In some tidbits from budget hearings, we learned that a municipal broadband hire is listed as being in the City Manager’s Office; our housing liaison could evolve into an Office of Housing Stability; police body cameras have wide support; and Cambridge ranks high on cybersecurity … according to the people responsible for Cambridge’s cybersecurity.

Though there are design details to be worked out, Cambridge’s next tallest building – a 38-story residential tower proposed for 135 Broadway, Kendall Square – won general approval from the Planning Board and Cambridge Redevelopment Authority last week.

Our need to comply with the MBTA Communities law requirements presents a perfect opportunity to set a fair and reasonable citywide standard, increase our MBTA-adjacent housing, and reestablish our progressive regional leadership in meeting our community’s housing needs.

The head of the Cambridge Housing Authority got a bigger salary increase than he asked for in approval of a new five-year contract. He’s led the agency through two years of pandemic, continued a sweeping renovation of the CHA portfolio of low-income housing and branched out to administer Section 8 housing programs in other communities.

A revamped proposal for adding affordable apartments to North Cambridge’s Walden Square was greeted as better than the original from last year, but a litany of complaints from current tenants made the sense of progress hard to gauge.

Giving direct cash help to people facing eviction or homelessness won unanimous support Monday from city councillors; the idea now goes to the city manager to consider how much might be spent on the project out of $88 million in Covid relief funds.

The wireless Internet provider Starry will provide low-cost broadband to more than 2,630 affordable homes citywide in partnership with the Cambridge Housing Authority; a high-end apartment building called The Brook has opened near Alewife; and 29 residential units are planned for a building crossing the city line between Inman and Union squares.

Only investment in new affordable housing, particularly social housing, can provide a long-term solution to our housing crisis, but a bill enabling municipalities to consider rent control and rent stabilization could provide short- and medium-term solutions. There’s a hearing on it Tuesday.

In the Community Development Department’s proposed end to single-family zoning, the hard work and careful analysis that effective reform would require is characterized from the get-go as taking too much time and effort. “Whatever,” indeed.

Public meetings this week look at bike lanes on Massachusetts Avenue; licensing for New Republik, a Barcelona Wine Bar and 286Broadway, a Housing Affordability petition, after-school program busing, an unarmed public safety program, Margaret Fuller House improvements and more.