A suburb of Boston, MA, located north of the Charles River. The location of the (in)famous schools of Harvard and MIT.

Also the location of the FSF and the current home of Richard M. Stallman.

The only place in North America that's fit for human habitation.

Okay, the only place I've been to in North America that's fit for human habitation. That narrows it down considerably...

In the summer, Cambridge is unbearably hot: Temperatures over 90 degrees are not rare. As soon as the weather becomes tolerable in September, the students return and take all the parking spaces. I live within easy walking distance of two good bookstores and several good record stores, and I once sighted Noam Chomsky at the supermarket. There are parks and people riding bicycles (like, see Charles River Reservation, I guess).

Most of the streets in Cambridge wind like cow paths: This is because at one time they were cow paths. It's like a maze. Those streets which are labelled (many aren't) will often have two names on the sign: A modern name, and the original name with a date. Some of the names are funny: Garden Street, for example, is subtitled "Great Swamp Way, 1634".

Parking in Cambridge can be hell; when the college kids are in town for the winter, I've spent half an hour trying to find a space in the evening. That part sucks.

Many of the buildings in Cambridge are old, and much of the city is built of brick. Many sidewalks are of brick, too, and they're very slippery in the winter -- but so what? It looks wonderful.

Cambridge, MA, (pop ~100,000) is a city across the Charles River from Boston. It is home to twoHarvardbigHarvardcolleges. It is bordered by Somerville to the North-East, Arlington to the North-West, Belmont to the West, Watertown to the South-West, and the Charles River to the south (with Boston on the opposite shore). In Cambridge, nearly every intersection has a sign proclaiming it "somethingorother (square|park|circle)". Only a few of them are actually urban centers, though. These include Harvard Square(rich snobs, intellectuals & street kids), Porter Square (North Cambridge), Inman Square, Kendall Square (Nerds & Yuppies), and a few more. King Bhumibol Adulyadej Square, an intersection at the edge of Brattle Sq, (which is in turn just an intersection on the edge of Harvard Sq.), was named for the current Thai monarch who was born in Cambridge while his parents studied medicine at Harvard incidentally, Thailand has had a very progressive health policy during Adulyadej's reign. 138 did a bunch of grafitti in Cambridge. Cambridge has good honest New England weather (till global warming really sets in, anyway) - hot in summer, pretty cold in winter, and cool in between.
Check out the Zeitgeist Gallery sometime.
Go to Toscanini's (I recommend becoming good friends with an employee)
Buy used books at the Bookcellar Cafe. Go to the 1369 coffeehouse.


In the past decade, many tech companies have sprung up in Cambridge and Boston (coming directly from MIT or other colleges, or at least drawing on the large number of well-educated folks in the area).

Cambridge is NOT a suburb of Boston!

I have to correct Kostya on that important point. Its like saying that Brooklyn, NY is a suburb of New York City. It is a grave insult, and in Brooklyn will get youse a beat-down. In Cambridge they're much more restrained, but inside they're hurt just as deeply by Kostya.

To me a suburb is a satellite to an 'urb', a community whose main purpose in life is to service (typically, housing and green space) the metropolis. The Cambridge-Boston relationship (or the New York-Brooklyn relationship) is that of separate cities that grew up on opposite sides of a river, and both have their own raison d'etre. See Minneapolis-St. Paul.

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