridge. And that’s nothing to say of the climate impacts of all those folks driving into Cambridge & Boston for their jobs.
Cities are for people, and creating greater density means more people have access to the opportunities we already enjoy.
Also, making the “densest around here” argument is bunk. Paris alone shows us we have a _long_ way to go before we’re meaningfully dense. Come back when we’re at the 50k per square mile mark & then we can talk about being “the densest”.
Density is coming, so you may as well prepare yourself.
Take a look at Mass Ave north of Harvard Square. A mish mash all the way to the Arlington line: apartment buildings,for sure, Porter Square T station, the Lesley Exchange, a few Harvard Law buildings. But if you squint what do you mostly see? Single story retail buildings, lots of them filled with small businesses we love, some not so much. I dare you to tell me it is a pretty street, though we may depend on it and wish it well. Think about it: the main street of Cambridge with a subway beneath it, directly linking you to Kendall Square–that throbbing center of high paid jobs–two world class universities, the city of Boston and, with a bit of a bus ride added on, an international airport! If development should not happen along a street such as this, then where?
I am completely up for an argument over individual building proposals, over how to redesign our streets to become multi-modal safe transportation ways and how to preserve and extend the tree canopy, but this much should be admitted: Cambridge, with its jobs, its public transit and its location is a suitable spot for increased density. Now go ahead and figure out how best to do it.
Trying to freeze this town won’t work, either by leaning on architectural legacy or the rights of car owners or the tantalizing appeal of ever increasing home equity. The future demands we take it on and we ought as well do it right.
Angstrom, ABC’s public presentations of the deceptively-named Missing Middle Housing petition specifically said that it was aimed at providing housing for people making more than $100,000/year. It was also formulated so as to make it extremely unlikely that it would ever provide even one inclusionary unit.
The increase in the percentage of inclusionary units in larger developments was hardly ABC’s idea nor due to its advocacy; other people, including me and the founders of the Cambridge Residents Alliance, had been calling for it for years, while ABC’s favorite City Councillors argued against it, on the grounds that it would discourage housing development. The same goes for the increase in linkage fees.
ABC has consistently argued for gross economic injustice–people in affordable housing do not deserve trees or open space, and their homes shouldn’t fit into the neighborhood but should make it very clear where the poor people live. Actual affordable housing advocates, like CHAPA, disagree. And we can’t forget the ongoing campaign of vilification of anyone who doesn’t buy every word of the party line, especially women, like me, for example. It reminds me, sadly, of what we’ve been suffering with at the national level for many years, and they even have their own Big Lie.
There are no easy answers to these questions, but ABC’s intimidation tactics aimed at silencing all dissent should have no place in our city. Being willing to listen to each other and reconsider our ideological loyalties is the only way we’ll get anywhere in solving the problems we have.
As to the claimed salutary effects of densification, let me offer a quote from one of many scholarly pieces on the topic from Patrick Condon, Chair of the Urban Design program at the University of British Columbia, discussing how well it didn’t work in Vancouver.
“Faith in ‘supply and demand’ was very strong, and the argument was made by almost everyone that the answer to the problem of affordable housing was more supply. The city administration oversaw many approvals for new housing units based on the assumption that any supply is good supply. Their presumption was that there would be some kind of trickle-down—that, even if the new supply was aimed at the high end of the market, benefits would accrue to the lower end of the market by freeing up housing units. After many years of pursuing this strategy, it turned out that this was not the case.
“It became increasingly obvious that adding supply in this way was not reducing, but actually increasing, the cost of housing. Adding supply at the high end had the nefarious consequence of increasing the apparent investment value of real estate throughout the entire city. It not only created supply that was unaffordable to the people who live here, but also had the perverse effect of raising the cost of all housing throughout the city.”
You can read the whole piece at https://www.planningreport.com/2017/08/14/learning-vancouver-housing-affordability-myth-supply-side-densification.
I had a lot to say about this but decided to make a pumpkin pie instead. The comments read like a southpark episode. You are all correct and you’re all dead wrong. Using an article or single text to even a handful to prove the one true truth is nonsense and ya’ll know it. Cambridge can build a lot more housing without disrupting the fabric of your comfortable realities. We need housing for everyone not just affordable gov’t subsidized though I realize it is difficult for progressives to find those words. We are also very dense and not every project is awesome. The missing middle wasn’t a travesty and ABC isn’t a developer shill. As a developer ya’ll look like commies to me. But I digress … the missing middle had some issues and it was obvious watching the amendment process how folks twisted themselves in knots trying to thread that equity needle. In short; my pumpkin pie came out perfect and you’re all welcome to cover over and have a slice.
When we build new housing at Alewife and at Cambridge Crossing, one group that definitely does NOT move there is wealthy current Cambridge homeowners. Why would someone living in a mansion on Brattle Street, on Avon Hill, or in Mid-Cambridge ever think that a generic box on CambridgePark Drive, however “luxury” it may be marketed as, is a better place to live? Lacking in almost every amenity, these are not neighborhoods as we would define them, and these buildings aren’t housing people so much as they are warehousing them. Typically, the residents of those new buildings are brand new residents, often visiting for a year or two to work in biotech or academia. So the whole idea of a trickle-down effect in housing is nonsense; housing is an extremely differentiated market, and adding more units at one price point does almost nothing to moderate prices at other price points. And when those old, rich residents eventually sell their mansions, the buyers are often those same new residents currently living (temporarily) in one of these new boxes, having now decided to stay. In effect, these new developments don’t serve to house existing Cambridge residents and moderate prices. Instead, they serve as convenient perches for newly arrived, high net-worth visitors to scout for better local opportunities, which they are then quick to buy up at any cost and redevelop into even more luxury housing. Week over week, roughly 50% of all home purchases are by international buyers, and 10% or more of these properties sit empty as investment vehicles. In short, large new developments don’t solve any housing problems for existing Cambridge residents. All they really do is attract new competition to an already overheated housing market.
Doug Brown is clearly right.
Certain city counsel members, generally those endorsed by ABC, have been pushing these spurious supply/demand arguments for years. They argue that increasing supply of housing in Cambridge will drive down prices, making housing more affordable.
Even if Cambridge could increase housing stock enough to prompt a meaningful reduction in prices, this would do nothing to promote true affordability. Reducing the market rate of a Cambridge house from 1.6 million to 1.5 million isn’t going to make Cambridge affordable to a teacher in Cambridge Public Schools, it’s just going to save a high net worth family $100,000.
I literally laughed out loud when I read Patrick’s comment.
For it was obvious what he was trying to do with the hotel on Mass and Main…..wealth extraction at the expense of local businesses.
That “boutique hotel” …it is a stealth AirBnB….nothing more….and already sold to investors.
Commies indeed…..
Hey Sam,
Its a hotel. I still own it. Local businesses typically thrive when there is an active hotel nearby; which mine is and they have. I’ve also added a small business in Praline and Tosci re–opens very soon. I’ve not yet extracted wealth given all that has happened but am happy to report that I’m staying afloat. Thank you for your continued interest and support. XOXOXO