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All right with the world: Cambridge city councilors hate Boston again
By adamg on Tue, 02/01/2011 - 6:44am
After a brief dalliance with cross-river love, the Cambridge City Council is back to fretting about how Boston is conspiring against their suburb. The Crimson reports some Cambridge councilors are in full dudgeon over the news that a biotech company is moving from Cambridge to South Boston:
City Councilor Kenneth E. Reeves referred to the City of Boston as "the major poacher of them all."
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Comments
technically
Technically Cambridge is a city, although in reality neither Boston nor Cambridge would be much without the other. Calling it a suburb is a stretch.
Cities can be suburbs
But, yes, I was being obnoxious.
They can be. And in some
They can be. And in some respects, Cambridge is a suburb - orbiting the hub of the universe.
But when it comes to biotech, it's actually Boston which is benefiting from lying within Cambridge's orbit. (Sometimes the sun goes 'round the moon.) It's an industry that was hatched in the labs of MIT, and came of age in the formerly derelict industrial zone of East Cambridge, re-branded as Kendall Square. The medical centers of Boston have contributed, to be sure, but they play an ancillary role - and the location of biotech firms and lab space reflects that. In this particular case, Boston is guilty of doing what it's always complaining the suburbs do - luring away a prosperous employer with promises of ample space, generous tax breaks, and state aid.
But fighting over it stands to harm both cities. The state should not have offered a package of infrastructure improvements to Vertex - they should have been tied to the development of the site, irrespective of the tenant. And Boston shouldn't have offered tax breaks. Vertex was going to consolidate its sprawling operations, irrespective of whether it managed to extort such a generous package of concessions.
And it's good that it did so in Boston. Cambridge didn't have a suitable site. Better to have Vertex stay within the inner-ring of the urban area, than to see it relocate out to the 128 belt.
The two cities ought to have been working together to help Vertex pull off the move. Instead, Boston allowed Vertex to play it off against Cambridge, and city and state taxpayers ended up footing an unnecessary bill. There's a lesson there.