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dc.contributor.advisorJackson, Jason
dc.contributor.authorAizman, Asya
dc.date.accessioned2024-09-26T18:15:53Z
dc.date.available2024-09-26T18:15:53Z
dc.date.issued2024-05
dc.date.submitted2024-09-24T14:40:04.585Z
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/157055
dc.description.abstractIn May, 2023, the City of Somerville achieved the highest S&P Global Ratings AAA credit rating. The accompanying report, citing one gentrifying neighborhood as a “notable contributor to increased market value,” signaled the city’s “attractiveness” to potential investors by promising low interest rates on local real estate development projects. But while the city increasingly appeared to be a sure bet for investors, life became more strenuous for residents, with steep and climbing rents, failing infrastructure, and fewer reasons to stay in a changing city that they no longer recognized. This is a case study of twenty years in Somerville real estate development, spanning 2004 to 2024. Through interviews with residents, activists, and senior city officials, I present a story of a city attempting to rectify its progressive values with the forces of neoliberalism, which it seems unable—and unwilling—to stop.
dc.publisherMassachusetts Institute of Technology
dc.rightsIn Copyright - Educational Use Permitted
dc.rightsCopyright retained by author(s)
dc.rights.urihttps://rightsstatements.org/page/InC-EDU/1.0/
dc.titleA Fifty Million Dollar Piece of Dirt: Somerville as a Case Study in Development
dc.typeThesis
dc.description.degreeM.C.P.
dc.contributor.departmentMassachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Urban Studies and Planning
dc.identifier.orcid0000-0002-7528-8585
mit.thesis.degreeMaster
thesis.degree.nameMaster in City Planning


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