The table shaped like Cambridge

But has an interesting history. It oversaw a lot of the movement of Kendall from a declining manufacturing facility to the economic engine it is today. And it never extended itself in to bulldozing entire residential neighborhoods (although this was certainly proposed, especially if the state had not been stymied in its plan to push through the Inner Belt). It helps that with no strong mayor, the CRA doesn't have its head appointed by the mayor and given free reign to run roughshod over the city. Remember, Kendall c 1965 was basically storage tanks, single story industrial buildings and parking lots … that happened to be next to MIT.

In recent years, it has focused on the formerly-industrial parts of Kendall Square. Say what you want about the design of Kendall (overly-wide roads, focus on cars over transit, especially streets like Binney, giveaways to developers cozy with city leaders) but it has certainly been successful for the City (Cambridge probably has one of the best budget situations of any city anywhere from the revenue generated in Kendall). BetaBoston also had a piece recently on how by not banning gene splicing Cambridge attracted the biotech boom's nascency which has since exploded.

Having said that, the CRA was run for several decades by Joe Tulimieri who, it turns out, was corrupt as the day is long and ran a small fiefdom which mostly included giving himself raises and not having enough of a board quorum to say otherwise. But he never had the power in Cambridge the BRA has in Boston. The current staff seems to be much less in the vein of old school politically-connected guy out to line his own pocket.