I grew up in Cambridge and I spent years on the City Council. My grandmother and Father immigrated from Italy to Cambridge because we were an industrial city. My Grandmother worked in a candy factory. The City, like most manufacturing cities, changed dramatically. The difference for Cambridge is we had Harvard and especially MIT to fill the void. Life Sciences really transformed our economy. For 16 years, I have spent my days helping projects through the permitting process by making sure they addressed the needs of both the developer and the community . Having watched this city evolve from every angle is something special. Cambridge has always been a place where big ideas and tight geography live side by side. That is not changing. What is changing is the pressure. We are trying to stay the global capital of life sciences while also being a real home for families, seniors, students, and working people.
The next decade is about balance. It is also about being honest that the old rules were built for a Cambridge that does not exist anymore.
Life Sciences Are Still a Core Strength, but the Market Has Shifted
Cambridge earned its reputation because of MIT, Harvard, world-class hospitals, and the talent that wants to be near them. Labs and biotech companies are part of the city’s DNA. For a while, the demand felt endless, and developers rushed to build lab space wherever zoning would allow it.
Now we are in a different moment. A lot of new lab space was delivered at once, and vacancy has climbed sharply.Interest rates, built lab saturation, construction costs and the unknown in Washington have caused a major slow down. Office vacancy never recovered from Covid. Recent reporting shows close to a quarter of Cambridge lab space sitting vacant, and landlords are dealing with the consequences of speculative building. That does not mean life sciences are going away.Cambridge is still most insulated because we are an epicenter but it’s still a major blow. It means the city and the market are recalibrating.
What I take from this is simple. Cambridge still wants lab growth, but we need to be smarter about where it goes, how fast it comes online, and what it gives back to the community. Also, is there an opportunity to increase housing supply in an area that sees far more demand than supply.
Housing Is the Other Half of the City’s Future
If you want a strong innovation city, you need people who can live there. For years Cambridge talked about the housing crisis like it was weather. Something that happened to us. The city has started treating it like a policy choice. I was successful on some of the largest market housing projects in the city. They all included significant percentages of affordable housing. As an elected official I was a very supply focused policy maker and that carried into my permitting career.
In the late 90’s we voted to incent housing in many industrial districts and it worked. Our inclusionary ordinance which I sponsored gave a density bonus for requirements of affordable housing. The math worked and we generated significant housing. There have been many other and more recent moves as well including the Affordable Housing Overlay passed in 2020. It lets 100 percent affordable projects bypass certain zoning limits, which removes cost and delay. That overlay has already helped unlock new affordable developments across the city. Unfortunately upzoning and reducing parking requirements came when interest rates and construction costs made housing next to impossible.
Unfortunately, what we have learned is even the most aggressive local action cannot offset broader macro economics. It’s good to try but not one thing alone moves the dial. Also, politics is volatile so fights must be carefully chosen or you lose political support for a strong supply side housing movement.
Zoning Is Becoming a Tool for Mixed Futures, Not Single Uses
For a long time, Cambridge zoning separated uses pretty cleanly. Housing here. Labs there. Retail somewhere else. Dense cities can not afford that kind of rigidity anymore. I helped lead, as an elected official and as a permitting attorney the revolution of mixed use development. I give credit to many activists and community members who helped drive this planning philosophy. In Kendall Square out life Science capital as well as Cambridge Crossing we used Live work and play as a philosophy. Homes, Parks and shops also were a theme .
I am most proud of the way I used contract zoning in its purest democratic form to create mixed use development with a gold standard of community benefits. These were planning and Community City win- wins.
Zoning is not academic and never will be. Planning studies are great but moving the community and body politic is democratic and requires precise political execution. There is a tipping point that must be avoided.
Community Impact Is Not a Side Issue. It Is the Main Event.
When I was in elected office, I learned that people do not oppose change just because they hate buildings. They oppose change when they feel ignored, or when growth feels like something being done to them.
Life sciences growth brings jobs and tax base, but it also brings traffic, pressure on small businesses, and worries about who the city is for. Housing growth brings new neighbors, but it also raises fears about parking, shadows, and school crowding and symbolizes gentrification. .
Cambridge is trying to navigate this by putting more on the table up front. Better community process. Stronger inclusionary housing requirements. A clearer connection between big commercial growth and public benefits.
From a permitting standpoint, the projects that move fastest are the ones that treat the community as a partner early. They do not wait for a hearing to find out what matters to people.
Smart Permitting Is About Predictability and Tradeoffs
Permitting in a dense innovation city has to do two things at once. It has to protect the public interest, and it has to give builders a predictable path so good projects do not die on the vice. My words of caution is that supply side advocates need to win the actual war not the war of the most virtuous. Pick fights that will yield the best results, not just prove you care more than the next person. Again be mindful of the tipping point and be strategic. Aggravating small residential neighborhoods without big upside is just not smart politics. Keeping a big tent strategy will help even bigger battles such as rent control which failed in the past and I strongly oppose. Support for tax funded affordable housing also means not unnecessarily aggravating homeowners and taxpayers. The reality is commercial taxes pay for the good stuff.
In plain language, Cambridge can make it easier to build housing but larger economic and political battles are still driving our community. Building consensus and keeping a majority of residents moving in the same direction is as important as micro zoning ideas.
What I Hope We Get Right
Cambridge can continue to lead the country here. However, we also could become a model of division. Rent control could exacerbate that division. We have the talent base to stay a life sciences hub even through market cycles.The universities and our diverse neighborhoods are a commodity. We have to keep doing what we have been and be mindful of an ever changing external economy and always changing population. Keeping that in mind families shape neighborhoods and keeping families , children and seniors healthy and diverse is our signature and an identity we cannot lose.