From Fred Watts
I moved to Cambridge in 2022. I was 31. I had a nice job, but I was frugal: a studio apartment, a used bike, home-cooked meals. My friends teased me for keeping the heat off in winter, but electricity wasn’t covered in my lease. Still, I had a wonderful time in Cambridge – it seems everyone does – but I left two years later. Why? I wanted to buy a house, and they don’t sell those.
Of course I had heard the housing market was bad, and much worse in wonderful cities. That’s why I had aggressively saved since my first paycheck over a decade ago. I thought I could beat the odds if I waited. I followed that script until my rent increases outpaced my annual raises. You can’t outfrugal inflation these days. No, it was time to hop on the property ladder.
I secured a preapproved mortgage. The maximum felt like a big number. Not a million, but big. I loaded that big number into Zillow. It said I could afford about 50 condos in Cambridge, most with a single bedroom. A real estate agent later assured me I would be outbid on the nicer ones.
I didn’t want a mansion. I didn’t even want a yard. But I demanded a starter home larger than my apartment, and Cambridge told me to hit the bricks. I did. Now I’m having a wonderful time across the river in Dorchester, still on the red line, enjoying three bedrooms for the price of a Cantabrigian walk-in closet. I’m not trying to win your pity. Rather, I want to pose a question: What was I supposed to do?
True, I wasn’t a surgeon or a Google engineer, but surely that can’t be the bar to property ownership in a sane community. I was earning more than the median Cambridge household, yet I couldn’t afford the minimal Cambridge house. What had I missed? Perhaps if I had job-hopped harder in my 20s, then I could have made it work. Perhaps if I had sought a second graduate degree, or farmed bitcoin, or lived with family for 10 years instead of seven, or married a Kennedy or bought a cheaper brand of toothpaste, then who knows?
I kid. The obvious truth is that Cambridge has decided to not let young people put down roots because that would require building more housing. A recent poll shows that younger Cambridge residents overwhelmingly support building multifamily housing, but they won’t wait. Ask any resident under 35: I promise most of their friends have left town and the rest are considering it. My story is a cliche. When these kids leave, they might continue to work in Cambridge, but they won’t be patronizing its businesses. They’ll leave its social and civic groups. Their children won’t attend Cambridge schools, and they won’t be paying Cambridge taxes.
Imagine a void where a generation is supposed to be. What will Cambridge look like in 20 years?
Fred Watts is a former Cambridge resident.
