3 ms·

Somerville needs more highrises and more subway trains.

• drdeadringer 10y ago
  I'd tentatively agree on the subway trains.
  • Finnucane 10y ago
    There's no solving the housing problem without more transit. You're just not going to ever have enough housing here for everyone to live in one place, zoning or no zoning. So: people need ways to get from one place to another. More cars? No. Then you need more roads, more parking. Where are they going to go? Guess what? Some people are going to end up in Malden, Medford, Everett, Revere, etc. So what? Is that so bad? Not if you have a way to get to work in the morning. I'm old enough to remember when we lived in Somerville because it was cheap. The Red Line and the end of rent control in Cambridge brought a lot of gentrification to Somerville. Transit is absolutely necessary in a dense urban area (and yeah, Somerville and Cambridge are already among the most densely populated cities in the country. Another thing is that people use more space now: Before WWII, these cities had more people living in fewer units of housing. We've gone from 4 per unit to 2. As you make more housing available, people want more of it. That's why there's never enough no matter how much you build.