"I think that what Harvard Square needs most importantly is downzoning. There are far more people who actually live in Harvard Square than you realize," Medwed says. "The progressive majority on the City Council is fully aware of the need for downzoning, [but] the Independents on the council are fully in support of expansion and big business."

According to Medwed, the business boom has hurt the Square economically as well as socially. "The New England economy right now is in a downturn and the people who favor development are using this as an excuse to turn down the controls," he says. "The things we liked about Harvard Square have been hurt by this development."

Does Might Make Right?

For the owners of small businesses, especially, the reality is becoming increasingly harsh. Property values in the Square have skyrocketed in the past decade, and rents have followed.

"With all the intense development pressure and greatly increasing rents over the past decade, it has become true that you have to be a national chain to afford to move in," says R. Philip Dowds of Cambridge Citizens for Liveable Neighborhoods, a group that lobbies for citizens' concerns. "This is not, for me, the basis of a sound retailing market."

But Dowds, too, says that because of the demands on the market from students, tourists and suburbanite shoppers, "change is to some degree inevitable."

Although Cambridge residents have made some concerted attempts to stabilize the development, forming the Harvard Square Defense Fund and introducing various downzoning petitions to the City Council over the years, their efforts appear for the most part to have been futile in the face of the economic and social realities.

Dowds attributes part of the problem to the fact that many of the small business owners rent their properties from Harvard Real Estate or other large developers, and so do not want to cause a scene and antagonize the people they rent from. "Some of the smaller landlords are reluctant to get out in front, saying...the business is deteriorating," he says.

According to Wolf, much of the developmental environment in the Square is rooted in the dichotomy between the needs of small business and national business.

"The smaller stores have one kind of agenda and the property owners have another...a lot of it is economics," Wolf says. "As long as you have a situation where if you build up and up you'll make money; that's going to happen."

But not all owners of small businesses are worried about losing their corner of the Harvard Square market. In fact, some say they welcome the extra business that the national chain outlets draw.

Paul Floor, manager of Discount Records, which has been at its location on JFK St. since the mid-1960s, says that his store's unique personality has a definite place in the Square, despite increasing competition from other music outlets like newly-opened Tower Records.

If anything, he says, Tower brings more business to his store. "I don't think there's anything you can do about it. I mean, money talks," Floor says.

And for the owners of the upscale businesses that have begun to dominate the Harvard Square market, money talks very loudly indeed.

According to store manager Kristen Nelson, The Body Shop--which sells natural beauty care products--has done "phenomenal" business since it opened up at the corner of Church St. and Mass Ave. on May 31. Nelson says that the store attracts a diverse clientele, and she objects to the notion that her franchise is pushing out mom and pop shops.

In fact, Nelson says that The Body Shop Corporation has had its eye on the Church St. locale for three years as the perfect place to set up shop. "Harvard Square's always catered to people who were more environmentally and socially concerned," she says.

Like A Mall?

But Dowds contends that despite the more modern, with-the-times merchandise Harvard Square now offers, in many respects the area is becoming less user-friendly. "You cannot get a decent meal at a reasonable price in Harvard Square," he says. "The student demand brings the food down to the lowest common denominator."

And Floor says that although business at Discount Records is brisker than ever, he liked the old Square better. "Essentially, Harvard Square, almost without people noticing it, has become like a mall," he says.