Editing Cambridge, Massachusetts (section)

====Rent control====
{{see also|Rent control in Massachusetts#Cambridge decisions}}
During the era of [[rent control in Massachusetts]], at least 20 percent of all rent-controlled apartments in Cambridge housed the rich.<ref name=move>{{cite web | url = https://rentcontrolhistory.com/chapters/renters-who-needed-to-move-couldnt-qualify/ | title = Renters who needed to move couldn't qualify. | publisher = Mass Landlords, Inc | accessdate = January 3, 2024 }}</ref> The vast majority housed middle- and high-income earners.{{r|move}} In an independent study conducted of 2/3 of the rent-controlled apartments in Cambridge in 1988, 246 were households headed by doctors, 298 by lawyers, 265 by architects, 259 by professors, and 220 by engineers. There were 2,650 with students, including 1,503 with graduate students.{{r|move}}

Those who lived in rent-controlled apartments included

*[[Ruth Abrams]], a Justice of the [[Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court]].{{r|move}} 
*[[Kenneth Reeves]], the mayor of Cambridge at the time rent control was repealed in Massachusetts, was living in the same rent-controlled apartment he lived in as a Harvard student in 1973.{{r|move}} 
*[[Frederik X|Frederik, Crown Prince of Denmark]]{{r|lease|move}}

The end of rent control in 1994 had [[Rent control in Massachusetts#Impact on Cambridge|numerous effects on the city]]. Within four years of repealing the law, Cambridge, where "the city's form of rent control was unusually strict," saw new housing and construction increase by 50%, and the tax revenue from construction permits tripled.<ref name=lease>{{cite news | url = https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1998/09/19/mass-city-gets-a-new-lease-on-life/9b8249b7-a1d1-4b6c-a4e7-a305c9dcb833/ | title = Mass. City Gets New Lease on Life | newspaper = The Washington Post | first = Judith | last = Havemann | date = September 19, 1998 | accessdate = October 23, 2023 }}</ref> Property values in Cambridge increased by about $7.8 billion in the decade following the repeal.<ref name=lost>{{Cite web | url = https://rentcontrolhistory.com/chapters/towns-lost-tax-revenue/ | title = Towns lost tax revenue. | publisher = Mass Landlords, Inc | accessdate = January 3, 2024 }}</ref> Roughly a quarter of this increase, $1.8 billion ($3 billion in 2024 dollars), was due to the repeal of rent control.{{r|lost}}

Close to 40% of all Cambridge properties were under rent control when it was repealed.{{r|lost}} Their property values appreciated faster than non-rent-controlled properties, as did the properties around them.<ref name=palmer>{{cite journal | url = https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/675536 | title = Housing Market Spillovers: Evidence from the End of Rent Control in Cambridge, Massachusetts | first1 =David H. |last1 =Autor |first2= Christopher J. |last2= Palmer |first3= Parag A. |last3= Pathak | journal =Journal of Political Economy |volume = 122 | number = 3 |date = June 2014 | pages = 661–717 | doi = 10.1086/675536 | jstor = 10.1086/675536 | hdl = 1721.1/104081 | hdl-access = free }}</ref> By the end of the 20th century, Cambridge had one of the most costly housing markets in the [[Northeastern United States]].<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Glaeser |first=E. L. |date=April 1, 2005 |title=Reinventing Boston: 1630–2003 |journal=Journal of Economic Geography |volume=5 |issue=2 |pages=119–153 |doi=10.1093/jnlecg/lbh058 |issn=1468-2702}}</ref>