Issues in Tomorrow's Election

This is an easy issue. Except for President Bok and his department of Government and Community Affairs, virtually everyone in Cambridge is against it.

Certainly Mary Ellen Preusser is against it. Her council campaigning literature shows her slaying a fire-breathing dragon labelled "Harvard."

Former mayor Alfred E. Vellucci opposes it too--he once suggested that Harvard Yard be paved over for a parking lot in retaliation.

Only a few councilors, including Walter J. Sullivan and Kevin Crane '72 are loathe to vote against bills limiting Harvard's incursion on the rest of the city.

This stubborn issue sprang up after World War II, when Harvard began to grow in leaps, bounds, deeds and titles. Land, always scarce in Cambridge, was gobbled up at premium prices by the University, often simply for "banking" purposes, in case Harvard needed an astro-zoology library some day. The city stepped in to do battle, especially once Harvard started evicting tenants from apartment buildings it had brought. And while Harvard usually won (the last tenants are getting ready to leave the most recent battleground, 7 Sumner Road), it was only at a price. In 1974, sick of the city's anger, the University agreed to a set of boundaries. Despite occasional violations, the "Red Line" has quieted some of the furor over actual University growth. But other developments, including Harvard's low mortgage rates for faculty interested in moving to Cambridge, have kept the Harvard-Cambridge dispute center stage.

Harvard officials privately attribute much of the fuss to politics, but for them the situation may get nastier before it gets better. The council this summer approved in principle strict limitations on institutional expansion, and if current alignments are unchanged by the election, the ordinance will surely pass soon. In general, Cambridge Civic Association (CCA) candidates oppose unlimited institutional growth, and many are making it a campaign issue. For once, they are joined by many of their conservative fellow councilors, but the battle against the crimson dragon still is proving one-sided.