Harvard has a problem. The University continues to grow--more students, more faculty, more books--but Cambridge isn't getting any bigger. In the short run, it must make better use of the buildings it already has and carefully construct new buildings within its current parameters.

This is the larger framework in which Harvard must approach the planning of the proposed Knafel Center for Government and International Studies. The project--for which an architect is soon to be hired--is to be built at an undetermined date in the next few years behind Gund and Coolidge halls, in the block between Kirkland and Cambridge streets. Knafel would be home to faculty offices, classrooms, a library, a cafe and the Harvard-MIT Data Center. Its construction could entail the moving or removal of several smaller buildings on the site and would be a major addition to an already dense area.

The need for the Knafel Center, while neither blatant nor highly pressing, is sizable. The Government and Economics departments are currently cramped in Littauer Hall, with some professors' offices located amid cubicles in the basement. The building does not afford space for either concentration's tutorial offices, with economics undergraduates having to trek to 20 Garden St. and government students to 53 Church St. Moreover, the Government Department is particularly ill-served by the current arrangement. Twenty of the department's professors are already located in Coolidge Hall, resulting in a division of resources and a geographical barrier, albeit somewhat minor, to communication among government faculty and students.

If the Knafel Center is built as planned, the entire Government Department, including the University's various centers for international studies, would be united in the Coolidge-Knafel complex, leaving all of Littauer to Economics. Much as the Faculty neatly assembled its humanities departments in the Barker Center, the social sciences would be brought together in the vicinity of Knafel, with the Center for European Studies and William James Hall (housing sociology, psychology and social anthropology) across the street.

Yet this vision of a neatly-arranged academic eden is not so appealing in context of the costs entailed. Creating the Barker Center meant giving up some of the history and character of the building for a more generic space.

The use of the space for Knafel, however, will have the greatest impact on those who live and worship in the area. Residents complain with good reason that the Knafel Center would further diminish what little "buffer zone" they have with hulking structures of the University, and that it would detract from Cambridge's New England character. They worry about the congestion, both pedestrian and vehicular, that could result from such a crowded block. And parishioners at the Swendenborgian Church of New Jerusalem, located at the corner of Quincy and Kirkland streets, fear Knafel would drown them in shadow. Residents are so up-in-arms over the proposal that more than 150 residents signed a petition of protest, recently presented to President Neil L. Rudenstine.

To its credit, the University has not gone about the Knafel project in the dark. A Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) planning committee has held an open meeting for community members to voice concerns about the project, and Nancy L. Maull, administrative dean of the Faculty, says another may be in the works. FAS has assembled a Web site containing transcripts of meetings, maps of the site and detailed diagrams of the various proposals for the center (the site is located at http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~planning/cgis). And administrators say they are willing to work with residents to select the most suitable design for the space. The early proposals call for a relatively low building of several stories; much space may be created underground, leaving as much or more green space on street level as currently exists.

Although sensible and appealing in theory, in practice, there really isn't an appropriately spacious lot on campus on which Harvard could build the Knafel Center. An expansion of Littauer has been deemed unfeasible, as has a new building on the current site of the Office of Information Technology. Still, if the University truly does work with the community, with a high level of respect for the historic character of the area and an appreciation of the importance of preserving green space, the project could be successful on its proposed site.

If the University doesn't follow through--if the valid concerns of local residents are not heeded, and the Web site, community meetings and pledges turn out to be merely symbolic steps taken to placate a vocal community--neither Harvard nor Cambridge will be well-served in the end. We should all be watching closely.