I have been thinking a lot recently about the type of city I want to live in when I’m older. Cambridge has a lot of smart, passionate and interesting people that make it an awesome place to live. When I think about my ideal city, I often return to the same word: vibrant. I want to live in a vibrant city. That could mean many things to different people, but to me, a vibrant city is energetic, interesting and unique.
In Cambridge, I enjoy visiting a wide variety of local businesses and participating in an array of activities and events. I’ve grabbed a bite to eat at Brookline Lunch and joked around with my co-workers, had ice cream from Toscanini’s while wandering the city with my girlfriend and enjoyed long coffee chats with friends at Cafe Beatrice. I’ve spent time climbing at Central Rock Gym, roller skating at Rollerama and ice skating in Kendall Square. Whatever the activity, the places I go and the people I meet make Cambridge a fantastic place to live. It’s great to have so many options to keep life fun.
In the future, I envision these same businesses and places that make Cambridge great becoming even more woven into the fabric of the city, with homes, shops, restaurants and workplaces blending seamlessly along the streets. I picture streets bustling with activity, filled with a diverse group of people and lined with buildings that boast an eye-catching mixture of architectural styles. Energetic streets, rich with variety in people and spaces, make daily life more enjoyable. When I leave my apartment each day, I want to walk on streets like these. This is the kind of vibrancy I imagine.
The bedrock of any vibrant city is dense and affordable housing. To bring a diverse group of people into the city and support a wide variety of local businesses, there needs to be housing people can afford – and it needs to be within the city, not the suburbs. Otherwise, increased traffic congestion, noise and pollution from cars becomes inevitable. Dense housing offers many other benefits beyond fostering a thriving community. With more residents, the city will see increased tax revenue, enabling further investment in infrastructure improvements and community amenities. Cambridge could invest in new sidewalks and bike lanes, plant more street trees, pursue net-zero initiatives and much more.
This is why supporting the City Council Housing Committee’s multifamily zoning proposal is critical. Cambridge has quickly become a city where many people want to live but can’t, due to limited housing supply and high costs. People who work or go to school here are often forced to live outside the city to find housing they can afford. We need to do better in enabling people to live close to the places that they need and want to be. Allowing the construction of more housing is a big change, but it’s a necessary one for Cambridge’s long-term future. It will make the city more affordable, more diverse and, ultimately, more vibrant.
Casey Szilagyi, Child Street, Cambridge
A stronger
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Housing affordability is a critical issue affecting both individuals and the broader economy.
The lack of affordable housing creates significant challenges:
Economic Impact:
Slows local economic growth, productivity, and development
Leaves jobs unfilled as workers struggle to afford living in the area
Reduces discretionary income for families, impacting local businesses
Business Challenges:
Difficulty in attracting and retaining workers
Reduced customer spending on goods and services
Community Benefits:
Building 100 affordable rental homes can generate $11.7 million in local income and $2.2 million in taxes and revenue
Addressing the affordable housing shortage is not just a social issue but a crucial economic driver that benefits the entire community.
Casey Szilagyi is right that Cambridge is a wonderful city. But he has not witnessed the increasing density of traffic, the very long commute times, lack of parking, the pollution and noise over the last 20 years where the popular increased 20%. We are a very small city with only 6 sq miles but have become the fourth largest in MA by population. We need sustainable development- not destruction of our environment.
A beautiful vision. But like other supporters of the euphemistic “multifamily zoning proposal”, it leaves out the actual rules proposed…
Most importantly, this would allow 6 story luxury apartment buildings on every house lot in Cambridge. Overnight, landlords of today’s “naturally affordable” triple decker rentals would have a huge incentive to remove renters as leases expire and replace them with condos for the wealthy. Since very few who live in Cambridge today can afford the $1500 per square foot or more that new construction sells for, we would become a less diverse city.
Proponents of these high priced condos assert that the AHO will take care of affordability. The new AHO rules would allow 13 story apartment buildings on every house lot in the city. Yes, that’s 13 stories on today’s quiet side streets with only 2-3 story homes.
In both cases, we have a plan is great for developers, really good for wealthy newcomers and biotech VPs, and miserable for current residents.
I love it when new folks tell us how to make our city more “vibrant.” Perhaps the author is unaware that both Toscanini’s and Central Rock Gym have been previously displaced by redevelopments, or that Rollerama is now permanently closed to make room for MIT’s massive Volpe Center project? Sadly, bigger isn’t always better, particularly when well-loved local businesses are asked to vacate in the name of “progress.”
We need more housing, all kinds of housing, including market rate housing. The more market rate housing we get, the more likely our market rates will begin to come down!
Ending exclusionary zoning is good for tenants, and as a homeowner, I think it is good for all Cantabrigians.
I definitely chose Cambridge as my home 56 years ago because of its vibrancy. If we drive our young people away with ridiculously high rents, we will lose that vibrancy.
@Peter Glick These apocalyptic predictions lack evidence. They are typical NIMBY scare tactics.
What’s your solution to the housing crisis? Doing nothing? The current situation is what led to this crisis.
Supporting measures to reduce car use, such as dedicated bus lanes, is crucial if you’re worried about parking and traffic.
Cambridge’s job market is growing rapidly. If workers can’t live in Cambridge, they’ll commute by car.
This is why zoning reform for higher density focuses on areas near public transportation.
Opposing zoning reform in an attempt to protect parking and reduce traffic will actually worsen these issues.
@AvgJoe–there are no predictions in my post, I simply stated the proposed rules and noted there would be an an incentive to displace people. Both of these are in accordance with the city’s public statements.
It is not “scare tactics” to report on the city’s statements. But yes, if I rented in a triple decker, I would be scared.
I disagree that the ending exclusionary zoning proposal is “miserable for current residents”. The majority of Cambridge residents are renters, many of whom have to pay exhorbitant rents to live here. Many are on an affordable housing wait list waiting for a home they can afford. Many current renters want to buy and stay here long term but can’t afford anything that is on the market. Building more housing has been shown over and over again to improve housing affordability:
https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/articles/2024/01/04/minneapolis-land-use-reforms-offer-a-blueprint-for-housing-affordability
https://onefinaleffort.com/auckland
And in Cambridge this proposal would result in the creation of hundreds of permanently affordable inclusionary units as well, according to CDD. The city’s policy of allowing very few new homes (and even fewer inclusionary affordable units) in vast swaths of the city while Cambidge adds tens of thousands of high paying tech and biotech jobs has not created housing affordability. It’s created a game of musical chairs where wealthier people who want to live in Cambridge outbid and displace the people who can’t afford to pay as much for housing. We are far behind on our Envision housing production targets. I think something has to change. This proposal is urgently needed.
Exclusionary zoning is a root cause of the housing crisis. Eliminating it is crucial.
In Manhattan, zoning restrictions inflate condominium prices by an estimated 50%.
Harvard research shows that restrictive zoning reduces rental unit availability, leading to higher rents – a basic economic principle.
Contrary to doomsday predictions, zoning reform works.
A Pew Charitable Trusts study of four jurisdictions (Minneapolis, New Rochelle, Portland, and Tysons) found that allowing more housing helped curb rising rents.
This issue boils down to wealthy homeowners protecting their property values at the expense of essential workers like nurses, police officers, and service industry employees who need affordable housing.
Thank you Casey for sharing this positive, welcoming vision of Cambridge. I agree with it – allowing increased housing density is important for both affordability and environmental reasons. It’s also the only way to come close to meeting the city’s housing targets as set forth in Envision Cambridge.
Increasing our housing supply is necessary to stem displacement of current residents, but also to allow more people who work or attend school here to live here. Long commutes steal precious time from people and families, and the ones done by car also increase traffic congestion for everyone.
It’s a problem when the people whose work makes a city function can’t afford to live in it! Not just for the workers themselves, either – two years ago Boston had to loosen residency requirements for some city jobs, and now they’re considering relaxing them further so that they can fill needed positions.
And please ignore rude comments from anyone. Your point of view is as valid as anyone else’s, regardless of how long you’ve called Cambridge home.
No opinion should be ignored. Yes those who have invested their whole life in this community should be listened to. Too much print has been made by those who want to silence opposing opinions. Emotional responses of the pain felt by those who have lived here the longest must be considered in any public discourse.
Do the existing residents want to have their neighborhoods developed like East Boston with shoulder to shoulder four deckers. Will that improve the quality of life for the existing population? Will the traffic and population density be bearable with the inadequate public transportation and quickly decreasing traffic carrying capacity of it streets? Just wondering if the neighboring communities without nearly the population density follow Cambridge’s pursuit of extreme density and diminish its road capacity to the extent Cambridge is willing to tolerate with even less public transit capacity? Just wondering if there is a limit to the direction Cambridge will suffer for feel good political purposes.
I’ll proudly continue to like my neighborhood as it is and will say so. Increased density will not improve the quality of life in an already densely populated community.
just a comment- 35% of Minneapolis housing is single-family on 59 acres, meaning it has more space. Cambridge has unique problems. This is not an either/ or, it is a HOW.
How many more people can Cambridge fit? 2 million! It’s crowded now!
I fail to see how the current proposed changes to zoning will lead to anything other than the status quo slowly shifting to urban hell. Cities have been through this before.
YES, it’s possible to increase density without becoming urban hell, but that takes actual thought, analysis, and planning. We need to think through transportation, traffic, budget, environment, schools, etc.
It’s not rocket science, but it is a lot of hard work.
Until someone is willing to actually do that work, I don’t see us getting a sane proposal. My concern is it looks increasingly likely that an insane proposal will pass.
My money would be on a proposal which adds a lot of height, in return for large, open spaces, coupled with local shops on the ground floor, and some kind of inclusionary support for quirky businesses like Broadway Bicycle, Artisan Asylum, or Dance Complex, so all the shops aren’t just Starbucks and overpriced yuppie lunch places.
@Fourmacks
Cambridge faces a severe housing shortage, with only a few dozen affordable units approved before 2020. While long-term residents’ opinions matter, they shouldn’t dominate housing policy at the expense of broader community needs.
The claim of “extreme density” in Cambridge is misleading. Recent zoning changes, like the 100% affordable housing overlay, aim to address the housing crisis through targeted density increases. This approach aligns with national efforts to combat high housing costs through smart urban planning.
Increased density offers benefits such as improved public transit viability and reduced car dependency.
Comparing Cambridge’s approach to East Boston’s development is inaccurate. Cambridge focuses on targeted upzoning and mixed-use developments, not indiscriminate construction.
While concerns about traffic and population density are valid, they can be addressed through improved public transit and infrastructure. Cambridge is actively working on multimodal transportation solutions.
Increased housing supply can improve affordability and economic diversity. Recent projects have already added hundreds of affordable units to the city.
The claim that increased density won’t improve quality of life is subjective and overlooks the benefits of vibrant, walkable communities with diverse housing options.
Frank’s, we will just have to agree to disagree on just about every thing you conveyed in your retort to my letter to the editor.
It’s crazy how upset the multimillion-dollar single-family home crowd gets when a young renter writes about how they’d like to be able to some day afford a place in Cambridge. Seems renters understand quite well that housing costs are determined by supply and demand, not by magical NIMBY thinking.
CDD has already stated multiple times that Cambridge’s infrastructure can support this plan. How many times do they need to say it before it stops being a false NIMBY talking point? 100 times? 1,000 times? Infinity times because this crowd never lets any inconvenient facts get in their way?
@Fourmacks
Let’s agree on facts and evidence. Here is a recent article that reviews relevant research.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10511482.2024.2418044
One can speculate all they want but evidence shows what’s true.
The abstract of that article sums it up nicely:
Although “supply skeptics” claim that new housing supply does not slow growth in rents, our review of rigorous recent studies finds that:
(a) increases in housing supply reduce rents or slow the growth in rents in the region;
(b) in some circumstances, new construction also reduces rents or rent growth in the surrounding neighborhood;
(c) while new supply is associated with measures of gentrification, it has not been shown to heighten displacement of lower income households; and
(d) the chains of moves resulting from new supply free up both for-sale and rented dwelling units that are then occupied by households across the income spectrum, and provide higher income households with alternatives to the older units for which they might otherwise outbid lower income residents.
In light of this evidence, it is inaccurate to argue that upzoning will be a luxury land grab and increase property costs. The evidence does not support that.
Instead, the evidence shows that upzoning can, in fact, increase inventory and decrease housing costs.
@Qwerty Yes, it is crazy. No matter what the evidence says, some people will still insist on saying things that are not true.
FrankD may well be right in general that building more housing may bring down costs in the short run. However, there are other factors to consider. Cambridge has such a small land area of only 6 sq miles that demand will always outstrip supply. There has been an astonishing escalation of real estate prices in the 40y I’ve lived in Cambridge. A $250,000 house I bid for in 1992 is now worth $2.5 million. I doubt housing will ever be “affordable” as these “lower cost”homes will be subject to supply and demand forces. Our population has increased 20% from 100,000 in 2000 to 120,000 in 2022. We are the fourth most congested city in Massachusetts after Boston, Worcester and Springfield which have over 5 times the land area. How far do we want to push this?
Over-building only leads to congestion, pollution, noise, more traffic and problems with parking, all of which have decreased the quality of life in our city. We need sustainable development and common sense before we destroy our quality of life.