Cambridge’s Inequitable Housing Choices
Earlier today, I was reading a thread on a local neighborhood mailing list, and I came across this statement from one of our local City Councillors.
When I hear “lack of supply,” it sounds almost like an accusation, as if “we”, whoever is being addressed, are somehow deficient by not providing enough of X, whatever that may be, in this case desirable housing. … This is black history month, so here’s our “history” lesson for today: gentrification and displacement are largely a continuation of America’s racist policies. The problem is not a lack of supply but a lack of equity.¹
The idea that what we are struggling from is a long-time lack of attention to equity is true, but it’s worse than that: it’s not that we’ve ignored equity, but instead that we have explicitly and intentionally fought against it. Cambridge’s continued and explicit participation in those racially motivated policies is particularly galling: housing policies explicitly designed to prevent the time when “[Black] families have moved in … and threaten to spread” continue to be in place today, more than 90 years after they were put in place.
We cut off credit to Black families; we drew lines that showed where we would and would not allow them to borrow money; and today we defend these lines. We draw battle lines between neighborhoods as if we were fighting fortified invaders, while the same communities that have always been explicitly designed in a way that prices out Black families continue to be so. Despite a decade of loss of Black families in The Port, that community is still home to a number 9 times higher than other neighborhoods in our City. Our City Councillors fight and quibble over changes that might impact our “neighborhood character”, using the same phrases to defend these decisions as have been used to keep Black families out for 100 years.
“We” — as in, “we the people”, who have the ultimate responsibility for the outcomes of our municipal government’s decisions — designed a system to price Black families out of being able to “spread” through our city. While that intent may have been accidental in the past, we’ve now spent more than 80 years since those initial HOLC maps were released updating and reinforcing our rules to ensure that the outcome was the same — an outcome that has continued to make some parts of Cambridge as inaccessible to the median income Black family as a sign saying “Keep Out”.
It is disappointing to me that last council session, we had 5 voices who were willing to acknowledge those failures to provide, and take a small step towards improving the situation — a small step towards taking down the signs that say “You’re not welcome here.” And that many in our community, and in the end, four of our elected officials, chose to say “Not Yet”. We need more time. More process. More consideration for shadows; for trees; for shapes of buildings. More consideration for everything except the very people we’ve done our best to deny a home in parts of Cambridge for nearly 100 years.
It is Black History Month, and trying to claim that the issue is not one of “supply”, but of “equity” is missing the point: Our tools to fight against equitable treatment have been tied directly to supply of housing for nearly 100 years. Those tools had an intent when they were created; and we maintain them today, carrying that intent and responsibility forward.
If you want to fight for equity in housing, you have to first admit that supply has been the primary tool we’ve used to keep housing outcomes inequitable for the entire history of most housing policy in the US.
It’s time to do better.
¹ Full message, in response to an email saying that rental prices soar because of a lack of supply: “It’s an interesting spin to say that prices soar because of “lack of supply”. Of course it is indisputably true. It’s also equally indisputably true that prices soar because of an “excess of demand.” When I hear “lack of supply,” it sounds almost like an accusation, as if “we”, whoever is being addressed, are somehow deficient by not providing enough of X, whatever that may be, in this case desirable housing. It takes two to tango, and just because people demand to live here doesn’t mean we are obligated to provide them with housing. What is especially galling about all this is that the many people who *already* live here, especially the least wealthy and often those who are not white, are thrown under the bus in this rush to supply the luxury housing demanded by the already wealthy, largely white “market” looking for a place to park their $$$. This is black history month, so here’s our “history” lesson for today: gentrification and displacement are largely a continuation of America’s racist policies. The problem is not a lack of supply but a lack of equity.”
