My Keynote Speech to the Longwood Collective This Morning
We need the LMA to grow in a bold way, but we need our institutional boldness to be matched by a civic boldness and partnership!
This morning, I had the privilege of addressing representatives from the member institutions of the Longwood Collective at their annual meeting at Fenway Park. Given the preponderance of institutions across District 8 (we host 26 of the 45 PILOT eligible institutions across the City), I felt it important to share my remarks with you as well, which are included below.
We’re not far from the buildings, parks, roads, and spaces that you all call home on a daily basis. In fact, we are arguably sitting within what will one day be the expanded boundaries of the Longwood Medical Area.
For decades, Boston has been a hub for life sciences and biotech. Members of the Longwood Collective are certainly significant spokes on that hub, and, within the diversity of your membership, you embody the unique breeding ground for innovation Boston makes possible through the close proximity and intentional collaboration of our universities, hospitals, and research institutions.
From Emmanuel students in sociology finding roles at Brigham and Women to Simmons students in biology or Harvard T. Chan students finding positions in research and beyond, the symbiotic relationship between academia and advancement is clear.
And the Longwood Collective makes clear that maintaining this critical relationship—responsible for a host of stunning breakthroughs—requires member coordination and City support (among other things, of course).
Longwood Collective has proven crucial to fostering coordination between member institutions. From their participation in, oftentimes, protracted development review conversations with the City to their creation of seasonal outdoor activities that make the most of the area’s public realm, I have seen the benefits that this collective brings to members. And even without knowing the organizing force behind renovated green spaces, emergency preparedness plans, and convenient childcare options, anyone who has traveled through the area even once can testify to the efficiency and vibrancy of the LMA. One’s ability to navigate with ease from an appointment at Beth Israel to an outdoor reprieve on the Harvard T. Chan lawn is no accident.
Such successful stewardship, of course, does not happen in a vacuum, and the City that plays host to the LMA is certainly necessary to its maintenance. Contrary to some of the relationships between member organizations, however, the relationship between the City and the LMA is one of interdependence that does not always reached the ideal of symbiosis.
You can’t maintain your talent pool of medical and research professionals if Boston is not affordable. Bostonians cannot maintain access to public goods without responsible institutional growth. You can’t maintain the efficiency of Longwood Collective shuttles without City street infrastructure that supports mass transit. Bostonians cannot maintain a reasonable and affordable commute if private operators complicate convenient routes. You can’t maintain historic and natural resources at scale without the City’s investment in the Emerald Necklace. The list could go on and on.
This is all to say, we need each other. You have real estate interests. The City has real estate interests. You have transportation demands. The City has transportation demands. You have financial obligations. The City has financial obligations. You have a boisterous, passionate, and empowered constituency, and so do we.
With this overlap of imperatives, partnership between the City and the Longwood Medical Area, via members of the Longwood Collective, is not just beneficial but necessary.
In my first 10 months in office, I have been grateful for the opportunities to support this needed partnership. Representing five unique neighborhoods, much of my day-to-day is balanced between the needs of the West End, Beacon Hill, Back Bay, Fenway, and Mission Hill. You would not believe, or maybe you would, the time required to achieve simple yet significant transportation changes in the Back Bay like the conversion of metered spaces to resident parking spaces, or, more dramatically, the addition of bike and bus lanes to Boylston Street. Or maybe it is a meticulous audit of every missing brick and sidewalk patch, including the party responsible for placing those repairs whether it be Eversource, National Grid, or the City. Or maybe it is managing quality of life concerns associated with ongoing construction in the Fenway or college parties in Mission Hill. Soon, we will be on a transportation walk in the Fenway with neighbors and DCR [Department of Conservation and Recreation] outlining some of the ways we can partner with them to deliver on safety in state-owned crosswalks. The needs of my district are often individual to each neighborhood, but I am proud of the way that I have achieved a cohesiveness to engagement and progress across these five neighborhoods.
An engaged and passionate constituency means that changes big or small are done in partnership with the community and with great care.
I think the same is probably true for institutions within the Longwood Medical Area, what is necessary for one is not sure to apply for another, but the area presents as a cohesive economic, sustainable, and ever forward-reaching behemoth thanks to coordination and care.
The opportunity you and I have is to bring the care we have for our respective constituencies together to break down what can often be two separate worlds within our City—the public world and the institutional world.
For example, for all the shiny glass in the sky from here to the Brookline border, the Fenway neighborhood does not have a public library or a BCYF or even a district public school (beyond specific offerings of BLS and Mel King). For the tens of thousands of employees and students in the LMA and surrounding, the public resources we do have are sometimes leased by private institutions. Public spaces are for all. But I do not see enough of an institutional return for the public. We need the LMA and we need the LMA to grow—all the way to Kenmore Square—in a bold way. But we need our institutional boldness to be matched by a civic boldness, a quality of life boldness, a boldness to support housing and green spaces and public amenities.
A partnership that makes institutional growth and public advancement possible is the aim, and I can tell you, I’m ready to be that partner!