Cambridge Citizens Coalition

Where We Are in Cambridge 

In Cambridge, unlike many places elsewhere, our once thriving factory history had far more impact on zoning and red-lining than racial discrimination did. Indeed our first African American neighborhoods were in the A1 and A2 areas today. 

ALL of our current housing is legal, even if situated in city areas prior to current zoning rules. Any residential structure that is destroyed (in fire for example) can be rebuilt to its current footprint or height. Three story buildings ("triple-deckers") can still be built, but to different interior design guidelines due to fire hazards associated with the original "triple-decker" format.
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What We are Seeing Here...

We “...have created a situation where ordinary Americans are not bidding against other families, they’re bidding against the billionaires for these houses. And it’s driving up rents and its driving up home prices.” U. S. Senator Jeff Merkely, Oregon.

"Asking for-profit developers to fix the affordable housing problem is like asking an arsonist to put out their own fire. What is their incentive?"    The Black Response Cambridge on the U​pzoning Petition:"Missing Middle Fails for Housing Affordability

 "People are very bad at macroeconomics. Even many economists. We simply cannot see a whole system and constantly forget the first lesson of macro that someone’s spending is another’s income" (Economist Cameron Murray, author of The Great Housing Hijack; source: X/Twitter March 2, 2025).

​The March 14, 2025, Harvard Gazette article on rental affordability stating that "You’re going to have a hard time solving the affordability problem through zoning." HERE                       

Cambridge MFH Housing Related Websites 
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Video of Engineer and Civic Activist on the  Increased  Problems with Cambridge Flooding   due to the MFH ordinance because of minimizing setbacks to 5 feet.  ​
https://www.facebook.com/reel/1753385475651432
Cambridge Housing Map:  ​https://www.cambridgehousingmap.org/
Cambridge Redevelopment Tracker:
 https://cambridge-redev-tracker.pages.dev/
Cambridge Housing Facts Website:   https://www.cambridgehousingfacts.org/
Cambridge Redevelopment Google List  -   updated   daily:   https://docs.google.com/document/d/1r1eetSeB-dz2BcfOJu_QGS2o3V0_COvSLh1rv8qlQNA/edit?pli=1&tab=t.0
                                                           
​                                                      Housing and the Environment

Housing Density: NOT always an Environment Net-Positive :  

Tall Buildings and the Environment: "Skyscrapers use and lose more energy than low-rise buildings, research shows.... 'The results show that height is a significant predictor of energy use, even accounting for other variables,'the researchers  note in a paper published in the journal "Building Research and Information." In fact, each additional story in a building is associated with a 2.4 percent increase in electricity use and 2.9 percent increase in fossil fuel use, more than doubling the average emissions per square foot for the tallest buildings in their survey."  Source: Greentech Media November 2020.

 Home Demolitions and the    Environment: 

​One  "...  study finds that it takes 10 to 80 years for a new building that is 30 percent more efficient than an average-performing existing building to overcome, through efficient operations, the negative climate change impacts related to the construction process.”   They   call for policy makers to acknowledge the environmental impact of sending usable buildings to landfills; strive for density without demolition; provide meaningful incentives for retention and reuse; and maintain or strengthen demolition review requirements for designated historic properties." https://restoreoregon.org/2021/04/12/understanding-the-carbon-cost-of-demolition/  ​

Cambridge Reports and Docs

Neighborhood Studies and Meetings 

Boston Area Reports  

Mass State Reports 

National & International Reports on Upzoning and Housing

Housing Report Summaries 


“Cracks in the YIMBY Consensus: The Zoning Scapegoat — Does Regulation Actually Explain the Housing Crisis?” (2026) Conversation with John Mondragon of the Fed Reserve Bank of San Francisco. Watch:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4Fewx_rcHI

"Abundance for Who? Housing Access and Affordability in High-Growth Metropolitan Areas"    by McRae et al. (Jan 2026 ) Center of Poverty and Inequality. Georgetown Law. HERE   https://www.georgetownpoverty.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/AbundanceforWho.pdf 
 Using estimates from the American Housing Survey (AHS), we observe trends from 2015 to 2023 in six metropolitan areas—Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, Phoenix, Seattle, and Washington, D.C.—where newly built housing made up a larger share of the market than the national average.  Overall, the analysis shows: ■ Newer housing stock in these metropolitan areas primarily consisted of small units in large multifamily buildings for the rental market or large single-family homes for homeowners, and largely served moderate- and higher-income households. ■ Even in areas where the supply of new housing units grew, the share of units serving lower-income renters decreased or stagnated. ■ Rent growth was generally higher for units serving households with the lowest incomes when compared to those serving higher-income households.

“Inequality, not Regulation, Drives America's Housing Affordability Crisis” by Buchholz et. al. 2026.    LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 131070, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library. HERE    https://ideas.repec.org/p/ehl/lserod/131070.html
A popular view holds that declining housing affordability stems from regulations that restrict new supply, and that deregulation will spur sufficient market-rate construction to meaningfully improve affordability. We argue that this ‘deregulationist’ view rests upon flawed assumptions. Through empirical simulation, we show that even a dramatic, deregulation-driven supply expansion would take decades to generate widespread affordability in high-cost U.S. markets. We advance an alternative explanation of declining affordability grounded in demand structure and geography: uneven demand growth – driven by rising interpersonal and interregional inequality – is the primary driver of declining affordability in recent decades. For cost-burdened households, trickle-down benefits from deregulation will be insufficient and too slow.


"Supply Constraints do not Explain Price and Quantity Growth Across U. S. Cities." by  Schuyler Louie et al.,   National Bureau of Economic Research   Working Paper.  March 2025:     Conclusions:  Housing cost impacts largely result from people with higher incomes moving into places with lower incomes.  This study  also  reveals  that adding more "market rate" (luxury) housing to a city does NOT reduce housing costs was published by three economists in the National Bureau of Economic Research.     Cambridge MFH upzoning, while not addressed by this team, has increased housing prices here, and would appear to confirm the results of these eminent economists.   https://www.frbsf.org/research-and-insights/publications/economic-letter/2026/02/housing-affordability-and-housing-demand/

Yonah Freemark   "Zoning Change: Upzonings, Downzonings, and Their Impacts on Residential Construction, Housing Costs, and Neighborhood Demographics"   Sage Publications   vol 38, no.4.   Summary: "Many policymakers concerned about high housing costs argue that   easing development through altered land-use regulations can increase building, thereby boosting   affordability   and reducing segregation.  I  develop a framework to explain links - sometimes contradictory - between upzonings and construction, prices, and demographics. I evaluate scholarship  and compare findings with research on downzoning's impeding development.   Evidence indicates that upzonings offer mixed success in terms of housing production, reduced costs, and social integration in impacted neighborhoods; outcomes   depend on market demand, local   context, housing types, and timing. "   https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/08854122231166961 

​“Housing Affordability” by Patrick Condon and Thomas Kroeker. Insights.  April 3, 2026: HERE.   See also:   Condon's    Broken City: Land Speculation, Inequality, and Urban Crisis by Vancouver urban planner Patrick M. Condon argues that runaway urban housing costs are driven by land speculation, where land is treated as a financial asset rather than a utility, leading to massive inequality. Condon, a professor at UBC, proposes solutions like capturing land value increases for public benefit through land value taxes and zoning reforms, drawing on examples from Vienna, Taiwan, and Portland, to shift land back to a public good and address the housing crisis.   Key arguments Land as an asset: The core problem is that global capital markets treat urban land as a speculative investment, causing prices to skyrocket (e.g., 600% increase in Vancouver land prices between 2008-2016).    

Rebecca Diamond,  "The Unequal Effects of Upzoning: Evidence from Cook County" Abstract: We quantify the real estate developer response to a variety of proposed zoning reforms by estimating a flexible structural model of developer behavior using data from Cook County, Illinois. The structural model combines a flexible hedonic model of house prices with revealed preferences of developer behavior, enabling us to evaluate heterogeneous supply-side responses to zoning reforms. We find that a sweeping zoning reform allowing at minimum 3 units on every lot only increases the aggregate housing supply by 3.5 percent, with the average lot having 1.3 units built on it. Development is limited because the revenue from a 3-unit multifamily building typically does not justify the cost of purchasing and demolishing existing single-family homes. Furthermore, an alternative zoning reform to “streamline" the permitting process leads to essentially no new development. In order to see a large supply-side response from up-zoning, cities must either make more vacant land available for residential development or permit much higher density per lot.
https://www.economics.harvard.edu/news/2025/11/full-circle-rebecca-diamonds-return-harvard-economics


A Dec. 2024   article in Urban Studies  (peer reviewed Sage Publications) titled  "Upzoning and gentrification: Heterogeneous impacts of neighbourhood-level upzoning in New York City"  by Kim et al. focuses on   gentrification and reducing impacts of racial and ethnic segregation in NYC. This  scientific report reveals that   indiscriminate upzoning has led to MORE gentrification in the lower income areas:   HERE. They conclude that neighborhoods that were upzoned between 2001 and 2013 generally experienced more housing construction, but they also became wealthier, more highly educated, and whiter than comparable neighborhoods that were not upzoned. Housing prices and rents rose significantly in many upzoned areas, particularly in lower-income neighborhoods.   The strongest signs of gentrification occurred in heavily upzoned areas and in predominantly Black neighborhoods, where demographic shifts were especially pronounced. The authors conclude that while upzoning increased housing supply, it was also associated with accelerated neighborhood change and gentrification, suggesting that zoning reform alone may not be sufficient to preserve affordability or prevent displacement pressures.The same thing is happening in Cambridge in our once lower income neighborhoods where increasingly long time minority and other residents are being forced out or priced out.

Tom Angotti and Sylvia Morse (2023), Zoned Out! Race, Displacement, and City Planning in New York City (Revised Edition).   They   argue that New York City's rezoning and redevelopment policies have often facilitated gentrification and displacement in low-income communities of color while failing to deliver housing that is affordable to existing residents. He contends that zoning changes alone cannot solve housing inequality and should be accompanied by stronger public planning and anti-displacement measures.

Jenna Davis (2021), “How Do Upzonings Impact Neighborhood Demographic Change? Examining the Link Between Land Use Policy and Gentrification in New York City,” Land Use Policy, 103.   Using New York City rezoning cases, Davis found that upzoned neighborhoods experienced demographic changes consistent with gentrification, including increases in higher-income and more highly educated residents. Her work emphasizes that upzoning can stimulate development while also accelerating neighborhood change in certain contexts.

Jenna Davis (2021), “The Double-Edged Sword of Upzoning,” Brookings Institution. In this policy-oriented summary, Davis characterizes upzoning as a “double-edged sword,” noting that while increasing development capacity may expand housing supply, it can also intensify market pressures and contribute to gentrification in vulnerable neighborhoods unless paired with affordability and tenant-protection   policies.   https://www.brookings.edu/articles/the-double-edged-sword-of-upzoning/?utm_source

Portland Maine analysis indicates that 20% Inclusionary Housing works.