The assignment followed the idea of covering the subway yards with a terrace and building a housing development on top. Moving the yards out altogether, however, makes the plan much easier and more practical. The development might also include badly-needed parking space, a theatre, a few attractive first-floor shops, and a hockey rink.

But this is only one step in the "redevelopment" of Cambridge; another is the extension of the Concord Turnpike to Lechmere Square. The new road will divert many of the 36,000 cars and 6,000 trucks that pass Harvard Square daily, and make possible a conversion of the Square to a leisurely shopping center.

Other improvements fall under the heading of slum clearance. Much of Cambridge's "blighted area" (as the City prefers to call it) is absentee property and land that is so tied-up in wills that the present heirs cannot sell it. The only way these properties can be improved is by the City buying the land under eminent domain.

Over the years, Harvard has followed a policy of buying up land around the University, even though it had no immediate use for it. The University has had to do this to provide for future expansion.

Knowing this situation, people demand fantastic prices for their lots if they are near Harvard buildings. These people think the University will have to buy their land eventually, and that they will then get their price. Usually their properties fall into disuse and serve only to mar the landscape.

But often the University is forced into a paradoxical situation. After it buys a property, it sometimes finds that it cannot just evict the tenants, even though they may be living in old, run-down houses. The University ran into this problem when it bought 16, 18, 20, and 22 De Wolf Street, a block of ugly tenements behind Dunster House. The rest Harvard collects covers only maintenance costs.

ILL-WILL

Obviously, Harvard would create much ill-will if it tore down these buildings and the people had no place to live, although a year ago it was able to demolish one of its tenements at 7 Cowperthwaite Street.

The University has debated tearing down or remodeling 44-46 Mount Asburn, but recent estimates of restoring it to present living standards approximate $10,000. So far it has decided to do nothing.

These are only a few of Harvard's non-college properties in Cambridge. Most of the buildings have outlived their usefulness, and the University receives practically no return on its investment. It seems sensible to planners to put some of this land to constructive use. Even a parking lot nets a fair return on the land, while leaving it ready for future building.

With so many possibilities for "redevelopment" in every part of Cambridge cviic leaders say that Cambridge need not fall into the gradual decay of a static industrial city.