 Report: A Cambridge City Council proposal to legalize six-story buildings. Everywhere. One of the most impactful up-zonings of any U.S. City. How it will impact residents lives around issues related to the environment here. In this post we address critical environmental impacts of this up-zoning petition that are likely to greatly increase heat island impacts and climate change destruction. concerns in city climate change and flooding impacts, but will exacerbate problems. SOME OF THE CORE PROPOSED UP-ZONING FEATURES
 CITY TREE TOTALS •19,095 City Trees •60,095 Private or Institutional Trees MINING THE CITY TREE DATABASE WITH CHATGPT The City of Cambridge has an excellent database of our city street and park trees, with up-to-date information on locations, types of trees, ages of trees, dead trees, newly planted trees and other information. We can use this date to address critical information addressing the city's environment related to trees today and into the future. We can also mine this information as related to likely impacts of the proposed citywide up-zoning. Below are two maps showing the types of trees found on city streets and parks.  Below we see two graphs showing on the left the ages of our city trees, and on the right the diameters of our city trees. What this reveals in part is how much of our historic tree canopy on public spaces has been lost, and the part of it that has been replaced, largely entails new saplings (1-4 years old) followed by 5-10 year old trees which offer little of any shade bearing foliage that will help the city for another 30-40 years. We no longer have any trees on public city land over 20 years old (with diameters above 30 inches). The vast proportion of 1-4 year trees (0-5 inches in diameter) is also problematic because they have a much higher probability of dying, needing to be replaced in turn, at some point in the future.  When we look at tree locations across the city based on the ages and diameters of these trees, we can see just how wide spread this older tree loss is city wide, since there are very few colors other than dark purple that are visible.  If we look at the differences in the maps showing "retired" tree sites (those areas that once had trees, but will no longer, versus those areas where the city plans to plant new trees, we can readily understand how much this legacy of tree destruction in the City of Cambridge is impacting the city now and the future well being of its residents. Based on this date, it is clear that the city has no intent to increase its tree count even to the levels we had a few years ago.  When we look at the data on dead trees, damaged trees, and "retired tree sites"alongside the date of those current trees in need trimming (one of the important factors in maintaining the health of city and private residential trees the situation looks even more devastating. One can also see this devastating situation clearly from the graph showing this data below.   Neighborhood differences come into play in important days as we break down the data further. Some of our neighborhoods, especially those in our denser, lower income areas have far more trees being cut on their streets than other neighborhoods, often in wealthier areas. This has potentially serious ramifications not only on the health of residents, especially infants, children, those already ailing and seniors due to a number of factors including ongoing heat island impacts of these denser housing areas. One can see on the left the neighborhoods that are hardest (Cambridgeport, and the Port, followed by Mid-Cambridge adn East Cambridge. On the right one can see the numerical differences involved with Cambridgeport bearing the loss of 60 trees, followed by The Port at 60 trees, and at the other end fo the scale, Strawberry Hill with only 15 trees cut down, followed by Cambridge Highlands with 20 trees having been cut.  Some factors regarding our public tree deaths on city streets and parks offer further insight, whether we are talking about, the choice of tree species (and their ability to survive here), or questions of placing city streets trees within grates. The London planetree followed by the Tuliptree and Serviceberry Genus have the highest death rates; the Red maple, Japanese Zelkova and Japanese Tree Lilac have had fewer deaths, but likely the number of these trees that have been planted would impact these results. We also learn from this database that park trees have higher survival rates than street trees, and that those street trees within grates do a bit better than those without grates. All of this is dependent on watering the trees in both settings.  The city provides data on the arborist or source of the tree (identified here as the tree creator. And we can see how these factors also may impact the survival rates of our newly planted trees - some of whom are clearly doing more work for the city than others. This is data that presumably the city takes into account when it is deciding on commissioning people to do this work.  Our tree inspectors also have a major impact on which trees live and die. It is hard factor in why the differences here would be so large between one inspector and another, and perhaps suggests the importance of the city requiring a second opinion of someone not in the city employ.  The Urban Heat Island Technical Report
Let's look first at City Estimates on Climate Plan Impacts (Heat Island Impacts) in the Urban Heat Island Report. As we can see below, trees are seen by the city to represent only 1 out of 6 in importance in terms of planned response to temper heat island impacts. This is quite surprising since according to current research, trees are generally considered more important than cool roofs in mitigating heat island effects, as they provide a greater cooling impact through shade and evapotranspiration, making them a more effective strategy for reducing urban temperatures compared to cool roofs alone; however, both strategies can be used together for optimal results. Equally surprising is that fact that neither cool roofs, nor surfaces, or part of city planning or environmental policy regarding areas outside of Alewife, Kendall Square, and MIT, so the residents living in the various neighborhoods throughout the city will receive little benefit from the roof and surface changes. Whereas they would benefit from far greater work in adding trees to the parts fo the city streetscape that had living trees just a few years ago.  The city's focus going forward in terms of tempering heat island impacts is focused almost exclusively on cool roofs and impervious surfaces for new buildings in our heavy commercial areas where many of the labs are found. Trees barely factor in at all, except, to try to return to the already decimated 2009/2010 period of street and park trees in the city. Even this minimal goal seems highly unlikely however considering the data on tree death and tree age addressed above in the City Tree Database. And again, very little of this is focused specifically on the residents of the city and specifically the neighborhoods in which they live.  It is hard to see the highly idealized cooling maps presented in the Heat Island Report as more than simply fantasy considering what we learn from both the report itself and the City Tree Database.  The city has identified the impacts of these proposed changes here:  NEIGHBORHOOD IMPACTS OF TREE LOSSES AND HEAT IMPACTSWhen we go to the neighborhood level to address these issues, the issues and impacts are striking. A 10 degree F difference can have striking differences on health and mortality for infants and the elderly. The fact that the HIGHEST temperatures are found in our densest and historically lower income neighborhoods is significant and should not be overlooked. The Port and East Cambridge have the highest temperatures while Strawberry Hill and Cambridge Highlands have the lowest ambient temperatures. As heat rises, the impacts are even greater, and a 10 degree Fahrenheit difference can bring not only health problems but also death to the most vulnerable - infants, children, and the elderly. When we add to this likely impacts of the loss of even more green space and trees in these same neighborhoods and others that now could be built to the property lines at each side and at the rear will mean that we will lose not only many existing trees but also future ones. And as we know it is mature trees that have an especially important role in keeping rising temperatures in check.  Below we see a map of the city's hardest hit areas in terms of heat island impacts. Nothing that the city is proposing will decrease the already consequential impacts in our densest neighborhoods such as The Port, East Cambridge, Cambridgeport, Inman Square, Mid-Cambridge, and North Cambridge. As trees are removed this will look even worse, and with the insertion of the denser C-1 dense zoning regulations (made even more dense by the up-zoning plan being proposed) are somewhat less hot regions will begin have heat impacts that complement those now found in the denser neighborhoods.  The following map makes clear the startling impacts on our residential neighborhoods with serious health implications. In the circle graph on the right, the red area addresses the health impacts of extreme heat. These impacts are seen here to include: 1) preterm birth; 2) respiratory disease; 3) mortality and hospitalization. Nothing we are doing in the city is seeking to remediate this. And, if we add more unfettered development, without regulation or oversight, as proposed in the upzoning proposal, this will aggrevate an already very problematic situation.  The City is clearly recognizing the problem that exists in our city's approach to heat island impacts. The Dity has signaled in its own mapping that the core areas of the city that will be impacted by the city's initiatives on cool roofs, impervious surfaces, and trees, will be those areas around Alewife, Kendall Square and MIT - and NOT the other areas of the city, the neighborhoods where many of our residents live. One can see this in the city map on the right where we find the circled areas. The fact that we are making no effort to impact the majority of our residents in the various neighborhoods is a significant problem.  Below we read the conclusions of the Cambridge Heat Island Impact Report. We have highlighted the findings that are most germane to the concerns we raise here.  None of this addresses the serious issues around climate change and sizable flooding possibilities in the present and years ahead. This also will be significantly impacted by the proposed citywide up-zoning, and the lack of both design oversight and immediate infrastructure changes that come with it. The city's map of likely future flooding impacts across our many neighborhoods makes this clear.
CONCLUSIONS In conclusion, it is important to note that the City of Cambridge has provided our residents and city employees with an extraordinary rich array of data from which we can begin to understand the city. Some of this data is in the form of reports (such as the Urban Heat Island Technical Report), city wide data (in the form of excel sheets and other forms, such as the City Tree Data), as well as GIS data showing our many historic and contemporary buildings in their specific settings. We can see below an example of this GIS data in the form of a rending of buildings and an overview photograph. As we explore this data we can see not only the wonderful richness of the details but also the how devoid this view of the city of its many diverse residents. In key ways the City Tree Data and Urban Heat Island Report seem equally devoid of evidence related to residents, those who live here.  We urge our city elected officials and staff to address the residents of our city and our environmental and other features in a far more holistic way. We need to begin to include the trees and other features of our unique neighborhoods as part of our planning and discussions. Too often the the City staff and or political leaders act as if they consider both our trees (and green spaces) as well as current residents as the enemy of the City, and our city's progress, using divisive terms and character attacks of people who want a smart future. At the same time, we appreciate some of the excellent work that has been undertaken by city staff and residents to date, including the creation of the City's Urban Forest Masterplan, available HERE. We urge the city and city council to undertake new planning endeavors consistent with its guidelines and goals.  OUR CITY NEIGHBORHOODS Each of our neighborhoods can offer insights on how this. It is critical going forward that we incorporate the trees on our many city residences in our tree and climate policy going forward. It is in these properties, owned privately or in institutional hands that are so critical for our future. The example below comes from Hilliard Street near Harvard Square. The photograph below was taken in the autumn, so that the deciduous trees are largely bare. And here and elsewhere we also have an array of evergreens. This is both a very dense part of the city, with both single family homes, duplexes, row houses, and taller apartment buildings (the latter at the corners where Hilliard meets Mt. Auburn Street and Brattle. In restoring Cambridge's climate promise and moving it into the future, not only must we replant many of the "retired" street tree sites, but we also must retain and build on our many private trees and green spaces. With the proposed City up-zoning the impacts of this decision will be felt especially in our diverse neighborhoods, in the many private homes that are there of various shapes and scales. For many Cambridge residents, including those on Hilliard St., our neighbors' green spaces, garden, and trees are as important to our well-being, love of the city, and moderating ambient temperatures as are OUR OWN green spaces, garden and trees.  We must come together as residents, as neighbors, as members of diverse local civic groups to support responsible plans for our future, plans for our future that places special emphasis on the health of our residents highlight the critical importance of our trees, green spaces, and environment more generally.
In addition to the environmental impacts, the proposed citywide up-zoning will significantly increase housing costs across the city, as historic housing is demolished, current tenants are forced out, and wealthier outsiders move in, with new homes and home additions adding to property values that will rise, with taxes, not only for themselves, but also for their neighbors. This will impact low and middle income city residents and seniors (or others) on fixed incomes, some of whom will also be forced out of the city. In addition every home demolition will lead to carbon impacts that will take up to 80 years to recoup even with the most environmentally forward-thinking new housing. It is critical now for urgent reflection vis-a-vis issues around the ongoing health of our current and future residents. Leaving our future to "the market" (giving investors and others of extraordinary means the main voice for our city's present and future irresponsible.
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 Chief Joseph Ranch near Darby, Montana: Setting of cattle rancher, John Dutton's home in the TV series Yellowstone (wikipedia) Early episodes of the TV series Yellowstone reveal a lurking danger that many of us now face in Cambridge and elsewhere: the disastrous impacts of property value increases. Indeed as Mike Warkentin notes in his November 26, 2021 article titled "The Economics of “Yellowstone”: John Dutton Needs a Mentor" in the journal Two Brain Business "Despite the size and value of the ranch, viewers are constantly told it isn’t that profitable. In fact, the clock is ticking and the Duttons are essentially fighting a losing battle against property taxes and the rising price of labor, fuel and [livestock] feed.” While Cambridge does not face a problem with livestock feed fortunately at this point in our history, we do face similar factors in both escalating property taxes and labor costs. To John Dutton, the outsize property tax increases, are due directly to outside investors seeking to profit from the valley where he and his family have lived for six generations. There are many similarities with Cambridge, Ma., and the concerns that one, three and six generations of families living here are now struggling with. The proposed citywide upzoning will exacerbate problems that property investors and investment companies are already bringing here. In Cambridge, as Robert Winters observes in an October 4, 2024 Cambridge Civic post on the city budget and our increasing tax needs that: "The bottom line is: The FY25 Adopted Operating Budget increased by 8.1% ($71.8 million) over the FY24 Adopted Budget. This compares to last year’s 7.2% over the FY23 Adopted Budget ($57.8 million) – after some one-time accounting changes. The FY25 Budget adopted by the City Council in June 2024 projected a property tax levy increase of $53.4 million (9.28%) to $628.8 million in order to fund operating and capital expenditures. With approval of the recommendations in this memo, the actual FY25 tax levy required to support the FY25 Budget is $628,388,753 which is an increase of $52,970,264 or 9.21% from FY24. This increase is slightly lower than the estimated increase of 9.28% projected in June 2024 as part of the Adopted Budget, due in large part to higher than projected investment earnings. The property tax levy increase of 9.21% is higher than the FY24 increase of 8.3%. The five-year (FY21-FY25) annual average increase is 7.51%, and the ten-year (FY16-FY25) annual average increase is 6.31%. The FY25 residential tax rate will be $6.35 per thousand dollars of value, subject to Department of Revenue approval. This is an increase of $0.43, or approximately 7.3% from FY24. The commercial tax rate will be $11.52, which is an increase of $1.06, or 10.1% from FY24. By property class, an average a single-family home will see a 7.86% tax increase, a two-family will see a 6.44% increase, a three-family will see a 7.5% increase, and a condo will see an 11.46% increase." Winters goes on to note that this "...last figure [condo tax costs] is interesting in that due to the flat residential exemption, condo owners have actually been seeing decreases in recent years.” This last point is important because in recent years condos globally are increasingly being acquired by investors who either leave them empty or rent them out for higher costs. The graph below, provided by Winters, shows the median Cambridge tax figures including the CPA Surcharge. He notes that this year, "[u]nlike previous years, the information on the number of residential properties in each of the 17 Residential Tax Districts was not provided in this year’s City Manager letter."  One thing we know is that the proposed up-zoning will bring much steeper property values, and much higher property taxes to owners, renters, and neighbors alike once a building is sold. We also know that high property tax increases have a disproportional impact on lower and fixed income residents. Cambridge property taxes, as noted in Cambridge Civic, again increased this year to 9.21%, an amount even higher than the FY24 increase of 8.3%. And Eversource residential prices appear to have gone up by 17%. Many Cambridge residents simply cannot sustain these kinds of living cost increases. When we add to that increased land prices (property values) that the upzoning will bring – a give away to investors in essence – our lower- and middle-income residents will feel the harm most significantly, and many may be forced out of the city because they will no longer be able to afford to live here. Boston is facing similar problems, with their residential property rates up 10.4%. And here, too, some families may be forced to leave the city because the homes they bought for what were once reasonable prices, have sky-rocketed in value and rising property taxes. Read about one woman’s story in the December 12, 2024 Boston Globe.
While Cambridge benefits considerably from our currently strong commercial base, particularly bio-tech and info-tech, these same resources are fueling our outsize housing costs and needs, as well as the rising property values that puts increasing numbers of residents at risk. John Dutton and his family turned to untenable responses to address the changing landscape, responses that also tore the family apart. We need to be smarter in how we handle related concerns here.  The above graphic shows what actually tends to happen in terms of beneficiaries with Trickle Down and Supply Demand Theories of the sort that are currently being advocated in the radical luxury housing up-zoning proposal in Cambridge.
Cambridge and other high demand cities have faced ongoing problems in terms of housing affordability and availability due in large measure to investors buying up critically needed housing stock. See among other articles "What Happens When Wall Street Buys Most of the Homes on Your Block" New York Times (2023). In 2021 Blackstone purchased some $325 million in housing in East Cambridge apartment housing investments, seeking to profit from the growing biotech industries and amped up housing need, furthering the costs of housing in the city HERE. For more on our these concerns see our recent blogpost, Why Housing Prices Are So High and Going Higher. We also see an ongoing disconnect in housing re: the legacy of trickle down economic theory and the equally problematic "supply/demand" housing theory. We know that trickle down economic theory does not work (lower and middle income residents suffer most). The same is true for trickle down housing theory. In Cambridge, very few people move from their existing homes to take advantage newer ones that are even more expensive (leaving the present one at a lower price than market demands for someone seeking to move in with less financing means. Here and elsewhere, people tend to stay in the neighborhoods they first move to (work and family permitting), and if they do move, they are likely to seek top dollar housing return, if for no other reason than to help pay off new housing costs. When we throw in housing investors purchasing properties particularly in once lower income neighborhoods simply to profit from the, trickle down theory in housing is equally if not even more problematic. The same is true for supply and demand housing theory in high demand high cost cities such as ours. Here, as in other cities such as Vancouver, there never can be enough homes to meet much less overcome demand leading to housing costs magically falling to a price affordable to everyone. Each new and more expensive luxury housing property simply adds to the increased housing prices everyone must pay. And, since wealthy owners are not dropping their current homes to pick up and move to a more expensive contemporary structure in a different part of the city, leaving their still very expensive homes at less steep rates for a new buyer, than "trickle down" housing theory simply does not work. Instead, as is widely recognized in trickle down economics, we are simply setting up a prime situation where the wealthy get even more wealthy, and those who are not in this circle suffer through increasing housing costs, property values, and other factors.  Photo source: Village Preservation In its New York City ventures, Blackstone has faced legal problems for housing overcharges. Indeed, less than a month ago, on November 27, 2024 we read that Blackstone paid $15 million after alleged rent overcharges, “one of largest settlements of its kind in NYC”: HERE. Soon after, on December 5, 2024, New York City passed its controversial “City For All Housing Bill” that has been “[e]stimated to create over 82,000 New Homes, Tackling Affordability Crisis throughout City. HERE. While this move is celebrated as something that will bring new housing to existing neighborhoods, as in Cambridge, it also will encourage the demolition of existing housing (and tenant evictions) in order to build larger and more expensive housing. Their $5 billion dollar plan none-the-less is far more viable than what Cambridge pro-builder councillors are supporting, including focusing specifically on prioritizing housing in neighborhoods with nearby public transit, taking measures to address flood risks, and incentive for inclusionary in low density areas, as well as greater affordability financing for those with incomes below 40% area median income (c. $43, 000 per person and $62,000 for families of four). They also have furnished critical funding to rehabilitate and renovate some existing multi dwelling buildings, updated flood and sewage flooding plans, support for Older Adults Aging in Place, PLUS a transparency resolution for organizations that receive funding. Changes to residential height and density in some parts of the city are also part of this plan as is the ability of property owners to build multi-family apartments on their property. Developers can also build 20% MORE housing in construction companies as long as it is “affordable.” Read more HERE. The plan will also bring buildings to vacant parking lots, “From that $5 billion pool, $2 billion will go toward affordable housing, $2 billion will go toward infrastructure projects (updating flood and sewer maintenance programs) and $1 billion set aside for public housing, vouchers, and tenant protections.” As noted by New York City’s Public Advocate, stated that “[T]he City Council has taken a significant step forward to increase housing production, and should be applauded for it...At the same time…we cannot simply build our way out of the affordability crisis. Today’s plan, and the City for All investments paired with it, must be part of an overall strategy that includes preservation, voucher expansion, tenant protections….” HERE Strong criticism of the plan has come from the local preservation lobbying group in New York City known as Village Preservation, even though the recently approved NYC plan is far more nuanced and wholistic than that promoted by Cambridge’s pro-builder councillors. The criticism of this group includes the fact that the new bill transfers air rights from individual buildings to surrounding blocks with little public review or oversight. It allows new developments (or existing ones) to encroach even more on limited back yard open spaces and brings new development into existing open space now required in schools and universities, religious institutions and other properties owned “in common.” Some districts also will become “super dense” zoned areas, with permitted development “50% larger than current allowable maximums everywhere in NYC. The Preservation group also criticizes the premise of this plan noting that it is based on the faulty notion “…that NYC is not building enough market-rate housing (i.e., generally expensive and unaffordable to most New Yorkers), and that building more of it, no matter how expensive, will have beneficial trickle-down effects for everyone.” This in spite of the fact that “…as we showed” NYC is already on target to add another 183,000 units by 2028 and “…has the capacity to add another 2 million more under the pre-existing zoning rules.” The group also explains that
Cambridge needs to address come of the range of issues in play in other centers of the country, such as New York City.  Photo source: Village Preservation
 Blackstone, the world’s largest residential property owner in 2021 purchased $325 million in apartment complexes in East Cambridge. The journal, BISNOW, that published the news on June 29, 2021, exerted that this was "one of Greater Boston's largest investment sales of the year” – more HERE. Indeed, this this huge investment in rental properties aimed at profiting from ongoing Cambridge housing needs is telling. Cambridge, COVID, and the Creation of a New Housing “Crisis”The exact timing of the Blackston acquisition is important. Cambridge and the country at this time were in the middle of the COVID pandemic. The U.S. Department of Defense COVID timeline provides key details: HERE. On June 15, two weeks earlier, Johns Hopkins University, announced that U.S. COVID-19 related deaths had just surpassed 600K.
Today housing costs in East Cambridge top the housing cost list in the city, surpassing those even of West Cambridge and most other areas. Blackstone, in its New York City ventures, recently faced serious legal problems for its housing overcharges. Indeed, less than a month ago, on November 27, 2024 we read that Blackstone paid $15 million after alleged rent overcharges, “one of largest settlements of its kind in NYC”: HERE. Another report this one dated. January 19, 2024 addresses Blackstone’s $3.5 Billion Housing Deal “that expands Blackstone’s reach into Us, Canadian rental markets.” The Bloomberg article on this identifies Blackstone as a leading private equity firm as finalizing the acquisition of another residential company (Tricon), privatizing the latter company in the process. HERE Billionaire Blowback: The Institute of Policy StudiesAn October 21, 2024 analysis published by The Institute on Policy Studies (IPS), a progressive organization dedicated to a more equitable, ecologically sustainable, and peaceful society highlights the problems in a document entitled Billionaire Blowback on Housing. The Reports’ subtitle reads: “How concentrated wealth disrupts housing markets and worsens the housing affordability crisis.” The same is happening in Cambridge. This report notes that “Across the United States, communities are facing an acute housing affordability crisis. Rents and homelessness are rising while home ownership feels increasingly out of reach for millions. What’s driving that crisis? In a word, inequality. Increased corporate control over our housing market — by billionaire investors and their for-profit entities — are driving these trends and placing significant barriers to the preservation and creation of permanently affordable housing.” They go on to note that “You’re experiencing it if you’re among the 22.4 million households — half of all renters — who spend more than 30 percent or more of your income on rental housing.” They add that “…all of us are caught up in a larger housing system that is out of kilter and distorted by the participation of a class of ultrawealthy investors.” While some have proposed as a solution “…simply building more housing….[the] focus on expanding housing supply through for-profit development misses this key driver of the housing crisis: as wealth concentrates in the hands of billionaire investors, their predatory investment and wealth-parking in luxury housing defines our housing markets today. (emphasis mine). This report, in short “…highlights the role of the billionaire class in driving our housing emergency — and outlines the policy solutions we need to protect the public interest. A summary of the full PDF points out that: “Predatory billionaire investors have bought up an unprecedented share of single-family homes, apartment buildings, and mobile home parks to extract more rents from already economically squeezed residents." In a nutshell, as this IPS report goes on to state: "Wealthy investors are buying up properties but holding them vacant to profit from real estate appreciation. They make money not from rents, but from treating real estate as a luxury asset to park their wealth in. Billionaire investors are entering the short-term rental industry, removing a substantial portion of rental housing from the market…Billionaire investors are helping skew new development towards being increasingly high-end. Although housing production has actually exceeded our nation’s growth in households, new construction is increasingly unaffordable to low-income households. Nationally, we have sufficient and even an excess of housing for the wealthy, alongside not enough housing priced at rates affordable to low-income households in need. Wealthy buyers are bidding up land and housing prices, inflaming gentrification and resulting in huge increases in the cost of housing. First-time homebuyers and people of color who have historically been excluded from the market are competing against billionaire private equity funds and wealthy buyers who make swift cash offers."Why "Build Baby Build" is NOT the SolutionIf “Build Baby Build” is not the Solution and Instead will make this worse, what can cities like Cambridge do? To respond to the situation the authors argue among other things for:
More recently, on December 5, 2024, New York City passed its controversial “City For All Housing Bill” See our recent blog post: HERE One of the concerns voiced by opponents to this plan is that there is no evidence that adding more luxury housing serves to bring down housing costs, indeed the opposite is often happening. And residents in cities in both the U.S and Canada are speaking out along the same lines in places like Vancouver, as shown in this framing of the situation here re. Pause the Plan (Vancouver Canada - Rally at City Hall, Nov. 23, 2024). The results in the Province of Ottawa make it clear that a large majority of newly built condos (are being purchased by investors, as seen in an October 3, 2024 article aptly titled “Ontario’s Big Cities Saw Investors Buy Up To 85% of Condos, Fueled By Gov Incentives” published in the journal Better Dwelling. The Boston Foundation’s 2024 Housing Report Card pointed out that cities in this area should purchase existing multi-family housing to keep it affordable. This is what Boston has chosen to do. Cambridge appears to have no plans to do this, leaving the future of our city up to investors and their own profit interests.  Source https://brenthull.com/article/old-growth-wood We need to take a hard look at what is actually causing the relative lack of new housing here and around the country. Zoning per se is not the problem. If it were City Council would have voted to allow multi-family housing in every neighborhood long ago as many of us have asked them to do. Instead, the problem is both deeper and more widespread. We need go no further than a October 31, 2024 Technology Review article titled “The Surprising Barrier that Keeps us from Building All the Housing we Need” by Albert Saiz, an urban economics and real estate professor at MIT. He has observed that “…construction costs account for more than two-thirds of the price of a new house in much of the country, including the Southwest and West, where much of the building is happening. Even in places like California and New England, where land is extremely expensive, construction accounts for 40% to 60% of value of a new home….” He turns to a recent paper by University of Chicago economists titled “The Strange and Awful Path of Productivity in the US Construction Sector,” who point out “…that productivity growth in US construction came to a halt beginning around 1970.” They “…calculated it in one of the key parts of the construction business: housing. They found that the number of houses or total square footage (houses are getting bigger) built per employee each year was flat or even falling over the last 50 years.” The lack of progress in terms of output pales in comparison to many other industries such as car manufacturing. In construction, it was largely cost overruns, work quality concerns, and messy production factors that were core ongoing problems. Among other things in play are “…the ‘misaligned incentives’ of the various players, who often make more money the longer a project takes.’” Far better results come with the use of new digital technologies, more standardized processing procedures, and better more efficient business practices.”  In a place such as Cambridge where land costs contribute most significantly to the cost of new housing, and construction costs add another 40-60% to costs, it is clear where the problems lie. In addition to the acquisition of critically needed housing by venture capitalists and others (jacking up housing costs beyond the means of most residents), it is also clear that inefficiencies in building processes themselves that add to the time. Good design via design review and oversight are not the problem, nor is zoning per se. The problem for housing in Cambridge is misstated priorities, and the politicization of the process itself for political and financial gain. The “housing crisis” here as with disaster capitalism is largely an issue of how some individuals and groups has sought to take advantage of the situation while offering nothing that will maintain or improve the situation for many who are seeking help. If cities like Minneapolis are the model, let’s follow that route, allow several units on the same property, and build higher on the main avenues.
In the above cited October 31, 2024 Technology Review article we learn that "[w]hen Jit Kee Chin joined Suffolk Construction as its chief data officer in 2017, the title was unique in the industry. But Chin, armed with a PhD in experimental physics from MIT and a 10-year stint at McKinsey, brought to the large Boston-based firm the kind of technical and management expertise often missing from construction companies. And she recognized that large construction projects—including the high-rise apartment buildings and sprawling data centers that Suffolk often builds—generate vast amounts of useful data. At the time, much of the data was siloed; information on the progress of a project was in one place, scheduling in another, and safety data and reports in yet another. 'The systems didn’t talk to each other, and it was very difficult to cross-correlate,' says Chin. Getting all the data together so it could be understood and utilized across the business was an early task. 'Almost all construction companies are talking about how to better use their data now,' says Chin, who is currently Suffolk’s CTO, and since her hiring, 'a couple others have even appointed chief data officers.' But despite such encouraging signs, she sees the effort to improve productivity in the industry as still very much a work in progress." In short, change is on the (near) horizon. And let’s not overlook that fact that our still sustainable existing homes are not only providing some of the best naturally occurring affordable housing in the city but also built to last. And the timbers and many other materials used in them are FAR superior to those used often used in recent wood frame construction.  "Over time, Housing in Boston has transformed from basic shelter and local business into a lucrative investment commodity." (Boston Magazine "Home Sweet Home" by Catherine Elton Dec/Jan 2024 p.83). By now we are familiar with Naomi Klein’s well-known study of how individuals and companies are profiting from crises, titled The Shock Doctrine: the Rise of Disaster Capitalism. Klein coined the term, di*sas*ter cap*i*tal*ism, specifically to mean the “exploitation of a sudden crisis for private profit,” an event that serves as a “… catalyst to shower aid on the wealthiest interests in society, including those most responsible for our current vulnerabilities” ("A Primer on Disaster Capitalism, Our New Normal" – In These Times, April 16, 2020). Klein The framing comes from war or natural disasters, when crises in play enable one to engage “pseudo- solutions” that would never be allowed in normal contexts. Jacqui Germain’s September 2021 article, “What is Disaster Capitalism?” in Teen Vogue points to the broader ramifications. “Disaster capitalism is all about privatization efforts like this, says Klein, and the exploitative practice also includes moving to deregulate the financial sphere….” Disaster Capitalism on the CharlesWhile not specifically framing the Boston area situation in terms of by now the well known Disaster Capitalism theory, Boston Magazine author, Catherine Elton begins her important and very timely article this way. "Greater Boston's eviction crisis extends far beyond those facing hard times - it's displacing people who staff our hospitals, making our universities run, and keep our favorite restaurants open." The article features individuals caught up in this mess, including Noreli Vasquez who lives in East Boston. "Tired after another nightshift cleaning MIT's math department building, dragged herself down the hall to her apartment. And that is when she saw it, an envelope taped to her front door. The notice inside made her heart stop - she had 15 days to leave for unpaid rent." With little money since her husband's recent death, the Colombian emigree, Betty Lewis, "burst into tears as her mind spiraled 'Where will i go? What will become of me? Am I going to wind up sleeping on a park bench?'" She is one of the "...51% of greater Boston renters who qualify as rent-burdened" with a yearly salary of less than $105,000 according to The Boston Foundation's Greater Boston Housing Report Card -2024 Housing Report Card. Ms. Lewis' eviction is not unique in the Boston area, this timely article notes, and some 11,000 households in 2023 faced similar tragic circumstances, since these numbers increasing significantly since the Covid pandemic crisis, and likely to be even higher this year. Evictions now are hitting people who are fully employed like Betty Lewis, whose salary, like that of most here, has not risen to keep pace, and local coordinator of City Life, Steve Meacham, notes that "Boston-area tenants are facing a current barrage of no-fault evictions, the most he has seen during his 25 years at the organization." Solutions offered range from a return to rent control to a means for tenants to purchase their own apartments, called TOPA (Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act) which failed to find MA state legislation support. Happily Betty Lewis did find housing through City Life but many others have not. The article which finishes on p.129 is followed on pp. 130-131 by a two page color spread featuring six elegant recently renovated Cambridge condo and and other home interiors ranging from $2,450,000 to $16,495,000 along with the greeting "Warmest wishes this holiday season." We need to explore more closely at the root causes of this largely local, area, national and global largely manufactured housing crisis that has led to the kind of Disaster Capitalism responses we are seeing in Cambridge now. Here too rental and other home purchases are being gobbled up by an ever hungrier housing investment market. In June 21, 2021 issue of Bisnow reported that immediately in the aftermath of Covid, Blackstone, one of the world's largest housing investors, spent $325,000,000 to acquire several apartment complexes in East Cambridge. Apartments here today are now the priceist in the city. Unfortunately Cambridge is not alone in this situation, and what other cities have found is that we can's simply "build our way out of this" human created tragedy Oh Canada (China, and Cambridge)!One place to look is Manitoba Canada. Here we read in an October 2023 article in The Manitoban that “Canada’s Housing Crisis [is the] Culmination of Capitalism.” The author, Jessie Krahn, writes that “The news hits harder as the so-called ‘housing crisis’ looms over most young people’s futures in Canada. Housing in Toronto is ranked among the most overvalued housing markets in the world, surpassing cities like New York, Los Angeles and Paris.” She goes on to ask “Won’t the private sector simply fill in the vacuum left by social housing, offering cheap rental units to meet demand? Unfortunately, no. As much as people love to gesture to a god-like figure of “the market” that keeps society well-oiled and running, the market will only make this problem worse.” The article author proceeds to cite sociologist and policy analyst, Karl Beitel who “…argues that not only will the market never supply housing affordable to most people who need it in urban centres, efforts to make housing cheaper — like densification and increasing supply — will not reduce prices “within the current capitalist context.” To Krahn “What is being called a housing crisis is a crisis of capitalism. The public’s allergy to addressing the issue directly is permitting governments’ limpidly passive approaches to alleviating a disaster. Well-intentioned critics of the housing crisis argue it’s a result of insufficient stock. Increased demand supposedly leads to shorter supply, and therefore prices increase when supply is scarcer. Offering more supply to meet demand theoretically ought to ease the currently burdensome cost of housing. Even luxury units are often vacant in urban centres.” Moreover, as Beitel makes clear “many luxury rental units are kept that way purely for the comfort of rich people who may use them when they come into town. An October 3, 2024 article in Better Dwelling notes that "Ontario's Big Cities Saw Investors Buy Up to 85% of Condos, Fueled by Government Incentives." The article goes on to note that the Canadian Housing Statistics Program shows that this high investor purchase number is hitting the ten largest metropolitan areas hardest, with investors now owning 2 in 5 Ontario condos, buying up "most of the new supply" and "Ontario real estate investors are consuming an even bigger share of the condo market." What results is far higher housing costs. What was once a crisis, has now been made an even bigger one thanks largely to the disastrous impacts of Housing Disaster Capitalism. The country of China is facing much the same problem and impacts on the nation's economy are hitting very hard. A September 2024 article in the The Diplomat explains the "boom and bust" housing construction drive impacts on this country's economy. Cambridge Market-Push MemesWe find some of the same thing in play in Cambridge today. In Cambridge, the disaster capitalism meme has a certain “fit” not only with the housing “crisis” but also the proposed solution (free up the regulations and allow investors and profiteers to benefit even more. The proposed upzoning’s larger focus on enhanced “market based solutions” (with the strong urging that they be largely deregulated) what we see the world again through the largely dysfunctional Neo-Liberal lens. Since the markets and investors win, we know all too well who those are who lose the most, the poor, working, and renter classes. The current Cambridge City Council proposal’s push for more and larger luxury housing with no core safeguards invites investors and developers to demolish existing homes in order profit as they see fit with few if any guardrails regardless of likely impacts . Here too a “crisis” was developed and expanded in proportion to meet set aims and benefits, This began with the buildup to the 2020 “affordable housing overlay” (allowing 4 story buildings in residential areas citywide) in order to make a dent in the purported 20,000+ on the waiting list (now admitted to be c.3300 local residents and workers), the new homes costing tax payers upwards of $1,000,000 a unit, even without land costs (which is provided to developers at no fee) – far beyond what market housing would cost. The “crisis” call continued with AHO 2.0 (now allowing FAR taller, larger and denser buildings on corridors and squares, of a size befitting dorm zoning scale. And on schedule for the November 2024 election comes a new market rate (“luxury”) housing upzoning proposal, that makes it more difficult for developers to compete for properties suitable for 4 story affordable AHO units since the luxury housing can be 6 stories in height and would also be without parking minimums. Will this address the “crisis” of housing affordability in Cambridge? No. Indeed this is likely to cause not only evictions and lease terminations, but also homes that will cost renters and owners alike far more than they are costing now. Pushing Back on Disaster Capitalism in Housing Some U.S. cities are addressing Disaster Capitalism impacts on housing in their communities. An October 19, 2023 article in Yes! Magazine, titled "Pushing Back Against Disaster Capitalism in Florida" notes that a coalition of local churches has had some impact in “…resisting and mitigating against rent gouging and displacement…” following a recent hurricane. We would do well to observe that here as well, by asking the Cambridge City Council to acquire properties (not developers) to keep them affordable to those that need them. This is what Boston is doing, and this is solution is the one being showcased in the 2024 Greater Boston Housing Report Card, put out by The Boston Foundation. They note that Cambridge has produced way more housing than most other cities in the state, and this despite our small size, and existing density. Teamwork – bringing together planners and investors to work together has been proposed by the Thomson Reuters Foundation, in their October 2020 report on Preserving Affordable Housing After a Disaster. Here they note in an article by Olivia Nielsen, that “As crises become more frequent, planners and investors should work together to avoid gentrification….” Citing examples in Lebanon and elsewhere, she notes that “…savvy investors seek opportunities to buy up the damaged housing stock. These investors are sometimes referred to as ‘vultures’ as they seek to profit off the loss of others. By buying homes at a discount, these investors can choose to undertake the needed repairs or simply demolish the structure and replace it with a more luxurious one, which will yield a greater price.” Here “Neighborhoods are putting up signs saying that “Beirut is not for sale!’ as they seek to defend themselves against predatory investors.” She notes that the city is trying to “…preserve the city’s damaged historical heritage buildings, by forbidding sales without the first approval of the Ministry of Culture.” Let’s turn now to another source: Strategic Actions for a Just Economy (SAJE) and its thoughtful piece on the nature of "Disaster Capitalism: Money from Misery". Here we are told that “While a disaster could be an opportunity to address existing stresses and inequities, it’s also an opportunity to exploit them.” In Los Angeles, they note, “Following the 2008 housing finance crisis, when tenants lost their homes, thousands of houses were foreclosed. Corporate landlords swept in and bought up the land just to re-rent at exorbitant rates.” They note in turn that “This is disaster capitalism at work. It uses the moment of crisis to change cities in a way that benefits private capital and investor profits at the expense of the poor, working and renting class.” The only viable response is one that “…will require a dramatic shift in priorities for policy makers. A home should be seen as a home, not as an investment and profit-making opportunity. We need policies organized around community-centered development, that result in healthy and affordable housing because nobody should make money from the misery of our communities.” If market-based, neo-liberal “build baby build” solutions are not the answer that will bring the benefits we want, what should we do instead. For one thing, since we are already on the road to effectively meeting if not surpassing our 2030 housing we should stay the course with this solution, and follow our Envision Goals to build higher on the corridors, add more green areas to our denser neighborhoods, and safeguard our neighborhoods and historic homes. CONCLUSIONSTo conclude, falling into the trauma of Disaster Capitalism in Housing is NOT a given, nor should we let it be. Some cities like Vienna Austria has addressed the problem through a greatly expanded program of nationally supported public housing. The Boston Foundation Report proposes that area cities themselves purchase properties to keep the housing more affordable. Tearing down existing buildings, and evicting more tenants, as Cambridge's current "Build Baby Build' plan promotes will make a bad situation even worse. We are better than this, and if recent studies are any indicator, new construction technologies to make this critical industry more productive will help a lot as well. In the meantime, and for the long term, it is imperative that we keep our existing sustainable homes. They were built to last and will serve the next generation of Cambridge tenants and home owners well.
*Removed the section on the re-inventing the construction industry to a separate blogpost. |
Author:Suzanne P. Blier is one of many active civic leaders in Cambridge. She serves as president of both the Harvard Square Neighborhood Association and the Cambridge Citizens Coalition. She is the author of the 2023 book, Streets of Newtowne: A Story of Cambridge, MA. She is a professor of art and architectural history at Harvard and teaches a course on the history of Cambridge and contemporary issues here. Archives
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