Cambridge is already densely enough developed that land for new housing is not easy to find: zoning laws, moreover, appear to have lagged behind the times and are now a further discouragement to construction of new housing. Thus, despite the increase in demand, the supply of housing has not increased appreciably.

Given the rising rents, many of the low-income, particularly the elderly, residents of the City are faced with a dismal choice-stay in Cambridge and pay high rents or move away, breaking ties which often extend over several generations.

Needless to say, this choice has not been accepted meekly by many of the older residents. Since a survey in the summer of 1968 by the local antipoverty agency showed that 57 percent of the 2000 elderly residents contracted paid over half their income for rent the "housing crisis" has become a prime issue in local politics.

Two organizations-the radical Peace and Freedom Party and the moderate Cambridge Housing Convention-have been organizing lower income residents around the housing issue. This organizing is in itself notable, since lower-income residents in Cambridge-as in most other cities have seldom generated many or effective voluntary organizations. The depth of the housing crisis has provided a spark for such organizing; the Peace and Freedom radicals, on one hand, and young anti-poverty staffers on the other have been rushing to fan it.

In both organizing campaigns, the universities have become primary targets-because they are at least indirectly responsible for the housing problem: because they are large, visible, and because of the bitterness, which has always been focused on the colleges by the rest of the City.

Slowly but inevitably. Harvard and M.I.T. have come to realize that the aloof attitude which sufficed for quieter eras in Cambridge will not do in this turbulent period. As the Wilson Committee, a top-level committee appointed by President Pusey, said in its report of last January on "The University and the Community:"

If a false sense of neutrality were ever possible, it is no longer so in an era of intense community and neighborhood self-awareness. Through elected and self-appointed leaders, by petition and by protest, singly and collectively, the citizens of our urban environment expect the university to act as a responsible and enlightened landlord, employer and neighbor. Little more than a legitimate concern for its own self-interest will lead the university to reflect seriously and act positively on the obligations of its urban citizenship...

Saying this is easy: implementing it is infinitely more difficult. The patterns of administration and the attitudes of students, faculty and administrators built up during decades of ignoring the City have not proved easy for Harvard to change. Indeed, just before last April's upheaval, the Wilson Report was notable chiefly in the limbo into which it had slipped: virtually no one in Harvard thought it worthwhile enough to spend even a few hours discussing community problems.

During April, all that changed-at least on the surface. SDS members pushed a set of demands to "Stop Harvard Expansion which-although they made good reading for Marxist Leninists-probably wouldn't have helped the housing situation all that much. More than two thousand "moderate" students. in the course of a mass meeting at Soldier's Field passed a different set of demands: for construction of low-income housing in the City and then went back to their rooms little if any wiser about Cambridge than when they had come."

The Harvard Administration for its part moved to defuse the agitation-both within and outside of the University-by agreeing to lessen the pressure on the local housing market by developing a program of housing for Harvard personnel and low-income community residents. The details of the program are due to be released early this Fall.

April, then, marked a decided shift in Harvard attitude toward the City-recognizing it, almost for the first time, as a subject which merited some attention. It was a beginning, one which can either be carried further with appropriate changes in University priorities or be allowed to lapse through neglect.

If Harvard and M.I.T. do follow up on their new found concern for the City, however. the problems facing Cambridge will still not necessarily be solved. The City will find it difficult to cope with the deluge of change without the co-operation of a host of civic units-the universities, the neighborhoods and local businesses alike. The task of getting this co-operation-and of providing a leadership to direct the course of Cambridge for the next decades-falls primarily upon the political system of the City.

Look at the construction of low-income housing for an example. Though Harvard may want to build 300 units of housing on a given site, the neighbors of that site may not want low-income housing there. Given the right political atmosphere, they can block the zoning changes needed to build the housing. In fact, during the past five or ten years, proposed public housing sites have been turned down again and again after meeting with neighborhood opposition.

That this should happen is not surprising. Cambridge politicians are always most closely attuned to the desires of small groups of their neighborhood supporters. The whole political structure of the City drives them in this direction.

Cambridge is the only City in the country which elects its councillors through Proportional Representation (PR). Under this electoral system, voters list their choices for council seats in descending order of preference. (1, 2, 3, etc.) From the total number of votes cast, the exact number a candidate needs to win is calculated. When one candidate meets this quota from his "number one" votes the remaining ballots with his name on them are given to the "number two" candidate marked on each ballot. The ballots of candidates who have the fewest "number one" votes are also given to the "number two" candidates. The system is not simple; it usually takes the better part of a week to calculate the nine winners of council seats.