What makes a neighborhood a neighborhood?

I moved into a new neighborhood at the beginning of the month. And when I say new I don’t just mean that it’s new to me. This is a new neighborhood that didn’t exist five years ago.

This is Kendall Square in Cambridge, MA. In the mid-90s, when I lived in East Cambridge I walked through this area every day on my way to school, and, to be fair, the transformation had already started then, but it was a far cry from what anyone would call a neighborhood.

Boston to the south and east of the Charles River;
Cambridge with MIT and Kendall Square to the north-west

The occasional pharmaceutical and software company had moved in and a handful of restaurants had popped up right around the T-stop (the subway), but the area generally consisted of a few surviving remnants of a foregone era fenced in with barbed wire (a pipe supply company, a taxi dispatch and repair shop…), and a wasteland of deserted broken-windowed industrial plants, wishing for a demolition crew to come and bring a merciful end to their misery.

There are still some deserted buildings left

This entryway is less than inviting

Thankfully, most of those wishes have now come true, and up has sprung a vibrant mixed-use development with apartments, offices, shops, bars, restaurants, coffee shops, public areas, activities, and so on. All of the things you’d find at the center of a good, older, small town.

My apt building with storefronts facing 3rd St: Voltage Café, and Abigail's restaurant seen here.

This type of planned community is a welcome break from the segregated residential subdivisions, office parks and shopping malls that have dominated American development for several decades. However, although the concept of a neighborhood where people can live, work and play, sounds like a great idea, creating one from scratch is easier said than done. I saw several valiant attempts in Arizona but none of them as successful as this one. Some of them stalled entirely when businesses and restaurants either did not move in at all, or did move in to then quickly close up shop a few months later; others focused mostly on shopping and dining, making it feel like you lived at an outdoor shopping center; and all of them felt much more planned than vibrant, and not at all like a natural neighborhood.

A side-canal provides access to launch kayaks and canoes into the Charles River

So, what makes Kendall Square work? First, it’s in an already-urban setting so it doesn’t feel like it’s been plopped down in the middle of nowhere. Second, it has managed to hit critical mass in all of the different uses: there are many companies of different sizes offering office jobs, there are several large apartment buildings with first floor street-facing small businesses (in my building and the one across the street I found six restaurants, a physical therapist, a Taiwanese bubble tea shop, a trinket shop, a coffee shop, a gym, and a bilingual Spanish immersion day care center), there are outdoor spaces with a farmers’ market and concerts in the summer and ice skating in the winter, there is a canoe/kayak rental place by the river. Oh yeah, I realized after I moved in that I only live a block from access to the Charles River.

Following the canal to the river: view of the Longfellow Bridge to Boston

MIT is another big influence in shaping the community here. Many of the companies are here largely because of the university, especially the ones in the biotech/pharma and software sectors, and MIT has invested both capital and idea power into transforming the area. You can definitely feel that there's an intellectual atmosphere in the neighborhood and it's oftentimes hard to find the line between corporate and university labs.

MIT's Koch Institute for Integrated Cancer Research

My apartment complex adds to the community experience further with its common spaces for the residents. The apartments are in two u-shaped eight-story buildings facing each other with a large courtyard in the middle, which in the summer has six barbecue grills, tables and chairs, and lawns where people lay out when the weather cooperates.

BBQ pits in the courtyard

There is one indoor pool, and each of the buildings has a gym - to energize, a movie theater (think nice, large, home theater) - to visualize, a club room with Ping-Pong, foosball, skeeball, couches and a bar (bring your own beverage, mostly useful if you rent the place for a party) - to socialize.

Signage inside the apt building

Finally, in addition to brand new buildings, a number of older factory buildings have been renovated for new corporate tenants or converted into apartments, which provides a nice link back to the history of the area.

Former factory converted to loft style apartments

In summary, I've very excited to be part of this up-and-coming neighborhood which only ten years ago was mostly a source of urban blight and is now quickly becoming a destination for ideas, research, arts, shopping, fine dining, nightlife and just plain old living.