So, I'm guessing this was more a joke than a question, but the Blue Line basically pre-dates the airport by 19 years. The East Boston tunnel was opened in 1904 and ran from Maverick to what is (basically) now Government Center with stops at what is now Aquarium and State.

The 1954 extension to Wonderland used the Boston, Revere Beach and Lynn Railroad right of way to get to Wonderland. Hence, the airport station is where it is. It wasn't really placed there so much as that was where they could get the train to go.

Back in 1954, air travel wasn't that common like it is today. Check out the airport in the 1920s: https://www.digitalcommonwealth.org/search/commonwealth:cn69mx627, https://www.digitalcommonwealth.org/search/commonwealth:cn69mz00f, https://www.digitalcommonwealth.org/search/commonwealth:cn69mx962, https://www.digitalcommonwealth.org/search/commonwealth:cn69mx848, https://www.digitalcommonwealth.org/search/commonwealth:8k71nz49t. Even in 1936, it looks like basically nothing: https://www.digitalcommonwealth.org/search/commonwealth:cn69mx741. Even in this image circa 1955-1964, it's still pretty primitive looking: https://repository.library.northeastern.edu/files/neu:m0472z357. It's definitely starting to take shape, but doesn't seem like that big a deal.

Ultimately, a lot of our train lines run along rights of way that already exist and it can be difficult to get new ones. Plus, diverting the train to the airport itself likely would have required quite a tight turn and the 1950s were starting to be the era when rich people wanted to use their cars. Boston was spared some of the auto-supremacy thanks to governors Volpe and Sargent, the latter who cancelled many of the highways that would have cut through Boston including the Inner Belt (which would have run through Union, Inman, Central, Cambridgeport, BU, North Brookline, and Melnea Cass Blvd), the Northwest Expressway (which would have run through Arlington, North Cambridge, Porter, and Union), and the Southwest Expressway (which is where the Orange Line is today).

Yes, it's disappointing that the Blue Line isn't closer to the airport, but given the time it was built and the right of way that existed, it seems less ridiculous. And as bad as it is, most American cities basically don't have public transit...though how I'd love something like DCA where the stop is right at the terminal. At least we were spared three additional highways cutting our city apart?

I didn't say $200 and OP specified MIT, not Kendall. I know that 55 Franklin St is $375/mo. OP said that they're paying $67/mo in tickets, but that seems shockingly low considering they're illegally parking every day and Cambridge tends to keep track of re-fed meters. Plus, OP said that they're often using the parking app which has an additional $0.50 fee per transaction so I was low-balling the $200 since they might be paying an additional $1-2/day bringing it to $220-240 + 67 in tickets = $287-307.

Yes, a garage isn't as cheap, but when you add it all together, it's not like it's crazy out of the price range. It's not like street parking is $20 and the garage is $375. If you were paying $300/mo and needing to set alarms to re-up meters and such, $375 to have stable, legal parking doesn't seem crazy.

Heck, for a lot of jobs, you're going to have to pay for more than 8 hours of parking between walking to the office and getting back to your car at the end of the day and your lunch break. It might be 9-9.5 hours. At 9 hours, we're talking $225-275/mo plus tickets = $292-342.

Something doesn't quite add up with OP's math for me simply because it seems like they're still paying a ton for parking while putting themselves in a really stressful situation. Plus, the idea that OP is only getting 2.67 tickets per month while illegally parking every day seems crazy. OP has said they see parking enforcement circling areas so they aren't parking in an area where they'd be noting that their car hasn't moved and should be ticketed even if the meter has time on it.

It seems like the 55 Franklin St Garage would cost 0%-40% more, depending on how accurately OP kept track of parking tickets (the $800 number just seems really low). Even assuming that $800 number is accurate, we're still talking $267/mo if they're always feeding the meter perfectly on-time and wasting a lot of time waiting for that perfect timing all the time. Imagine someone scheduling a meeting and you're like, "sorry, I have to leave the meeting, my meter expires in 5 minutes. I'll be gone for 5-10 minutes." So, they're probably using the parking app for $1.50-$2/day in additional fees. That's $297-307 right there. If they need more than 8 hours, they're going to be paying at least an additional $10/mo for another 24 minutes to cover a very short lunch break.

I'm not saying it's as cheap, but when you add up all the costs, it starts getting pretty close. It's probably easier to ignore the 50-cent app fee and the $1.25/hour, but it adds up. I guess part of it was just curiosity about whether OP was working an irregular schedule or something because the math didn't seem to work out well in their favor. In the rosiest regular-work situation, the garage is 40% more expensive (8am-4pm with a 0-second commute to work, no lunch break, and never paying app fees). Maybe I should have written out the more realistic case where they feed the meter sometimes, use the app other times, have a lunch break, and have to actually get to their work/car. It seems like OP has to be spending at least $300/mo or 80% of what a garage space would cost.

I'm also just curious what they're doing. Are they parking, feeding the meter, then using the app to get another 2 hours in the same parking space, moving the car at lunch and feeding a new meter, then using the app to get another 2 hours in the same space (we're at 8 hours so far, but assuming a 5-10 minute walk from car to office and a 45 minute lunch break we've only covered 7h5m-7h10m of work and haven't left time to get back to the car at the end of the day). Are they then leaving work early or moving the car again and feeding a new meter? And when you're doing those switch-overs, you're going to have to either have overlap or risk a ticket - people can't time getting to a location precisely. One has to assume you'd need to burn at least 12 minutes covering the overlap during a whole day (another quarter). It just seems like such a production that it feels like there's information missing - like that OP only commutes into work 1 or 2 days a week or that OP only works a couple hours a day. Otherwise, a realistic accounting of the costs just doesn't seem to be that much cheaper. The ticket issue is more an annoyance compared to the rest of the production and costs. I mean, 9 hours of parking (8 hour work day plus time to get to/from car, time to cover car movement during the day, and lunch) + 12 minutes of wasted meter time + 2 50-cent app fees + $67 in tickets is $317. Part of me wonders if OP is even noticing the money they're spending because it's coming out $1.25-1.75 at a time. They've noticed the tickets, but they seem to have missed the huge amount they're paying the meters.

It's why it seems like there's more information to complete the picture on why a garage is so much more expensive. Yes, it might be more expensive, but it seems like OP is going for something that's at least 80% as expensive (and probably even more) while having a ridiculous amount of stress about it.

This actually sounds like they didn't ticket much last year. $800 over the course of a year is 32 or fewer parking tickets, yes? So that's less than once a week. If you're parking at a meter every day from 8am to 4pm, you should probably be getting multiple tickets per day. Even if you refill a meter and even if you move the car and pay a new meter within the same zone, you're still parked illegally.

I'm actually kinda shocked that it was only $800 in tickets if you're parking in metered spots every day.

I'd probably talk to my work about the parking situation. Maybe they can pay for a garage for you or increase your salary so that you can afford it.

I definitely understand hating a $67/mo expense. I think the problem is that if there's an easy way to get around parking enforcement, then everyone would start using the parking in that way and there'd be no parking for anyone. Businesses in the area don't want you taking parking that people visiting their establishments could be using. They'd rather 5-10 people use that metered spot shopping than you as one person using that spot for the whole day.

I'm also curious about the cost. Cambridge's meters are $1.25/hour so 8 hours would end up being $10. Assuming you work a standard work week, that's $200/mo for the meter + $67/mo in tickets. It seems like you could probably find a garage for nearly what you're paying.

Cambridge takes in $5.5M in Parking & Traffic fines and spends $10.2M on parking management (https://budget.data.cambridgema.gov/#!/year/default). A lot of people think that cities rake in cash from parking tickets, but parking enforcement really doesn't pay for itself. The reason cities do it is because the alternative can be more problematic. Imagine the cries from residents complaining that out-of-town people are taking up all the parking on their street. Imagine the cries from businesses complaining that a few residents are taking up the metered spots in front of their shop so no one can get to their shop (ignoring the fact that most customers in Cambridge wouldn't be coming by car anyway).

Everyone hates aggressive enforcement, but they also hate parking being unavailable.

The comment about municipal boundaries is really apt. Cambridge is 6.4 sq mi with only a few areas that are less dense. Boston's score gets dragged down by places like Hyde Park and West Roxbury. New York City's score gets dragged down by Staten Island and Queens.

It's hard to really compare places because what "feels like" the same place and municipal boundaries don't always overlap. It's why people say "Camberville" since it often feels like the same place and distinct from Boston which requires crossing the river.

In Los Angeles, there are parts of the city that are separated from the rest of the city by 5-7 miles of mountains. It would be like considering Nahant or Hull part of Boston since it's only separated by a few miles of water. Likewise, how many New Yorkers have never set foot in Staten Island?

I think a lot of people in Boston have never been to Hyde Park or West Roxbury simply because they don't feel like a part of their city - not to exclude them, it's just that they feel apart from a lot of Boston in the way Staten Island feels apart from Manhattan or the Valley feels apart from the rest of LA. There are all sorts of informal boundaries of where people go and where they don't which aren't the same as municipal boundaries.

Even in Cambridge, scores vary. On Brattle St, it can be down in the 60s: https://www.walkscore.com/score/159-brattle-st-cambridge-ma-02138. In Central, it can be slightly higher at 97: https://www.walkscore.com/score/619-massachusetts-ave-cambridge-ma-02139. I don't tend to go to West Cambridge much because it feels a bit apart from the part of Camberville where myself, friends, and the shops I go to exist.

Still, while it's hard to compare places, Cambridge is a really walkable place. Manhattan would probably score higher if it were evaluated separately from NYC as a whole and that's probably why Cambridge and SF beat NYC - NYC is just much larger and includes some more suburban places as a result. Even then, the intense walkability of Manhattan really buoys the score for NYC.

EDIT: Oh, and Somerville gets an 89: https://www.walkscore.com/MA/Somerville. So the Camberville area is really walkable.

It's just the scores from walkscore.com so it's not their methods: https://www.walkscore.com/MA/Cambridge

Definitely check the lease. Lots of leases do specify that you can't install AC on your own and there's nothing in Mass that guarantees access to cooling like we guarantee heat. Often landlords don't want people installing AC units because often people put large/heavy units and put all the weight on the window - or they're installing a support structure and making penetrations into the exterior of the building.

For the winter, the landlords probably have a good case argument that it isn't weather tight for a Boston winter and that they don't want the added weight of snow/ice on top of the AC unit putting more stress on the building/window.

You might be able to negotiate it with the management company. You have two units and maybe you can get them down to $45/each. It's just one trip for their service person.

I think they should reasonably come down from the $180 for 2 units, but I don't think it's a scam on gullible tenants, ACs should be taken out for the winter, and there are good reasons to disallow tenant installation of AC units - it's overprotective for sure in most cases, but there are good reasons.

I'm guessing the lease stipulates this and they're going to have to comply, but maybe it doesn't.

There's also the question of whether $90 or 180/year ($7.50 or $15/mo) is the hill one wants to die on. When renting apartments, one often doesn't get to choose the exact rent. If this is the one thing that's pissing you off about this management company, I'd ignore it. Would you rather find a different place that's $100/mo more? Maybe your place is over priced, maybe management is annoying about lots of things, etc. Or maybe it's not worth the fight. Plus, even if you rarely turn on the heat, it's still some money there and probably $50+ even if you rarely turn on the heat.

If it's the hill you want to die on, it's the hill you want to die on. However, if the rest of things are great, I wouldn't make that the hill to die on. Yea, it's annoying, but the cost is minuscule compared to Cambridge rent. What are we talking? 0.5% of annual rent at a time when annual rent increases are in the 5-15% range? I just wouldn't make it my hill to die on.

Probably the stand-alone unit would cost more, especially with energy prices rising (though I guess Cambridge won't feel that until 2024 if you're on the community aggregation). Department of Energy standards that go into effect for 2025 note that portable AC units are actually only doing about 70% of the cooling that was previously assumed - and they were already considered horrendously inefficient. Consumer Reports notes that a portable AC unit will take three times longer to cool a room - and three times the electricity in the process.

If you're spending $50/mo on cooling and you're suddenly using 3x the electricity, you're then using an extra $100/mo. Even if it's just double the electricity, you're still going to eat through an extra $150/unit over the summer.

> > 1. They don't have enough high-speed internet > > Valid point.

It's certainly a valid complaint, but it's not like the lack of internet is because the state has ignored them. It's often an issue of the fact that it's really expensive to wire up rural areas for high speed internet. In fact, many towns in Western Mass have fiber because the state funded MassBroadband and offered a lot of grants to communities to subsidize it. MassBroadband has done last-mile projects in 46 towns with 7 more partly done: https://broadband.masstech.org/sites/default/files/2022-11/TownSolutionStatus-KeyCategories_Lit_8x11_20221201_300dpi.pdf

> 2. Less populated towns have small town office staffs that can't complete the paperwork the state requires them to complete

I think the answer to this is that there are functions that should simply be taken away from towns. I'm not talking about taking away local autonomy. I'm saying that there are things no one cares about that need to get done by someone and maybe we should have a county or regional office that administrates that. The towns can't complete the paperwork because their small tax base doesn't support hiring enough people or qualified enough people to do it. Even simple things like sending out tax bills become costly when you're doing it for so few households. Even if the towns continue to set tax rates, it probably makes sense for the county or even the state to collect the taxes. There's no reason why the town should be hiring someone to deal with collecting the taxes or putting out an RFP (request for proposals) for an electronic system for residents to pay their taxes. That cost should be spread among lots of people, not few people.

No one is saying, "You know what I love about my town? The property tax payment system!" Yes, people do care about a lot of things that come with local autonomy. There's also a lot of stuff people don't care about. We should be regionalizing those things or just delegating them to the state.

I think one issue that doesn't get talked a lot is that rural areas make it hard to offer a modern standard of living.

Ok, a place wants high speed internet, but the company is going to have to lay 500-1,000 feet of wiring per home instead of 20-50 feet. That's going to cost a lot more, but people think it's unfair for things to cost more. Trash pickup: in a rural area, it's going to mean a lot more miles driven per resident which increases time and fuel usage. Someone to call about issues: if the town has only 1,000 people, how many staffers can they have to take your calls? If you want a staff of 5 people, that's basically $500,000/year including benefits and office space, possibly more. Assuming around 300-400 households, that would be $1,250-$1,667 per household in taxes needed.

The US already subsidizes fuel which makes driving $3,000/year cheaper. The US puts a universal service fee (it'll likely be around 9% of your wireless bill) on telecommunications to pour billions into rural phone and internet service - a 9% tax to fund rural telecom. We mandate that the postal service deliver to all addresses for the same price - so urban people pay much higher postal rates and higher prices for goods shipped to them since the USPS needs to charge extra for their shipping to subsidize rural delivery.

I agree that the needs of rural people often aren't being met, but it's often due to the fact that rural life is expensive and the more advanced we get as a society, the more heavily we'll need to subsidize rural life to keep it up to a modern standard.

150 years ago, rural life wasn't missing out on much. You couldn't have a cathedral or a theater, but there wasn't electricity or internet or trash pickup. Today, there's so much stuff that just costs a lot more to offer rural (and suburban) areas.

Part of this might be solved by reconstituting counties or creating regional authorities. Instead of having each town deal with tax collection, maybe the county should do that. That way, they can hire people who know what they're doing and spread that cost among hundreds of thousands of people instead of between a few thousand people. I know that Massachusetts has a big history of independent towns with self-rule and this doesn't need to throw that away, but it probably makes sense to start sharing certain administrative costs. Each town trying to run its own website, tax collection, etc. seems a bit much in many cases. If you're Mount Washington, you have 36 families in your town and 5 people for emergency services (police/fire/etc.). You have an animal inspector, building inspector, Board of Assessors, Board of Health, Tax Collector, Town Clerk, Town Office Manager, Treasurer, Tree Warden, Webmaster, Electrical Inspector, etc. I'd have to guess that most of these are part-time jobs that they do on the side of another job. It probably makes a lot more sense to have a larger body (like a county) handle a lot of that. You're not going to be able to offer a full-time person to call about tax stuff in a place with 36 families.

Other things are harder to overcome. It's simply going to cost more money to provide trash pickup in rural areas. It's going to be harder to convince doctors to want to live/work in rural areas where there might not be enough patients to keep them busy enough - and lead to lower earnings.

Rural life is going to have trade-offs and some of those are going to get worse over time. A lot of infrastructure just becomes really expensive when supporting rural areas and we don't just want to subside off the land anymore - we want all the advancements of the past 150 years of human progress.

Alewife garage is pretty reasonably priced at $9/day on weekdays and $3/day on weekends. $57 for 2 weeks which isn't much compared to the cost of the honeymoon.

The YMCA in Central Square is probably your best bet. When the weather is good, Veterans Memorial Pool near the Charles River or Gold Star Pool near Inman are the places to go. Also, when the weather is good there are great places like Walden Pond or Upper Mystic Lake.

The retransmission fees that networks are demanding are getting out of control - and it's ridiculous that cable companies can have these huge hidden fees.

Really, the government should repeal the 1992 law that allowed broadcast TV stations to require payment for retransmission: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retransmission_consent. In some markets where cable companies own the broadcast network (cough, Boston), they've switched to a smaller coverage transmitter for the broadcast network making it harder for people to tune in via antenna.

If a station isn't going to allow retransmission, it should just be a cable network and not squat on valuable radio spectrum that could be put to better use.

Likewise, the government should investigate whether Comcast's broadcast TV fee is really just passing along the fees that networks are demanding or whether Comcast is charging more than that in their broadcast TV fee.

In the meantime, YouTube TV and Hulu with Live TV don't have broadcast TV fees, regional sports fees, etc.

> definitely don't need luxury

New-ish = Luxury

You won't find $2,500-2,700 in a new-ish building.

Boston and Cambridge are very old in terms of housing stock. The very few new units are all "luxury" insofar as they have in-unit laundry and a kitchen from the past 20 years. "Luxury" doesn't really mean luxury. It just means new. It means new-ish cabinets even if they're IKEA quality. It means central AC. It means in-unit laundry.

Median rent for a 1 bedroom in Cambridge is $2,700. The average apartment in Cambridge probably dates to 1920. It's unlikely that you'll find a place in a new building at that price point.

You're also saying that you want to be close to the Red Line. Being closer than average to the Red Line means wanting a place that will likely cost more than the average place.

I guess my question would be: why do you want a new-ish building? A lot of people who aren't from the Boston area say that. Some come from locations where half the housing stock has been built in the past 15-20 years and so older units aren't maintained well and new-ish units don't command that much of a premium. In Boston, newer units command a big premium and some of the older buildings have been maintained well and updated with nice modern stuff.

Newer housing in Cambridge often isn't located in the same neighborhoods too. Most of Cambridge's new housing is on the outskirts of the city. That's not necessarily bad. A lot of new jobs have moved into those areas too (think Alewife and Cambridge Crossing).

You've also said "close to the Red Line," but you haven't really defined what you mean by that. A 10 minute walk? 15 minute? 20 minute? Less than 10 minute? If you want to be 10 minutes or less, you're creating a very small radius around each stop - 0.3-0.5mi (0.5-0.8km) - depending on whether it's a straight shot or you're making an "L" shape and what the intersections are like (and if you'll spend a couple minutes waiting for cars). I'd also note that the area within a 10 minute walk will be 4x the area that is within a 5 minute walk. Circles! You double the radius and the area becomes 4x larger. So if you're thinking that you want to be within 5 minutes of a T station, realize that's an incredibly small area. Going from a 5 minute radius to a 15 minute radius means increasing your area to 9x the size - and potentially more than 9x more units given that a lot of the space directly around T stations is commercial, roads, and parking and most of the housing often starts a few streets away.

Likewise, why do you want to be on the Red Line? Would a place that's a 15 minute walk to work be reasonable? I don't know where you're working, but if it's in East Cambridge/Cambridge Crossing, Kendall, or Alewife, there's a greater abundance of newer buildings in those areas and maybe the distance to the Red Line matters less.

It's certainly possible to find deals, but often they require flexibility and/or trade-offs. $2,500-2,700 is possible, but probably not based on the list you've given (because the list you gave is "luxury").

I think you'd probably need to go into the $3,000 range to find what you're looking for, but part of that is based on my interpretation of what you're looking for.

In terms of timeline, yes you can look at and sign for a place within a month. However, the cheaper places often go earlier. Larger, newer, luxury buildings will often have units available hoping for higher prices. Smaller landlords don't want to risk losing out on rent and want to lock it down early.

I'd also note that if rents rise 5-10%, $2,700 turns into $2,835-2,970. I think we still don't know what is going to happen in terms of inflation and rents over the next 6 months. It's also possible that rents will go down. Maybe we'll hit a major recession and that'll make things marginally cheaper (though that might have other negative impacts in terms of your job - bonuses, stock compensation, raises, etc. might end up being worse).

For example, is this place what you're looking for: https://www.apartments.com/121-thorndike-st-cambridge-ma-unit-2r/1ztyzz7/? It's not a new building, but it has been refurbished a bit with a newer kitchen, baseboard heating (rather than steam radiators) and such. It's a 15 minute walk to Kendall and a 10 minute walk to Lechmere (on the Green Line). Nice quiet side street. You won't have air conditioning (you can get window boxes) and laundry will be in the basement, but it's cheap at $2,600 and pretty modern by Cambridge standards. But that's the cheapest I can find that's anywhere near "new-ish" insofar as the kitchen has been updated, it's been repainted, etc.

The Zinc building (https://www.apartments.com/zinc-cambridge-ma/963v765/) can be relatively cheap, but it's farther from the Red Line (20 minute walk) and you have to cross one of the two busiest roads in Cambridge to get from it to the rest of Cambridge. It's a modern building, I've had friends live there and love it, and one of the few places in Cambridge that has fiber internet.

But if you're looking for a more desirable location (or nicer than the Thorndike place), it'll be above $2,700. Does the Thorndike place meet your specifications? Maybe. When people say "close" it's really hard to know what they mean. For one friend of mine, more than a 5 minute walk is outrageous. For another friend, a 25 minute walk is nothing (and she walks fast so a 25 minute walk becomes 15-18 minutes for her). When people say new-ish, do they just mean they'd like a kitchen with a solid countertop and cabinets that are decent? It's hard to know.

The piece of advice I'd give you is that you'll have to make a decision quickly on places in smaller buildings (or condos being rented out by the owner in larger buildings). You can't think about it for a couple days. Also, don't judge a building by the exterior. Landlords don't spend money on the outside because tenants want an updated inside, not a fancy outside.

This! The free parking on Sundays and holidays means that parking enforcement officers aren't working.

I think one of the reasons for this is that it's easy to cover a 6-day work-week with only 1 additional worker.

A: M-F
B: T-S
C: W-S, M
D: Th-S, M-Tu
E: F-S, M-W

F: Swing (A's Saturday, B's Monday, C's Tuesday, D's Wednesday, E's Thursday)

A 7-day week doesn't divide nicely. Not to say that it can't be done, but it doesn't divide as nicely.

Likewise, Mass has a history of restrictions and premium pay for Sundays and holidays. Premium pay is being phased out, but it used to require 1.5x pay for a lot of work on Sundays/holidays.

> Unless a non-retail business falls within one of the exemptions in M.G.L. c. 136, § 6, it is not allowed to operate on Sundays. However, for all businesses, a permit for work on Sundays may be issued by the police chief of the city or town where the business is located. A permit may be issued only for “necessary work or labor which could not be performed on any other day without serious suffering, loss, damage, or public inconvenience, or which could not be performed on any other day without delay to military defense work."

I don't mean this as legal advice and I'm sure people could talk about all sorts of loopholes, but my point is that there's a certain expectation of not working on Sundays/holidays in Mass. Even if the law has loopholes, unions representing the parking enforcement would probably be against working on Sundays and it's an easy thing for the city to give them since it's reasonably popular with residents and there's usually a lot less competition for parking on Sundays anyway.

So yea, parking enforcement doesn't work on Sundays/holidays so you don't need to move your car. That doesn't mean you can park super-illegally because the police could still deal with things that are hazards (like blocking a hydrant or parking in the middle of the street).

Maybe take a look at Hair by Christine & Co.. I think they get a lot more short-hair coloring customers than most places would and they all have Instagram accounts showing off their work.

They do have a "Private Property, No Trespassing" sign on the gate.

https://i.imgur.com/h2jx4tm.png

Parking is also free on holidays (which includes Christmas).

How big are you looking for? 15x15 ft? 20x20 ft?

You can't really find a place by yourself for that price in Cambridge (regardless of the dog). Median studio rent in Cambridge is $2,700 and 1-bedroom is $2,750 (https://www.zillow.com/rental-manager/market-trends/cambridge-ma/?bedrooms=1).

There's always a possibility you might be able to find something for $1,800-$2,000 if you're willing to accept a small/basement/a-bit-crappy kinda place.

If you're willing to live in Somerville (right next door) and willing to pay $2,000 you might have better luck.

It's always possible that you might find a place priced waaaaayyyyy under market, but it's just incredibly unlikely. If we could all get 1-bedrooms for $1,400-1,550, we wouldn't be paying $2,700.

Even in Medford, the average 1 bedroom is $2,300 with almost nothing below $1,900. Quincy, the average 1 bedroom is $2,150 with almost nothing below $1,600. Framingham, the average falls to $1,850 so you start getting a better chance out there.

Have you thought about roommates?

Let's say that you're a long-time Cambridge resident that owns a house purchased for $150,000 that's now worth $850,000. You aren't rich. Your property taxes are about $2,300/year which helps you "afford to keep living" here.

Let's say that you're a long-time Arlington resident that owns a house purchased for $150,000 that's now worth $650,000. You aren't rich. Your property taxes are $7,300/year - over 3x more than Cambridge.

Cambridge's housing values are high, but not that high that it would put a burden on low-income, long-time residents more than anywhere else. Yes, fixed-income people can face issues with things like property taxes, but arguing that Cambridge should have low property taxes because of some low-income, long-time residents feels like using them to justify low taxes for the majority of rich people.

Why not exempt low-income residents from property taxes if that's the issue? Oh, because rich people want low property tax rates. What about long-time, low-income renters (or any renters)? I guess they can be pushed out.

I do agree that the house-rich might not be able to afford to take out a home equity loan and pay the monthly on that to pay for property taxes. At the same time, Cambridge's property taxes aren't burdensome at all compared to basically anywhere else - even with the high property values. You'd have to find a $200,000 place to get property taxes as low as Cambridge's. So practically everyone in Massachusetts is paying higher property taxes than the Cambridge resident with an $850,000 place.

While a home equity loan might not work, a reverse mortgage might. Reverse mortgages don't require monthly payments and aren't repaid until the borrower moves or dies. If you have an $850,000 place, maybe you can take out a $400,000 reverse mortgage and when you die the bank sells the house and gets their money. You can argue that means their kids might not get to inherit the home, but then why are we concerned about giving some people's kids a windfall while others struggle to make rent?

Likewise, Cambridge could simply allow long-term residents to defer property taxes until a property is sold. Cambridge could even use the city's great credit rating to borrow the money they need today at a very low rate and simply charge the resident that low rate (maybe 1-2%). 20 years later, the resident might have accumulated $50,000 in property taxes and owe $60,000 with the interest and those inheriting the property could decide whether they wanted to pay the taxes and keep the property (getting an $850,000 property for $60k is a steal) or sell the property to pay the taxes (inheriting $790k is pretty sweet too). Plus, given that the owner would have had to pay $50,000 of that $60,000 along the way, that's all money that would be coming out of the kids' inheritance anyway (well, except for the $10,000 in interest). But the point is that Cambridge could just solve the issue for long-term, low-income residents without resorting to lower property tax rates.

The house-rich argument doesn't make sense as an argument to keep Cambridge property taxes low. That doesn't mean that people don't face issues. However, there are much better ways to deal with the issues and there's almost no one in Massachusetts that faces a lower property tax burden than a Cambridge resident in an $850k place - if they're struggling with property taxes in Cambridge, it's not like they'd "be able to stay" in any other town and just got unlucky with Cambridge. Again, that's not to say that people don't struggle, but that it's not a struggle that's unique to Cambridge. Likewise, there are simply better ways of dealing with the issue. Cambridge could simply defer the taxes and use its borrowing power for current spending - and then recoup the taxes later.

It could be that they didn't find any supplier willing to commit to a contract that was with a rate they thought was favorable. I think I noticed one town lock in an 18¢ rate for 2 years which probably won't be great for most people.

> due to market conditions, which prevented the Town from obtaining satisfactory aggregation pricing

If we're expecting around 34¢ this winter and then 11¢ for 18 months after that, locking in an 18¢ rate for 24 months might leave customers in a nice place this winter and an expensive place for a year and a half after that (assuming that most customers don't know they can opt out).

It's still a bit surprising, but it might be that they started negotiations a month or even a few weeks later than most towns and energy prices soared in the meantime. Europe is looking at a winter where it will be ungodly expensive to heat their homes - and Germany is still shutting down its nuclear plants despite the crazy energy prices they're seeing.

I'm still surprised that Burlington couldn't find a satisfactory price.

If you're on a Mac with the globe key, just press that to bring up the emoji keyboard and search for "cent". If you're on a Mac without the globe key, Control+Command+Space will bring up the emoji keyboard. If you're on Windows/Linux, buy a Mac with the globe key and then press the globe key to bring up the emoji keyboard (yea, I just have no idea what to do on Linux/Windows for this).

Towns that are negotiating their aggregations this fall are seeing their rates jump 40-60% and they're going to stay high for two years (though maybe market prices will also stay high).

Norwood Power and Light is likely setting their rates every 6 months and so it's likely that Norwood will see a greater jump this winter while seeing prices come back down as the energy market cools (assuming it does).

Norwood Power and Light isn't a for-profit company trying to milk you for profits. They're your town.

I'd also note that Norwood's electric rates are $0.1199/kWh which is pretty great right now. However, that might go up in January. If people are "see[ing] almost double the usual cost of [their] electric bills" in Norwood, they're either using more electricity or forgetting how much they usually pay.

No, an increase is unlikely. The rate may increase as a result of a change in law, not because energy prices are spiking. For example, let's say that Massachusetts passes a law that says "all energy suppliers must pay a 50¢ per kWh tax." Then the rate can change - the change in the law creates a direct, material increase in their costs - literally raising their costs by 50¢ per kWh. Likewise, maybe the state says, "the amount of green energy must go from 50% to 75%." That isn't quite as direct, but certainly direct enough.

They can't just raise rates because they want to in the middle of an agreement. However, no business would agree to a contract where the legislature could pile on taxes, fees, and all sorts of regulatory requirements while committing to a fixed price.

Also, the rates do change when the town renegotiates the rate at the end of the contract. The contracts are usually a couple years. If your town negotiated the rate in 2021, you got lucky and are probably locked in at 10-11¢. If your town had to negotiate this fall, it's probably 15¢.