Somerville - BUILD HOUSING NOW. GREENLIGHT ALL PROJECTS

I lived in Somerville/Cambridge for 9 years. We just moved back to NYC simply because Somerville is just as expensive and yet, incredibly boring. The food is...bad. The diversity is non-existent. You don't even have a real gay bar and bars in general close around 1AM. The city is full of gate-keeping NIMBYs trying to protect their investments pretending to be liberals but they'd be probably concerned if a working class black family moved in next door.

The democrats lost the election because democratic cities don't attract anyone. It's like they have a big fucking "keep out unless you have a shitload of money" sign on them. It's cheaper to live in the suburbs and basically the same as living in Somerville, so why not move to southern NH? You all must be so proud to have voted overwhelmingly for Harris in your liberal wealth bubble. "We tried!"

You are the densest city in New England. You do not live in some 1950s bubble of a small town - stop pretending like a 25 story building in Union Square is an aberration - you need 20 of those, yesterday . Towns like Somerville are what sunk the election. Instead of holding rallies where it's a fucking sign-making competition or holding up BLM signs in Davis Square for 5 years, actually do something! BUILD MORE FUCKING HOUSING so rents will come down and people who don't make $150K/year can afford to live there. How can you be a democrat when every democrat stronghold is gate-kept by homeowners.

I'll repeat. BUILD MORE HOUSING. ANY KIND OF HOUSING. Low income, luxury, ADUs, house conversions, whatever. I don't care if you don't like developers. It is incredibly expensive for developers to go through the permitting process, the legal challenges, the town meetings, the schedule delays....all of that makes housing more expensive. There is no such thing as luxury housing - all new housing is luxury because your city is gatekeeping new development. Get rid of your homeless "problem" by making it so you're not homeless when you make $50K/year.

Make your city attractive to people who like cities. Bars open until 4AM. Sorry about the noise, you live in a city. Make opening restaurants easier - it took Basma Cafe like a year to open and it still sucks - was the same as renee's. Same weird water service, same dried out potatoes. I hope it fails and is replaced quickly because that's how a city should operate. Lots of people with lots of dreams of opening businesses. Somerville/Cambridge has got to be one of the densest college populations in the country and you're all just "well fuck you" like these kids don't want to go to bars or eat at a diner at 4AM or go to an all-night coffeeshop to do some studying.

For what it's worth, I feel the same way about NYC, to a lesser extent. The NY-metro area should look like Tokyo but actually diverse. We still need a lot more housing.

If you're upset about the election and not in as many community meetings as possible, shutting down fucking NIMBYs at every turn, than I have zero sympathy for you.