Between Town and Gown

Continued from page 1

By Sally Atwood

June 2003

The Evolving Relationship

In the past, the strains between Cambridge and the Institute were rooted in mutual distrust. "City residents and officials were saying, You're not talking to us. You're not telling us what you're doing,'" says Gallop. "We were thinking, If we tell you what we're doing, you're going to keep it from happening, so why should we tell you?'"

By the time Deborah Poodry, director of capital project development in MIT's facilities department, arrived in 2000, the distrust had reached a new level. "When I came here, the city's attitude was hostile," she says. "There was a supposition that MIT was not to be trusted, that we were going to lie to them." In contrast, Poodry characterizes the current relationship as cooperative and based on mutual respect. Davis agrees but adds, "We don't always agree on what should happen."

Many attribute the turnaround in the relationship directly to the Town and Gown Team, whose genesis coincided with the start of MIT's construction boom in 1999, which precipitated  an unprecedented volume of communication between MIT and the city. "It used to be that our office was the only one that spoke to the city," says Gallop, "but all of a sudden we were all talking to Cambridge about everything in the universe." 

It quickly became clear that organized communication was needed, and the Town and Gown Team was established to spearhead the effort. Headed by Curry, the group includes Steven Marsh, MIT's managing director of real estate, Paul Parravano, codirector of the Institute's Office of Government and Community Relations, Poodry, Gallop, and various members of their staffs. They meet twice a month to discuss and coordinate strategy, and to make sure they are giving the city consistent messages. "We don't make a move without each other," Gallop says.

According to Curry, Town and Gown has succeeded in taking "multiple groups who have relationships with the city, pooled our thoughts and weighed our needs and the city's needs. We have a very big stake in the success of the city." The group has smoothed the path for planning board approvals, licensing, and permitting. In addition to the group's plenary meetings, a subgroup also meets weekly with the Cambridge Department of Public Works to provide continual construction updates, and a Web site devoted to campus construction and renovations has kept the public informed.

Today, openness characterizes MIT's attitude toward the city. "MIT is a benefit to the community, but you can't pretend that it's all positive because it isn't," says Gallop. "There's traffic, there are students who might be loud, there's construction. But then there's the economic impact, our volunteerism, our work in the schools, sharing of our facilities-and the financial resources and expertise we provide the city." That openness has gone a long way toward developing a spirit of cooperation between Cambridge and MIT.