Political Activism Declines in City

Rumor has it that rain has never interrupted a Harvard Commencement.But in 1970, the forces of political activism did.

Saundra Graham, a local activist, stormed the podium, disrupting a speech, and spoke for two hours. She led a group of students, neighbors and anti-war activists, demanding that Harvard stop buying and developing land along the Charles River.

But that was 28 years ago.

"Where is political activism now?" Graham asks. "I don't see any."

"I think the community is turned off from politics, and I think there is a lot of apathy," she says."It's just evolved to the point that people don't feel that they can influence the government,"

Joan Prum moved to Cambridge only recently, but she has already attempted to influence policy through grassroots action.The retired mother of two Harvard graduates helped in the effort to save a house on Linnaean Street from developers.

Prum, along with others, attended city council meetings, circulated petitions and made phone calls.

But nothing worked.

Developers added several new units to the home and chopped down a tree in the backyard, significantly altering the street's character.

Prum terms the newly remodeled house "a monstrosity" and says she feels just as strongly about Cambridge politics.

"Cambridge is a little town that has gotten entrenched in its political system, "she says. "We were given just enough encouragement to continue [our efforts]."

Prum, who has fought successful battles in other communities, says grassroots activism simply does not work in presentday Cambridge.

"I would not try it again, because Cambridge is not to be moved," she says.

Imperfect Politics

Cambridge Mayor Francis H. Duehay '55 says Prum's criticisms are unfounded.

"I could give you 50 or 60 times that petitions have passed," he says.

A 56-year Cambridge resident, Duehay says he is "very familiar" with the situation on Linnaean Street and that he also opposed the development.

"The developer made $3 or 4 million and spoiled an entire street," he says.

But Duehay, who has been involved in city politics for 36 years, says the occasional failure is inherent in politics.

"Politics is not perfect. There are injustices," he says. "You don't win everything all the time. The good does not always prevail."

"But I'm not going to get out of politics just because of one loss," he says.

Duehay says grassroots organizations remain an important part of city politics.

"There's a great deal of energy in neighborhood associations and grassroots," he says.

Furthermore, Duehay says political activism has not declined in Cambridge."

He points to the November races for state legislature seats, which, he says, featured "vigorous, hard-hitting campaigns" and "a very large voter turnout."

But the voter turnout for the 1997 city council elections was the lowest in more than 50 years. According to municipal voting records, turnout peaked in 1949, with 39,000 Cantabrigians voting. In 1997, fewer than 17,000 voted.

Voter turnout is also declining at a faster rate. From 1941 to 1971 the number of voters dropped by about 5,000. Since that time it has fallen by roughly 14,000. The population of Cambridge has declined since 1950, but over the past two decades it has remained fairly steady at about 100,000, according to City Hall.

City Councillor Michael A. Sullivan points to the low voter turnout as an illustration of political apathy in Cambridge.

He also cites his own experiences as a councillor.

"You used to get 300 to 400 to show up [to council meetings]. Now if there's 12 to 20 we have a crowd," he says.

He says only a small minority of Cantabrigians is truly involved in grassroots politics.

"There's a small group of people that are active. It might skew the view [by presenting] that small group as representing the whole," he says.

But Duehay attributes the drop in voter turnout to the declining number of candidates rather than political apathy.

"[Cambridge's] proportional voting system stirs up a lot of excitement, but the drop in the number of candidates [has lessened this enthusiasm]," he says.

Duehay also says local activism and voter turnout is influenced by national trends. "I think you're talking about American politics, not just [the situation] in Cambridge," he says.

"The '60s were affected by the Vietnam War, assassinations, student movements, so there were external factors that certainly affected local politics," he says.

Glenn S. Koocher '71, a former school committee member who studies Cambridge politics, also says changes in the national scene play a role in city politics.

"The nature of advocacy has been evolving in Cambridge over the past 30 years. The issues are changing, and you don't have great unifying issues like Vietnam or Civil Rights," he says.

In the past, according to Duehay, the crumbling tax system, a corrupt housing authority and police brutality were the most significant issues facing Cantabrigians.

Now education, traffic, pollution and over-development are the major concerns facing the city.

Koocher says "broad, general issues" such as welfare and equality in education have come to dominate Cambridge's political landscape.

Rent Control's Role

Perhaps the biggest issue currently affecting Cambridge politics is the absence of rent control. Rent control, abolished in 1994, placed a limit on the amount of rent landlords could charge and specified other tenant rights.

About 15,000 of Cambridge's 46,000 households were affected by rent control.

"Rent control is the most important issue in Cambridge of the last 30 and 40 years," Duehay says.

But the demographics of Cambridge have been changing for the past half-century, according to Duehay, not just in the four years since the end of rent control.

Once a blue-collar city dominated by industry and manufacturing, Cambridge slowly emerged as a mecca for students and professionals, sparking a rise in rents.

"Three to four students to an apartment would be able pay more than a family or a secretary or other people," Duehay says.

As a result, the city instituted rent control in the 1960s, a hugely popular reform according to Koocher.

The recent growth in biotechnology and information services has generated a lot of new wealth in the city, pushing property values even higher. According to Duehay, the end of rent control compounded the problem.

"[Some people] cannot afford to live in Cambridge [any more]," Duehay says. "It's becoming more of an upper-middle class than a diverse community, and that is inevitable with the loss of rent-control."

Many say the demise of rent control has caused the breaking of community bonds and the loss of economic diversity.

Some of the long-time residents that remain are disillusioned with government officials.

A clerk at the Dana Hill Liquor Market on Mass. Ave. in Central Square has witnessed the effects of the end of rent control.

"[Residents are] fed up with the whole thing. A lot of people aren't voting," the 18-year resident said. "They don't care who's in office."

Koocher agrees, noting that the end of rent control has adversely affected the city's leadership.

"Rent control went away and [the] leaders were discredited," Koocher says."In general, advocacy is now based around the individual egos and needs of certain leaders."

Sullivan says the new, more affluent residents moving in have less of a stake in the community and old neighborhood ties are eroding.

"There were a lot more neighborhood connections. People don't participate in the elections that they used to," Sullivan says. "There's voter apathy; there's no connection."

Natalie Smith, a member of the Eviction Free Zone, an organization active in combating housing injustice, also says unity within neighborhoods is a problem.

Smith attributes some of the decline in activism to the fact that rising rents are putting financial strains on many residents.

"Now people are so desperate that a lot of people don't stay to fight," she says.

Smith says the new, more affluent population is less inclined to public demonstration.

"The differences that I see in the new wave of people is that they've never faced oppression," she says. "They're more inclined to deal with problems by getting a lawyer, whereas with working class and minority populations, they're more likely to make an effort with collective action because they've faced oppression before."

While Duehay acknowledges the effects the end of rent control has had on the Cambridge community, he down-played its influence on political participation.

"Probably the jury is still out on that," he says. "It is unclear what political effect this will all have."

The Value of a Vote

Not all Cantabrigians have lost faith in the political system. A handful of residents turn out each week to make their voices heard at city council meetings.

The Eviction Free Zone, which recently held an affordable housing rally in Central Square, and other community groups still practice grassroots activism, and 17,000 Cambridge residents still cast their ballots for city councillors in last year's election.

One of these 17,000 is 90-year-old Harriet Whitehead. She lives in an immaculate house on Avon Street, filled with bookcases of leather-bound volumes and mahogany furniture. She has lived in Cambridge since 1948, and her husband served on the Harvard Business School faculty.

Whitehead has missed voting only twice in her entire life.

The first was in 1940, and Whitehead said she had a rather compelling reason.

"I worked for a lawyer under [Republican challenger Wendell L.] Willkie's campaign, before [Franklin D.] Roosevelt's third term. We went all over the country on a campaign train, stopping twice a day for short speeches and at night for one long speech," she says.

"All the newspaper men were for Roosevelt, and I was for Roosevelt, but everyone else was for Willkie."

"We didn't get back in time to vote," she says.