Indeed, the ideal solution would be to build more housing in the places and price-points where they're so in demand- but that's a large material effort. Liftin

Indeed, the ideal solution would be to build more housing in the places and price-points where they're so in demand- but that's a large material effort. Lifting the 4-people restriction would just require the town government to stop actively trying to make life difficult for people. And its also true, this kind of rule exists for a reason- in my experience, the sardine-student-housing lifestyle stops being fun at about 8 or 9 people to half as many bedrooms. But I guarantee you that Somerville is already full of such situations, and they're all much worse off because they're illegal- these people's landlords can get away with anything, because if their tenant's complain to the town everyone living in the building will get evicted.