Slate's Matthew Yglesias discovers Somerville

[ron_newman]

Somerville, MA -- Density Without Tall Buildings - by Matthew Yglesias in Slate, June 1, 2013

...some very dense cities don't have much in the way of very tall buildings. Paris often comes up in this regard, but a better example for the American context is probably Somerville, Massachusetts where I happen to be at this very moment.

Somerville, a highly urbanized "suburb" of Boston contains over 18,000 people per square mile making it somewhat denser than San Francisco. And yet it has few tall buildings and certainly no skyscrapers. The key to that happening is that it's very literally dense. The streets are narrow, there's very little parkland, there are few office buildings or hotels. And most of all, the dwellings themselves are small. It's no coincidence that this town is in the oldest-settled part of the United States. Over the years as America has gotten wealthier people have tended to live in larger and larger spaces, but Somerville is full old structures that fit two or three households into apartments that cost more than the average American dwelling but have less square footage than the average American dwelling.

Read the whole thing here, including a huge number of comments (probably 20 times as much text as Yglesias's story)

Comments

[spacehawk.livejournal.com]

oldest-settled part of the United States

Eeep... colonized =/= "settled."

[ron_newman]

Point taken. What is the actual oldest-'settled' part of the US? Taos Pueblo in New Mexico, perhaps? (A place that may well be denser than Somerville, btw)

[spacehawk.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure, but I found this (http://www.budgettravel.com/blog/archaeologists-reveal-americas-oldest-city,12158/) (for cities) and this (http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/03/24/texas-sheds-light-americas-settlers/) (for encampments). This (http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/09/100915-oldest-skeleton-underwater-cave-science/) is also interesting (but in Mexico, not the US).

Taos Pueblo is a good guess, too.

[browngirl.livejournal.com]

Oooh, thank you for finding those articles! *reads*

[keithn.livejournal.com]

It depends on how you read it. I took "settled" to mean presently settled, not anywhere that has been settled at any point ever.

That would still be wrong as some places in Virginia were settled before New England and remain settled today. As far as oldest presently and continuously settled major population center, that probably is the Boston area. And that was certainly the point.

[thespian.livejournal.com]

quote:

"A population density of 18,000 per square foot should be perfectly compatible with spacious dwellings, ample parks, sidewalk cafes, at least some broad boulevards, and an office district."

we would set world records with that. and I wouldn't need to take the bus anywhere!

[spacehawk.livejournal.com]

18,000 people per square foot? Wow, that would sure be something! That beats The Mark of Gideon (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mark_of_Gideon).

[prunesnprisms.livejournal.com]

That would be like bacteria. How many people can you fit on the head of a pin?

[josephineave.livejournal.com]

You have to go out of your way to use "dwelling" twice in 10 words.

[agharta75.livejournal.com]

"Discovered?" Yglesias went to Harvard ... (well, maybe he never left Cambridge then)

[ron_newman]

OK, that was my word, not his. I don't know anything about this writer's history.

[prunesnprisms.livejournal.com]

Weird. Because we have trees and green spaces, I always think of us as having plenty of parks. I never feel crammed, at least on my street.

[surrealestate.livejournal.com]

The point is we don't have much in the way of public green spaces. It's easy to forget when you live here, but when spending a lot of time elsewhere, the lack here becomes more striking. The thing that pisses me off most about the ZBA is that they approve horrible new developments without ever asking the developers to give something back to the City (like allocate some portion of the land to a small public park, say (or a public atrium), which is done in other ciites.)

[ron_newman]

We treasure our green spaces in Somerville. But once you get beyond Powderhouse (Nathan Tufts) Park and Prospect Hill Park, there isn't much left that would be recognized as parkland in most other places.

Cambridge has Fresh Pond reservation and Danehy Park. Arlington has Robbins Farm, Menotomy Rocks, and Spy Pond. Medford has the Middlesex Fells and the Mystic Lakes. We don't have anything comparable to these.

[prunesnprisms.livejournal.com]

I suppose that's true, and due to the proximity of these other parks, New Hampshire, Western Mass, and also due to the fact that I dislike being outdoors for any reason, I have never personally missed a lack of extensive parkland.

[mindstalk.livejournal.com]

Cambridge also has Cambridge Common and whatever the green space along the river is called. Which are smaller, but still significant.

For public space there's also how wide your sidewalks are (and how many trees fit on them.)

[ron_newman]

And Somerville has some Mystic riverfront and Alewife Brook-front parkland -- the latter of which is now much more usable after recent DCR improvements.

[littlecitynames.livejournal.com]

We have Dilboy Park, but it's not very well-maintained. You can't sit on the ground because half of it is that spiky kind of grass and the other half is just dirt. (Probably because most of it is just fields rather than actual park.)

[somervilleguy.livejournal.com]

Here in the Tufts area I have also never felt like I am without green space. I have parks/athletic fields all within a short distance and while they're not dominated by trees they have a great visual appeal for me. Often times this area of the city was jokingly referred to as "the country" when I was younger and by comparison to some parts of the city it still is.

[dougo.livejournal.com]

But that's Medford, no?

[somervilleguy.livejournal.com]

No, a significant amount of tufts green/open space is in Somerville.

[ron_newman]

The Somerville-Medford city line cuts through the middle of the Tufts campus. The Tufts athletic fields, Aidekman Arts Center, Granoff Music Center, Mayer Campus Center, and half of Tisch Library are in Somerville.

This Tufts parking map shows exactly how the city line zigzags through the campus.

[josephineave.livejournal.com]

Yep. I'm disappointed they didn't replace the sign on College Ave. that showed the dividing line.

Makes it really tough to help on-campus students who decide to register to vote locally.

[hrafn.livejournal.com]

Hahahahaha*sob* I never -didn't- feel claustrophobic in Somerville (also Cambridge, Boston, etc.).

[thetathx1138.livejournal.com]

Thanks for sharing, I can always use another reason to laugh at Slate.

"The streets are narrow"

Well, some of them, I guess, but that's more due to how people park than the streets themselves.

"there's very little parkland"

Aren't we "Tree City USA?" That's what's written on the side of our mulchers. Also, I can think of five or six green spaces in the area right off the top of my head.

"there are few office buildings or hotels..."

Hotels, no, but there are plenty of office buildings.

"Somerville is full old structures that fit two or three households into apartments that cost more than the average American dwelling but have less square footage than the average American dwelling."

Rents in the area aren't inconsistent with your average metro area in a large city, though. Also, the "average American dwelling" is apparently 214 square meters, or 2300 square feet. I can see that being necessary for families, but there's a pretty large mix of families, roommate situations, single people, etc. in Somerville. He seems to be under the impression that everywhere is a suburb.

"So given 21st century construction technology and elevators, a mix of big buildings and single-family buildings makes more sense than a crowd of three-deckers."

...Clarendon Hill?

"This building features small dwellings in its current configuration as a two-unit rental property but as prices continue to rise in Cambridge, I wouldn't be surprised to see it bought by a rich guy and turned into a spacious single-family home."

I'd be surprised, since said rich guys buy homes with yards in Belmont and Waltham. No, Matt, this home's future is to be renovated and turned into condominiums.


I'm a little surprised an article like this is A) so sloppily researched and B) predicated on an idea ("Somerville is a model of how other towns should be constructed") that as far as I can tell is not seriously held by anybody. I love Somerville but this is a town that was built following the pressures of market forces, just like anywhere else.

[greyling.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I found that statement about renovating multifamilies into single-families utterly ridiculous. I'm pretty sure the trend is actually going the other way - older single-families get bought, turned into multifamilies, and flipped within the same year for substantial profit.

Just how much research did this guy do?

[mindstalk.livejournal.com]

Market forces? No zoning laws and parking requirements, like actually everywhere else?

[thetathx1138.livejournal.com]

And you'd assume these aren't dictated by the needs of citizens because...?

[mindstalk.livejournal.com]

Because on observation they run counter to the needs of citizens, especially ones who don't want to drive everywhere they go.

[thetathx1138.livejournal.com]

...

Somerville is not what I would classify as a "car-friendly" city. In fact that's part of what I like about it: There are sidewalks, and pedestrian/bike trails, and crosswalks, and parking authorities who make people piss off.

[nurrynur.livejournal.com]

We have two hotels: the Holiday Inn over by the Inner Belt area, and the La Quinta at Assembly Square. Everyone forgets about them because they're not in the "cool" parts of town.

[thetathx1138.livejournal.com]

Well, I don't think a hotel with as many prostitution arrests as the La Quinta counts.

[bluesauce.livejournal.com]

Why you gotta discriminate against the ho-tels?

[kpht.livejournal.com]

We have 2 kids in something like, uh, 1200 square feet maybe? And seriously, that's plenty. Most people I know with kids have LESS space than us. 2300 square feet is crazy, but I'm sure there's a lot of mansions inflating that average, cuz 'Murica.