Re: Ames Street Residence/88 Ames Str./Kendall Sq./Cambridge
I don't think the suggestion about private investors funding community mitigation is quite as harsh as you are suggesting.
There is a certain moral (though likely not legal) argument that if you, mister private developer, are going to make a lot of money by essentially destroying my neighborhood, and my home of 30 years, then yes, I, as a human being, and an actual resident of the community, are entitled to some level of compensation for that destruction.
Pure capitalism doesn't work that way, but capitalism coupled with some social responsibility should.
The area is really moving fast. I used to work right in the tech square buildings and walk through those places. I think the best for all parties solution would be to have a development plan for the area. Take three of the buildings move the residents and build a new, denser, more mixed income building. Move those residents back in and have the next set of building residents move in there so you can build up the next building in the site. Give all the residents priority on the jobs there. If you built nice 6-7 story buildings as a replacement you could double the number of affordable housing and add just as many market rate units while allowing the community to reap the benefits of all the rising value of their neighborhood. I think this is the type of thing city housing authorities should be focused on. Otherwise we will just see situations outlined in today's globe where 10000 people apply for 73 units.
Both of you are just seeing a recent manifestation of the certain Cambridge-uniquity:
Cambridge has always been a strange amalgam, far more complex than the traditional town & gown of most university towns:
Since MIT arrived in 1916 Cambridge could be characterized as a layer cake:
1) body -- mostly blue collar people [frequently ethnic relatively new immigrants] with blue collar companies within an easy commute -- especially around Kendall Sq.
2) mid layer of white / pink collar people commuting to Boston to work in the Financial District
3) upper layer -- white collar / professional people with Harvard & MIT and a few other local employers
4) a thin frosting of the uber-rich [particularly around Brattle St.] replete with trust funds and coupon clipping as their hobby
Then around the mid-century things changed fundamentally:
the Blue Collars got the majority of the shaft as heavy manufacturing places such as Kendall [Boiler & Tank, American Builtrite Rubber, Boston Woven Hose] were decimated by companies closing and the land being bought at rock-bottom prices by the Feds [NASA now Volpe DOT] and MIT [now being developed as the Kendall high tech / biotech R&D mecca]. Public housing was constructed mostly for returning GI's to provide them an assist with their "start-up" families.
Meanwhile, RT-128 was booming with the kind of growth in employment seen in Cambridge today.
by 1970 Kendall in particular turned into a wasteland of empty acres as NASA decamped and the DOT only wanted a small piece. A new demographic Class arrived [#0] on the cake with little or no income and a major demand for the public housing which was being gradually depopulated by the lower-middle class [#1,2] as they found employment in the suburbs and moved to be near the jobs on Rt-128
Population of Cambridge was falling as both jobs and people moved out to RT-128 and beyond.
The community was highly split along 0,1,2,3,4 as above -- suggestions ranged from a fancy Civic Plaza and replacement for the City Hall [#3,4] to an immense lower income housing development [#0,3,4] to MIT's proposal which effectively turned into Tech Sq and then Cambridge Center
Eventually, Cambridge became very chicque and a new #4+ or #5 class began to move in and demand that things not change in a way as to make Cambridge less of what they had found so good
The NIMBY's against major development in Cambridge in general and Kendall in particular are both the lower-end and the top-end mostly became some of the strongest nimbys opposing everything even if it wasn't near to their mansions
Now in the past decade Cambridge is changing again to more resemble a 21st C version of late 19th / early 20th C Cambridge with Novartis and Genzyme the Kendall Boiler & Tank and Boston Woven Hose of today and of course Harvard and especially MIT owning a whole lot more of the town.
Full disclosure: my grandfather [father's side] arrived in Cambridge circa 1900 from Europe and my father was born in Cambridge Hospital about a decade later
Post WWII my father lived in East Cambridge in a multifamily house owned by his sister while he attended BU as a GI-bill commuter student.
A few decades later I lived in Cambridge while I attended MIT and often visited my aunt by walking across the Kendall wasteland.
30 years ago I returned to the Boston area and have lived in Lexington with frequent visits to Cambridge ever since
