Repeating the same experiment and expecting different results is the proverbial sign of insanity, and yet we continue to believe that increasing the density of our city will result in lower housing costs. It hasn’t and it won’t.
If we think that housing prices and density go hand in hand, we need to look no further than New York City — not exactly an affordable market. Density does not result in affordability, it only results in density and everything that comes with it, which generally includes a more expensive city.
Since 1994, when the price of housing was deregulated in Cambridge with the state-wide ban on rent control, there has been a 38 percent increase in housing units compared with a mere 23 percent increase in population. The spike in housing prices which occurred immediately — I was here and watched it happen — has continued unabated.
We know that the new housing we are building is only more expensive than the last housing we just built, but the theory goes — a relic of Reagan-era trickle-down economics —that if we exhaust the rich then at some point the rest of us will pick up the crumbs. It did not work under Reagan either.
The problem is we are not competing against other potential homeowners but against investors both nationally and internationally. And we are competing not for a home but for an unregulated and highly profitable stock — Cambridge real estate.
I am passionate about creating affordable housing in Massachusetts, working many hours to get rent control on the ballot in 2026. If we want to address affordability, let’s address it directly. We did it before and we can do it again.
Sam Christy / Elm Street, Cambridge
A stronger
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Using population growth as a measure for demand is not telling the whole story. By definition, it excludes people that want to live here but cannot afford to, or who cannot simply because there aren’t enough homes.
Since 2000, about ~50k jobs have been added to Cambridge’s economy. Many of those are high paying jobs, like biotech. In the same time, we’ve only added a few thousand new homes.
Rent control doesn’t protect tenants when their landlord sells the property to someone that wants to live there. Rent control doesn’t address the fact that poorer people have to live an hour+ out from their jobs just to afford a place to live, only adding more homes does.
I’m not even opposed to rent control, but pretending like it’ll fix the underlying issues is just fantasy. It doesn’t matter if your landlord can’t raise your rent if the apartment doesn’t even exist in the first place.
Blaming density for high housing costs reverses reality.
New York isn’t expensive because it’s dense. Scarcity drives up prices, not abundance. Cambridge didn’t get costly from building too much housing, but from building too little. In short, the logic is backward: with less housing, New York would be even *more* expensive.
Rent control can help keep Cambridge tenants in their homes, but without building more housing we’re just freezing an underlying shortage instead of fixing it.
I don’t follow the logic of this letter. NYC is dense and expensive, but it would be even more expensive if it had less housing, That’s basic supply and demand.
Research on many U.S. cities shows that when regions add more housing, even mostly “market-rate,” rent growth slows, especially for older, more affordable units. Rent control can help some tenants, but strict versions often shrink the overall rental stock, making it harder and more expensive for newcomers to find homes.
Like the letter writer, I was here and watched restrictive zoning drive up prices. We’re in a crisis because we don’t have enough housing. Pointing to dense, expensive cities misses the point: High housing costs mean they still haven’t built enough homes.
Contrary to what the letter writer claims, numerous studies have shown that not enough density has everything to do with exorbitant housing prices. It’s basic supply and demand.
As others have pointed out, the New York City example makes no sense because New York City. Ask yourself a question: What would housing prices be in NYC if you *removed* a bunch of apartments? You think NYC would become cheaper??
Correction: Contrary to what the letter writer claims, numerous studies have shown that not enough density has everything to do with exorbitant housing prices. It’s basic supply and demand. As others have pointed out, the New York City example makes no sense. Ask yourself a question: What would housing prices be in NYC if you *removed* a bunch of apartments? You think NYC would become cheaper??
Cambridge is a wonderful place to live and work, which is shown by the high demand and ever rising housing prices – people do want to be there, and that is great. But we have restricted (and still do to a lesser degree) how many housing units can be built, thus everyone competes for the same supply of houses and apartments. If only there was some invisible relationship between demand and supply that helps us figure out why the housing prices are so high!
Long on words, short on substance.
I was also here. I saw someone who used the system to remain in a rent-controlled apartment even though they were a student at Harvard running a business out of the apartment. Do we not remember the rampant complaints, dilapidated buildings, and the motivation for ending RC in the first place?
Rent control simply doesn’t work.
Are you proposing an annual cap on increases?
Guess what happens then. Rather than a stable rate as long as they stay and a reset to market rates when they leave, my tenants will get the max percentage increase.
Every. Single. Year.