By 1970, according to Charles M. Sullivan, executive director of the Cambridge Historical Commission, the city had to introduce rent control to keep housing affordable after the influx of inhabitants.

HARVARD’S IMPACT

When Brian A. Thompson ’62 first came to Cambridge as a freshman at Harvard College, he remembers MIT as having “quite a bit of building going on.” But he remembers very few construction efforts at Harvard, recalling that most of Harvard Square’s transformation was to follow urban renewal efforts in other parts of Cambridge.

Harvard did still undergo some building efforts at the time. The Holyoke Center, in the heart of the Square, was opened for use in the early ’60s.

The University also bought the St. Paul’s church rectory and parking lot in order to change the rectory into a low income housing unit, according  to Thompson.

Harvard itself provides constancy to the state of the Square.

“Harvard’s footprint is important in Harvard Square,” Sullivan says.

NEW TOOLS, OLD PROBLEMS

Looking back on the urban renewal efforts of the ’60s, Seidel asserts that the focus of renewal has shifted somewhat.

“The vision of the physical space is absolutely different. Our understanding of what makes a good city is very different,” Seidel says. Unlike the previous emphasis purely on utility, “The focus [now] is on making places enjoyable.”

Even with this shift in emphasis, Sullivan says that Cambridge has been very successful in balancing industrial development and residential life.

“One of the things we’re finding out is that it does not make sense to do a lot of development without putting people in these places,” Seidel says. As a result, the city is currently examining how best to jointly incorporate apartment and office buildings into city plans.

“Cities will always change. The tools we use to change them will always change,” Seidel said. “Urban renewal was a tool that was used after WWII. [Now] we rely a lot more on the private sector.”

Despite the advancements of the ’60s, the Cambridge city renewal efforts are far from complete.

Tulimeiri says that there are about 1.5 million square feet of land that could be redeveloped further, noting that the abandoned parking lots have not all disappeared.