This ought to give us pause and make us wonder how much those who represent Arlington in discussions about housing and development know about, or consider, how local conditions can sometimes be exacerbated by regional initiatives. Do our representatives plan comprehensively, or do they accept the knee-jerk idea that Arlington must somehow “step up” even if stepping up means stepping into a financial abyss that decreases economic diversity in town at the same time?
Including the state’s largest cities, Arlington has the thirteenth highest population density in all of Massachusetts. (This data is from the MassGIS Bureau of Geographic Information, which uses more generous measures for municipality’s square footage compared to the census itself: https://www.google.com/urlq=https://arcg.is/1iPST50&sa=D&source=docs&ust=1756738020315651&usg=AOvVaw3tRryqEFf5-3K-TP8rDqjW). Excluding water bodies, as the US census does, Arlington has 8,991.8 people, and 3,973 housing units, per square mile.
Remarkably, if the ten Greater Boston communities below were to build out to Arlington’s density, 241,164 new housing units would be built, which is enough to meet the state’s entire estimated demand (All of the data upon which the following analysis is based comes from the 2020 US census: https://data.census.gov/table/DECENNIALDHC2020.P1?t=Populations+and+People&g=160XX00US2501640)
What if we were to measure Arlington instead against the Town Manager Twelve, the dozen communities we usually turn to for comparative analysis? This group includes Brookline, Watertown, Medford, Melrose, Belmont, Stoneham, Winchester, Reading, Natick, Needham, and Milton. Of these towns, only Brookline and Watertown have slightly higher density than us, and the other nine have much lower density. If these communities were to achieve parity with Arlington, that would increase our regional housing stock by 201,642 units.
In Arlington, a puny 5.27% of our tax levy derives from commerce and industry. This situation results in frequent property tax overrides, with another looming deficit projected at $13.5 million for fiscal year 2027 (beginning in July 2026), and rising to $24.9 million by fiscal year 2029. (See Appendix D of Arlington Finance Committee’s Report to Town Meeting 2025: https://www.arlingtonma.gov/home/showpublisheddocument/73684/638802179946530000)
Within the Inner Core of twenty-one communities with which the Metropolitan Area Planning Council (MAPC) lumps us, if Lynn, Medford, Quincy, Melrose, Belmont, Waltham, Newton, Saugus, Needham, and Milton were to build so as to match Arlington's density, they would add a full 216,632 housing units to the Greater Boston area.
Even within the Metro Mayors/ Coalition, made up entirely of cities, if Medford, Quincy, Melrose, Newton, and Braintree were to build to Arlington's density, they would add 108,325 housing units to the Greater Boston area.
Our Town employees and unelected volunteers on the Arlington Redevelopment Board are supposed to consider local pressures alongside regional pressures. So how does our need for a healthy commercial tax base compare with that of our partners in the Metro Mayors’ Coalition? As a whole, the non-residential portion of all property taxes collected in the cities in the Metro Mayors’ Coalition is a whopping 44% ( This data is from the MA Department of Revenue Data’s Analytics and Resource Bureau for Fiscal Year 2025: https://dlsgw.dor.state.ma.us/reports/rdpage.aspxrdreport=dashboard.trendanalysisreports.taxlevybyclass). If we look at the MAPC Inner Core, with which we are also lumped, that grouping as a whole takes in 43% of their total revenue from non-residential taxes.
With such uneven terrain beneath us, it seems prudent that residents ask who needs to “step up” such that new development does not cause the cost of living to skyrocket ever more rapidly in communities like Arlington. Planners working in concert with the state seem oblivious to the precipice ahead in their rush to create simplistic formulas that ignore our town’s financial problems and current density levels. Worse yet, their plans promise to be ineffective in lowering prices. The reality is that the town is in demand among higher-income newcomers, and it cannot support development without the destruction of perfectly good cheaper housing while also unleashing consequences that worsen the financial situation for many residents in tenuous straits already.
One would expect regional planners to consider each town’s fiscal needs and constraints as they come up with plans to allocate density mandates. Alas, it appears they forgot to do such an analysis for the town of Arlington (or they simply choose to look away from the abyss?). Nor is our own planning department speaking up about our town’s unique constraints. If they were to serve the Town’s best interests, they would address Arlington’s lopsided finances as a crisis affecting the town’s fiscal viability, and recognize it as our most urgent priority. New development, including the mixed use projects that contain less commercial space than existed before, has done nothing but exacerbate Arlington’s fiscal problems.
Even if we can manage to fill the town with ever wealthier people to foot our rising property tax bills, this is hardly the inclusive community that residents have said they want. Loss of economic diversity within town boundaries as current residents continue to be forced out under the crushing weight of ever-rising assessments and taxes (affecting homeowners and renters alike) is worthy of opposition if one believes Arlington has a right to want economic diversity as a goal. Do planners at the state and town levels understand that they are undermining that goal, or do they blindly think that a few “subsidized units” are going to make up for the intensifying gentrification their plans are unleashing on a much larger scale?
