Tag Archives: gentrification of Cambridge

SUGAR-COATED GENTRIFICATION

Could This Be The End Of Cambridge As We Know It?

Let’s think of them as “misguided.”

If people’s assertions are to be believed—and I’d love to be able to believe our city counselors, city planners and administrators, and even our Central Square Advisory Committee—then all these august civic entities and players are acting exactly opposite to their stated intentions.urban

I’m talking about their oft-stated intention to help preserve and protect Cambridge’s diversity, our unique blending of diverse elements—the middle class and the poor, families, students and singles, all manner of races, ethnicities and age groups—that creates a rich tapestry of community influences and textures.

So why are these well-intentioned parties guilty of being misguided?

Truth is they’ve been unwitting, yet highly willing, accomplices to Cambridge’s homegrown form of gentrification. I call it “Sugar-Coated Gentrification” because the sugar-coating of a small percentage of inclusionary-zoning units, sprinkled very lightly over each development, has become the going price developers pay to build housing for highly paid executives, engineers and technicians. The same executives, engineers and technicians who will easily outbid middle class families and poor people for the city’s available housing stock.

Who are they kidding, if not themselves? This small set-aside of units, usually 11.5%, will never come close to offsetting the loss of middle-class families and economically-disadvantaged residents. We can reasonably argue about the value of inclusionary zoning, but there’s no arguing away the impact of gentrification. We all know the story; we’ve seen it in dozens of cities and hundreds of neighborhoods.

If we can agree that a flood of market-rate housing exerts upward pressures on the price of housing, and the result is a citywide purging of the least-advantaged and most vulnerable members of our community, then we should be able to see the danger inherent when inclusionary housing serves as a gateway to massive development and up-zoning giveaways.

The City Council is currently considering the fact that 11.5% may not be enough to meaningfully impact the city’s loss of affordable housing. The council got away with demanding 18% from MIT for that non-profit’s massive zoning giveaway. So, naturally, they’re considering raising the percentage to 18%, as if that number were the answer to their vague feelings of concern and insufficiency in this matter.

So, in its clumsy accidental way, the City Council has aimed the light in the right direction. They’ve shown the question isn’t whether gentrification will have a negative impact, the question is how negative will it be. Or, as the City Council seems to be asking, “What percentage of inclusionary units will make up for all Cambridge residents ultimately forced out by gentrification?”

But, sorry folks, that’s obviously wrong-headed and counter-productive!

Nobody voted for the city council so they could represent the interests of future Cambridge residents against that of its current residents.

Nor does anyone want the city council to focus on the wellbeing of developers and real estate firms at the expense of those same vulnerable residents.

Speaking of misguided focus, nobody pays the City Manager or his deputies to foster zoning changes that would alter, perhaps harm, the character and rhythm of vibrant yet vulnerable neighborhoods.

And nobody in our city wants to force out current residents to make room for future residents?

If we want to create more affordable housing—and I mean housing less than the $2,400 a month currently deemed affordable for a single bedroom in University Park—we should build it ourselves. Yes, even with all the discouraging funding news coming out of Washington!

We should take that $14 million bribe paid by MIT, and whatever we’ve socked away in the affordable housing trust, and put it to good use, building real, honest affordable housing. There are any number of ways we could fund such housing, if we chose to do it on a small scale. 20 units here, 20 units there; something like that. There’s no need to bring in 16- or 18-story towers to achieve the same results.

It’s time we stopped sugar-coating what are basically acts of self-destructive gentrification.

It’s time we realized inclusionary housing isn’t a solution but a Trojan horse by which developers will undermine the foundation of our community.

It’s also time the City Council called for a Master Plan for all of us in Cambridge to review and discuss.

A plan that takes into account all the impacts from 18+ million square feet of anticipated development over the next 20 years.

A plan that maps out how we’ll approach traffic in the city, which will become even worse and more gridlocked with the addition of 50,000+ car trips a day on our city’s roadways.

A plan that maps out the city’s future.

Better yet, a plan that gives the city a future.

 

 

SURVIVOR CAMBRIDGE PART 2: Outwit, Outplay, Outlast

Episode Two: Sugar-Coated Gentrification

Hello, and welcome back to Survivor Cambridge, the TV show that chronicles the downfall and banana-slip slide of “Life As We Know It” on the island of Cambridge, Massachusetts. Both our competing tribes live, work, and fight for survival daily on the streets of Cambridge.

Last week, as you recall, Tribe #2, with its rock-grip hold on the Cambridge City Council, pushed through a mega gift, worth skillions of bucks for the greedy, graspy real estate division of MIT, protestwhich is quickly becoming the Kingpin of Cambridge Real Estate. Theirs is the power to squeeze out everyday homeowners and families by unleashing thousands of graduate students to suck up available local housing; theirs is now the authority to build a tower reaching 25 stories or more, and 2 million square feet of offices, homes and labs, or whatever MIT wants to build.

Just to review, Tribe #1 is made up of the city’s diverse population, with a heavy emphasis on those living near or below poverty levels. Given the quickly rising rents resulting from the area’s rapid gentrification, oddsmakers give Tribe #1 little chance for survival.

Not unless they can Outwit, Outplay and Outlast Tribe #2!

Tribe #2, the odds-on favorite, whose motto is “Build, Baby, Build!” is made up of pro-business folks, some of whom actually live in Cambridge, who are the engines of all this development activity in the city. Tribe #2 wants to continue building housing, office and lab facilities for the engineers and technicians drawn into the city by all the new commercial development; engineers and technicians who will eventually outbid families and poor people for the city’s limited housing.

Tribe #2 is clearly the most dangerous and least likable tribe in today’s show. Its members have grown rich and, what’s worse, increasingly entitled as the value of Cambridge real estate continues to climb. It’s a sad irony that Tribe #2 is attempting to remove zoning restrictions at the same time their real estate holdings have become so valuable the tribe no longer needs up-zoning to access reasonable profits.

Want to see something tragic? Look at things from Tribe #1’s point of view. They’ve arrived at a critical juncture; a moment when their salaries no longer keep pace with inflation, when the cost of college is priced beyond their children’s reach, when assisted housing appears to be a distant memory, and section 8 vouchers are no longer large enough to cover the gap in their monthly rent check. And now, just at this critical moment, along comes a once-in-a-lifetime overheating of the Cambridge real estate market.

This Week’s Tribal Challenge: Race For The Future

As you’ll recall from last week’s show, the City Council voted prudence and good stewardship off the island, voting 7-1 to approve a massive up-zoning package for MIT in exchange for some $14 million in cash and a significant commitment to creating low-cost incubator office space for new business development. This was counted as a victory for Tribe #2 and a loss for Tribe #1, who will never see a penny of the swag paid by MIT.

The rapid succession of Tribe #2 victories as evidenced by city council votes on up-zoning petitions, has put Tribe #1’s back against the wall. As more developments are approved, more of the tribe’s families are squeezed out of Cambridge and sent into that dark unfriendly night.

Note the irony in Tribe #2 trumpeting this ongoing gentrification as their attempt to create affordable housing, while Tribe #1 has seen for itself that gentrification, no matter how you sugar-coat it with modest set-asides for affordable units, pushes the lower and middle economic stratas out of their homes and into someone else’s city.

So, this is basically a fight for survival, in the meanest sense, for Tribe #1. And this week on Survivor Cambridge we’ve got a challenge that reflects how desperate the situation has become.

Tribe #1 and Tribe #2, are you ready to race each other for the Survivor’s Crown?

Excellent! You realize the losing tribe will need to find somewhere else to live, or somewhere else to build 16- and 18-story residential towers? Tribe #1 and Tribe #2, you will race against each other, but each with a different challenge. Tribe #1, your challenge is simply to drive your cars from Central Square to Memorial Drive via Western Avenue. The only catch: Western Avenue will be a virtual parking lot, because we’ve simulated the expected auto impact from all of Tribe #2’s towers and up-zoned buildings, which will bring a minimum of 50,000 additional car trips onto Cambridge roadways.

Tribe #2, given your lock-hold on both the Planning Board and the City Council, you are being asked to get the entire Central Square Up-Zoning package approved and legislated before the first car from Tribe #1 reaches Memorial Drive.

The winning tribe of this challenge will be crowned Survivor and be allowed to live (or develop towers) in peace on the island.

Update: Clearly Tribe #1 had the more difficult task. In a move hailed as “Unexpectedly mischievous and tactically brilliant!” Tribe #1’s competitors quickly abandoned their vehicles for wheelchairs, which should have cut their time in half and given them a victory, had it not been for all the angry motorists who objected to anyone—even someone in a wheelchair!—cutting in front of them. We were still totaling up Tribe #1 casualties as Tribe #2 not only won approval of their Central Square up-zoning petition, but also laid down the cornerstone for their first 18-story residential tower.

Join us for the next episode of Survivor Cambridge.

• Watch as waves of low-income residents get stuck once again on Western Avenue, attempting to make their final Exodus from Cambridge.

• See members of Cambridge’s Community Development Department turn their attention to up-zoning Porter Square and North Cambridge. You’ll want to see just how high these folks can build towers on that side of town.

• Watch the Cambridge School System begin dismantling all the schools that become superfluous once most of Cambridge’s families are chased out of the city.

• Watch current residents vote the entire City Council off the island. Except Minka (of the unpronounceable name) who is elected Mayor for her courage in standing up to her colleagues and MIT.

• And please, remember to watch your back. If it can happen to Tribe #1 today, can your tribe be far behind?

Survivor Cambridge is a production of Blind Elephant Press.

SURVIVOR CAMBRIDGE: Outwit, Outplay, Outlast!

Episode 1: Tribal Adversaries

Hello, and welcome to Survivor Cambridge, the TV show that chronicles the downfall and banana-slip slide of “Life As We Know It” on the island of Cambridge, Massachusetts. Both of our competing tribes, as you’ll see, are drawn from the streets and neighborhoods of the city;catapult living, working, and fighting for their survival in Cambridge’s breakneck economy and rapidly changing population profile.

As the competition in this arena seems a bit complicated, here’s a brief profile of the two tribes who will be fighting and scrapping to survive on the island—all for your viewing pleasure.

First tribe, and probably the least favored by the Vegas morning line, Tribe #1 is made up of the city’s diverse population, with a heavy emphasis on the middle class and those living on or near poverty levels. With upscale development (smelling a lot like gentrification) proceeding at a dramatic pace in the city, with the prohibitive rise in housing costs that usually accompanies such development—not to mention federal housing assistance funds drying up—is it any wonder these folks are not expected to survive very long on the island?

Not unless they can somehow Outwit, Outplay and Outlast Tribe #2!

Tribe #2 is the morning line favorite; their motto being “Build, Baby, Build!” Made up of a variety of interests and business types, its tribal members wish to benefit handsomely from all the opportunities that come to a city whose real estate market is blisteringly hot.

Tribe #2 believes A Bigger Cambridge is A Better Cambridge. They believe you can bring massive change to a city without harming those aspects that make Cambridge special. They see nothing wrong in 16- and 18-story towers dotting the Cambridge landscape where before there were only modest storefronts and triple deckers. They pooh-pooh any concerns about the Red Line, Cambridge’s most critical subway line, being already maxed out.

Confidentially, they would also wish to be the ones to develop and feed off all the new housing, office and lab facilities being built for affluent engineers and technicians who will easily outbid families and poor people for the city’s limited housing.

Key strategic relationships with the City Council, the City Manager and the Community Development Department have emboldened Tribe #2 to make a staggering grab this season for increased power and profits through massive up-zoning of Kendall and Central Squares, in a city-sponsored study process commonly known as K2C2.

Three major strategic initiatives in the last 20 years have put Tribe #2 steadily on the offensive and Tribe #1 with its back against a wall.

We’ll have more on those initiatives, and Tribe #1’s subsequent fight for survival, but first a word from today’s show’s sponsor, The Cambridge Residents Alliance.

 ANNOUNCER: The Cambridge Residents Alliance is an organization made up of your neighbors and friends: people who can see what is happening in Cambridge today and are rightfully concerned.

Concerned about flagrant disregard of the city’s zoning code, with spot-zoning the norm rather than the exception, and Cambridge clearly for sale if the sweetener is right. Concerned about a City Council so quick to say “Yes!” it voted to move MIT’s petition along before comments were taken from the public.

Mostly, of course, we are concerned about the future. About what kind of Cambridge we will leave behind for those who follow. Will it be a Cambridge of diverse ethnicities, ages and economic levels? Will it be a Cambridge where we still have neighborhood communities, still have room to breathe? Will we have traded away the essence of who we are for another great year of keeping taxes low and streets clean?

Yes, as you might have heard, we are concerned about the proposed rezoning of Central Square that could bring 16- or 18-story towers and their shadows, plus more cars and congestion, more people and traffic, more bio labs sited next to apartments, more apartments built without parking spaces. More noise, chaos, confusion. And we are concerned that we appear to be moving in no particular direction, with no particular plan in mind.

If that sounds familiar, you might want to lift your voice or lend a hand .To help play a role in deciding Cambridge’s future, click onto CambridgeResidentsAlliance.org.

If you can donate to help get our message out, so much the better!

Now back to Survivor Cambridge.

Three Strategic Blows Hit Tribe #1

It’s been a rough 20 years for the tribe. The end of Rent Control in 1994 seriously upset the ability of many low income people and middle class families to safely remain in their Cambridge homes. Owing to its proximity to Boston and a unique combination of academic and urban influences, Cambridge’s strong residential appeal and concomitant high property values have remained consistent even in the worst of real estate markets.

In 2005, the tribe was struck again, when a city-wide reassessment of property values disproportionately affected the valuation of houses owned by low-income residents, so that hundreds of economically disadvantaged homeowners had their property taxes increased by over 100%. Resulting in another tidal wave exodus of the poor and disadvantaged from Cambridge.

Okay, fast forward to today, where the poorer members of Tribe #1 are in danger of being replaced wholesale by newcomers who can better afford Cambridge’s pricey real estate. Both tribes have taken their best shots to halt or assist this rapid development, making hundreds of presentations (or so it seems) to the Planning Board, the Ordinance Committee, the City Council, and to anyone else who’ll listen. The word “Housing” gets repeated so often in these public ventings its very vibration has become almost hypnotic. As an ironic side note to these ongoing tribal skirmishes both sides repeatedly lay claim to the overriding goal of protecting Cambridge’s diverse, impoverished and family-based population.

Tribe #2 is clearly the most dangerous and least likable tribe on today’s show. Its members have grown fat, rich and increasingly self-important as the value of Cambridge real estate has rocketed. Living off the highest of economic tides a city might ever see, these build-baby-build fanatics are staunch enemies of Tribe #1, whom they see as hindering “progress” and “growth” for the city. Of course, they’re also hindering countless money-making ventures for Tribe #2, thus threatening tribe members’ profits and thwarting their long term agenda to become Multi-Millionaires.

So, at the critical moment when assisted housing appears an ever more distant memory, and section 8 vouchers are no longer large enough to cover the gap in a monthly rent check, along comes this once in a lifetime overheating of the Cambridge real estate market.

With a city government in place that seems a pushover for Tribe #2’s arguments. And, in some cases, an actual advocate of those very same arguments.

This Week’s Tribal Challenge

Okay,  you’ve met our two teams of contestants, and realize what a crucial juncture we’ve reached here on the island.  So here’s this week’s tribal challenge… With the recent explosion of residential complexes nearing completion in the Alewife area, rush hour driving, already difficult for those living in the vicinity, is expected to become a monumental disaster.

Tribe #1, your task is quite simply to bring traffic relief to the trapped residents of Alewife by delivering an auto catapult—a Supremo Auto Catapult—to Alewife during the very next rush hour! As you no doubt already know, a Supremo Auto Catapult can airlift approximately 15 cars an hour out of a gridlocked neighborhood.Your team will be given two hours, from 8am to 10am, to pick up the Supremo Auto Catapult parked at the Science Museum and deliver it to Alewife Station…Ordinarily, such a simple delivery would only take 15 minutes.

Tribe #2, your challenge is to stop Tribe #1 from making that simple delivery.

The Winning Tribe will be given extra time to make its case at the next city council meeting. Tribe #1, you will get 5 extra minutes if you win; Tribe #2, you will be given 30 extra minutes. (And, yes, we do realize those are different time allotments. Just goes to show why Tribe #2 is such a smart money favorite.)

Join us for the next episode of Survivor Cambridge. Where you can…

 • Watch as the Planning Board wastes precious minutes searching for their rubber stamp!

 • See undercover footage of members of Cambridge’s Community Development Department enjoying secret meetings with developers.

 • Watch Central Square start it’s journey to become a tower-studded affair, with far fewer parking lots and thousands more people.

 • See our next Tribal Challenge, when Tribe #2 is asked to prove, using real live T passengers, its claim that Red Line subway cars have room for 40% additional capacity during rush hour.

Last Minute Challenge Update: This just in…I’m told that Tribe #1 successfully picked up the Supremo catapult at the Science Museum but was unable to deliver it to Alewife in the allotted time. In a move hailed as “brilliant! Illustrative of the best military minds” Tribe #2 used its city hall connections to have Cambridge’s chief contractor and traffic inhibitor, the D’Allessandro company, start tearing up streets everywhere in Cambridge, thus knotting up the city in a giant gridlock and keeping the catapult far from Alewife territory.

I know, it sounds like a normal rush hour to me, too.

THE HOUSE IS ON FIRE AND THEY’RE STILL SETTING THE TABLE FOR DINNER!

Think your opinion matters? Apparently not to our City Council. A majority of council members voted at an Ordinance Committee meeting to move along MIT’s upzoning petition before the public had a chance to speak its mind. Arguably, it was to allow our mayor, who had another engagement, to record her vote in favor of the petition. But in reality, you couldn’t fabricate a better example to illustrate what the council feels about your opinion or how they’re responding to the over-heating pressures for development in our city.Cambridge-CityCouncil2012-2013

Put simply, they appear eager to ride the rising tide of development with little concern for those of us who may get flooded out. With little concern for the diversity we’ll lose as they vote to bring in wave after wave of affluent renters. Or for families that get squeezed out by the higher neighborhood rents that accompany new market-rate housing. Or for neighborhoods that will suddenly have 14 or 16 story towers reaching into their sky, and thousands more cars clogging their streets.

The sellers of “progress” tell us this is the price we have to pay to get more housing and create a better Cambridge. Housing has become the shield behind which developers and business interests now hide their self-enrichment and self-interest. If you could prove what I postulated in the previous paragraph, that new market-rate housing chases out more families than it makes room for, and erodes diversity, they would still argue that inclusionary housing forgives all sins. And that providing 11-15% low or mid-level affordable housing in a housing development makes up for whatever loss of low- or middle-income residents it eventually chases out of the city.

Now, as the City Council pretends to effectively review a proposal that will add 2.1 million square feet of office, lab and residential space to a city already densely populated and excessively traveled by car, someone needs to shout “STOP!” Someone needs to exhort them, “Don’t agree to anything until you understand we’re facing a tsunami of development over the course of the next 20 years. Don’t agree to anything until you learn and study the consequences we face from projections that predict over 18 million square feet of new offices, labs and residences in the city. Which, according to Cambridge’s own published numbers, breaks down to over 50,000 new car trips daily, plus a similar number of additional commuter trips.

Forget the fact that MIT wants to build a skyscraper in our city, a 300 foot demonstration of their importance. Perhaps an easy way for pro-development votes on the Council to create a precedent for buildings significantly higher than our zoning has allowed to date. Forget the fact that MIT fails to address the problem of its grad student housing shortages, which seriously impacts the availability of affordable housing in Cambridge. Forget the fact that MIT operates like it can get what it wants just because it wants it.

Why would our City Council agree to such massive upzoning when they cannot imagine the consequences of such a decision? Nor can they understand the context of over-development in which they’ll be making their decision. Denise Simmons has commented on the fact that listening to presentations, citizen opinions and opposing viewpoints in a single evening doesn’t lend itself well to making informed decisions.

With the massive impacts that come with massive upzoning petitions, the City Council, as the stewards charged with protecting and guiding our city, need to do their homework. They need to find out how many thousands of car trips and transit trips this level of development would bring? They need to know how many millions of square feet of development the City is facing down the road, so we can sensibly prepare for whatever is coming.

To vote on the MIT petition, or the K2C2 recommendations without looking seriously at the future is like continuing to set the table for dinner even though your senses tell you the house is on fire.

It’s time to stop and think; to slow the rush to development and to rethink dotting the landscape with towers. It’s time to stop and study the future, before we rush headlong into it.

It’s time to say no to mindless development.

Then let’s see what develops.

WHY THE CAMBRIDGE RESIDENTS ALLIANCE MATTERS: The Power of Community Acting as a Bulwark Against the Influence of Money

Take a drive on the Leverett Connector alongside Route 93, and you’ll notice a curious sight. Steve K.There’s a partially-built exit ramp, hanging out from the road; its suddenly halted steel girders and roughened concrete startle you, offend your eye, like the aftermath of an amputation. As if the phantom exit ramp had been brutally excised to prevent a cancer from spreading. Which is true, in a manner of speaking. For this is a ghastly reminder of one of the most ill-conceived highway transit projects never perpetrated—the Inner Belt, which would have sliced through the cities of Somerville and Cambridge to funnel many thousands of cars daily into the City of Boston.

This amputated exit ramp also serves as a mute tribute to the power of an aroused citizenry. For that highway would have been built 42 years ago, and Somerville and Cambridge would have been split in two, had it not been for the raised voices and continuous resistance of an engaged and outraged local community.

Today, we know the cost to a community’s social fabric when you run an elevated highway through the heart of a city, but back then many of these raised voices were denounced as fighters of progress or NIMBY’s (not-in-my-backyard-ers) or advocates of the status quo. When in fact, they were authentic voices of Cambridge sticking up—and speaking up!—for the city they loved.

Today, there’s a parallel situation arising in Cambridge, and once again the sellers of progress, unstoppable and unsuitable development and unbridled profits are railing against a group of citizens who have risen up to demand due diligence and a steady hand on the helm before we chart a ruinous course for Cambridge from which we will never recover.

I am proud to be a member of the Cambridge Residents Alliance. Proud to stand alongside members of the community who have worked tirelessly over the years to serve Cambridge and its residents. People like Nancy Ryan, who has a long history of community service, Jonathan King, an MIT professor and veteran of many citizen initiatives, Cathy Hoffman, who served on the Cambridge Peace Commission, Bill Cunningham, advocate for public housing tenants, Lee Farris, an activist for affordable housing, Rich Goldberg, a leader of the Area 4 Coalition, Steve Kaiser, Traffic Engineer and outspoken critic of the city’s lax transportation study practices, to mention just a few. These people have no bone to pick with progress or appropriate development. But they will not be silenced, or frightened off, by the size of a developer’s war chest, the shrillness of the arguments and accusations made by pro-development forces, or the vision and machinations of Cambridge’s own city management and Community Development Department.

We have witnessed those forces engage in a focused effort to guide a supposedly objective study of Central Square’s future toward recommendations so drastic they endanger the character and livability of the area they’re ostensibly trying to improve.

More to the point, we have witnessed these studies move ahead without anyone—except members of our alliance—conducting studies or collecting information to project the impacts of these recommendations and other projected developments on the city as a whole. Using the city’s own statistics, we have been able to project a minimum of 18 million additional square footage of development—a virtual tsunami of new offices, residences and labs—about to wash over the city during the next 20 years. Plus a minimum of 50,000 additional car trips daily, and 50,000 additional public transit trips—on subways and buses that today have little if any additional capacity.

As we state on our CambridgeResidentsAlliance.org web site…The Cambridge Residents Alliance represents individuals and neighborhood organizations committed to preserving and promoting a livable, affordable, and diverse Cambridge community.

We believe the innovative and creative character of the Cambridge economy derives in part from the multi-cultural, cooperative and inclusive social fabric of our city, which needs to be protected, not dissolved.

We support preserving, enhancing and expanding our public and affordable housing.

We believe the choking up of travel on streets, buses and trains through over-development is not in the interest of the community.

We value sunlight, sky views, and our very limited open community spaces and parks, and seek to limit shadowed canyon-like streets from over-size buildings.

We believe traffic has to be limited to levels such that children can go to and from school and after school activities safely.

We oppose the construction of high-rise buildings designed primarily to make large profits for developers.

We need continuing comprehensive urban planning efforts to improve the quality of life and work for Cambridge residents.

And lastly, like those activists in the 1960’s & 1970’s, we will not be silenced by those who propose development at all costs, who will not learn from the lessons or the amputated highway ramps of the past. Cambridge is a city of people from diverse backgrounds, economic levels, ethnicities and visions. Rather than put any of those parties at risk by serving the vision of taxes-hungry city managers or profit-hungry developers we’re calling for an unbiased citywide study of development and growth issues from which we can fashion a sensible approach to creating a future we all can share.