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Students Exacerbate Housing Crunch

"We used to have two families on either side of us, and now it's all students," he says. "My 3-year-old has no one to play with anymore."

Families moved out, Philbin says, because students could foot a higher bill than two working parents with children.

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But residents nevertheless seem to understand the pressures on students.

"Certainly no one is against the students in the neighborhood," Howard says, adding that their effect on his Porter Square neighborhood is difficult to determine.

For the students themselves, a large student population can establish a certain level of comfort.

Carlie A. Kalendarski, 20, is a student at Harvard's Extension School and rents an apartment on Harvard Street in Cambridge. Kalendarski says her building houses quite a few students, and that it gives her residence a distinct feel.

"My building is certainly not like a college dormitory," she says, "but it is not a normal apartment either."

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