Urban History Matters: Here, There, & in Film

         Still from Metropolis (1927)                                   Paris Le Corbusier's Hi-Rise Plan                 St. Louis televised demolition of Prutti-Igoe 

Even respected architects and urban planners sometimes get things very wrong.  Robert Moses of New York City is a classical example, but recall  tooLe Corbusier’s Paris Plan Voisin, a proposed redevelopment project for in 1925 hoping to replace a major Right Bank (of the Seine) area in central Paris. Fortunately, it never happened, but it did inspire others, including MinoruYamasak, architect of NYC’s Twin Towers. His equally famous 1954 St. Louis Missouri housing development, known as the  Pruitt–Igoe housing project, was demolished soon after, in 1972–1976.

Pruit-Ogie Housing Development Project, St. Louis Missouri, 1954  (Demolished 1972-1976)

Recall too that Cambridge’s own 8 story Riverview Apartments, has recently required its largely senior condo owners to move out unexpectedly, leaving their larger furniture in place, due to engineering concerns around faulty construction and cement. At present it is not clear that the needed repairs can be made, possibly it will be replaced, most likely with a far taller (18 story) luxury condo building.
 

Riverview (Cambridge MA):
​CRA's Urban Renewal Difficulties

Below are images of  one of the Cambridge Redevelopment Authority's (CRA's) first Urban Renewal Projects, which they took over in 1957. There is a detailed overview of this Cambridge Redevelopment Authority project and earlier plans for it HERE

Riverview  Redevelopment Project    Riverview area removal project (CRA)             18 story plans (1955-(1965)          

This Fall (2024) it was discovered that the contractors for this CRA project had used substandard concrete along with improperly reinforced with steel rebar.  The residents of the 66 condos and building maintenance crews were unaware of the structural problems for nearly 60 years since the 1972 conversion. Read more HERE. The residents of this 8 story Riverview condo building who were forced out (many in their 80s and 90s), had to leave their larger furniture in place, due to engineering concerns around faulty construction and cement.

At present it is not clear that the needed repairs can be made, and one possibility is that the building itself will need to be replaced, most likely with a far taller (18 story) luxury condo building. The original 18 story building plans for this site had been rejected for a building more in keeping with the 1.5-2 story heights of nearby homes.
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This larger Riverside (Riverview) West Cambridge area, that is part of the Marsh-Half Crown Neighborhood Conservation District, is made up of many one time  worker’s cottages, most ​of which have been converted to multi-million dollar single family homes, including many down-conversions from duplexes to single family homes, their two front doors attesting to their earlier history. This is a key symbol of the kinds of gentrification that CRA and Cambridge itself is too often associated with.  

​The Cambridge Redevelopment Authority is still an important force in this city.  The Cambridge Housing Authority is also important and has also been in the news because much needed repairs are not being completed, and City Council has been called on to undertake the multi-million dollar repairs instead. Read more HERE
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THE 2024 Greater BOSTON HOUSING REPORT CARD

The important 2024 Greater Boston Housing Report Card notes that "...over the past nine years, the vast majority (86 percent) of new housing built in these 15 cities has come from just the top six producers—Boston, Revere, Quincy, Cambridge, Everett, and Somerville."  This is clearly of concern particularly for small cities like Cambridge with little available space. 

The Report highlights Boston. They note that "...while the MBTA Communities law does not apply to the Boston, the City is developing its own local policy that shares some commonalities. The Squares + Streets Initiative aims to rezone areas near major transit hubs to allow for development of multifamily housing, small businesses, public space, and arts and culture. A simplified zoning code was codified into city law April 17, 2024, and the City has outlined 18 areas in which it hopes to apply the new code. While this approach appears helpful for spurring more housing development in these transit-rich neighborhoods, there’s concern that it doesn’t go far enough. These 18 areas are generally larger chunks of space than those found in MBTA Communities, suggesting more physical space for the policy to have impact, but unlike MBTA Communities, there is no minimal requirement to what allowances these districts should have, which can leave opportunity for the new change to be less effective." None-the-less the designated "...Squares + Streets could generate about 10,000 new housing units for Boston" (and the area)." 

The Report places special emphasis on the need to make use of municipal land. This is something that many of us feel strongly that Cambridge should prioritize first as well.

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Trickle Down, Suppy/Demand, & Other HOUSING  Costs

​Sizable problems have emerged in Cambridge and elsewhere  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.
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There is also the 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. ​

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.
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THE CHINESE EXAMPLE: BOOM & BUST

The Chinese example provides another angle on the difficult problems with government housing investments as China has seen recently with its recent housing "bubble" and "bust," with developers and communities alike suffering significantly with this crisis. ​

The September 2024 issue of The Diplomat points to some of the issues around recent housing defaults and the serious impacts resulting from this in their article "Chinese Property Market: Explaining the Boom and Bust."  Any housing policy must be studied from various angles before anything is advanced much less enacted as new zoning policy.

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URBAn PLANNING & REDEVELOPMENT IN FILM 

Urban Development Plans of the sort addressed here have also been the subject of oth fiction and non-fiction films.

​Here are a few recommended ones to watch this weekend (or any other)

1. Hands Over the City: Rod Steiger and the blistering film about land speculation and a vile land developer, as well as citizen activists up against a powerful city council by Francesco Rosi titled Hands Over the City, which won the Golden Lion Award in the 1963 Venice Film Festival (in Italian with English captions).  Set in Naples. Cambridge documentary Film Maker Federico Muchnik selection. See it on Criterion. Probably one can live stream HERE
 
2. Citizen Jane. The epic battle between Jane Jacobs versus Robert Moses. This 2016 Sundance competitor is titled: Citizen Jane: Battle for the City  is available on Youtube: HERE 

3. Real Estate Expert Answers US Housing Crisis Questions Wired  (Kate Nelischer 2024)

4. How Britain (almost) Solved its Housing Crisis (Tom Nicholas 2024) HERE

5. Push: Documentary on Housing Crisis in Modern Cities (Fredrik Gertten 2019) 
Official Trailer    Review in  The Guardian
 
6. Broken City: Land Speculation, Inequality and Urban Crisis: a Conversation with Patrick Condon and Andrew Berman (Village Preservation July 2024).

7. Pause the Plan (Vancouver Canada - Rally at City Hall, Nov. 23, 2024). 

8.Metropolis: And not to be forgotten, is this frightening Fritz Lang 1927 silent film, about a grim futuristic city of Metropolis, pitting wealthy greedy industrialists against workers barely able to survive.  HERE is the trailer.