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TRUE Multifamily Living Across Generations

Whether a home works for the household living in it: size, privacy, access, stability and the daily needs around it.

26 of 45 measures connected

In plain words

Does a new apartment building work for a family, or just for the count of units?

A unit count says how many homes were built. It does not say whether they fit the households that need them. An older resident, a family with children and a shared household need different things from the same floor area.

The figures to remember
8 of 8
of 8 conditions for family living — cost, space, privacy and the rest — have no published measure yet
From Tracker measure inventory
  • 58,966

    Total dwelling units — City inventory

    Fact— show source

    Direct from an identified authoritative or primary source.

    Demographics and Statistics FAQ · City of Cambridge Community Development Department · "58,966 total units, of which 9,021 (15.3%) are affordable" — CDD inventory as of June 30, 2025 · verified August 17, 2026

  • 57,127

    Total housing units — American Community Survey one-year estimate

    Fact— show source

    Direct from an identified authoritative or primary source.

    Demographics and Statistics FAQ · City of Cambridge Community Development Department · "2024 ACS 1-year housing unit estimate: 57,127" · verified August 17, 2026

  • 56,684

    Total housing units — Census Address Count Listing Files

    Fact— show source

    Direct from an identified authoritative or primary source.

    Demographics and Statistics FAQ · City of Cambridge Community Development Department · "November 2025 Address Count Listing Files housing unit count: 56,684" · verified August 17, 2026

  • 54,840

    Total housing units — American Community Survey five-year estimate

    Fact— show source

    Direct from an identified authoritative or primary source.

    Demographics and Statistics FAQ · City of Cambridge Community Development Department · "2020–2024 ACS 5-year housing unit estimate: 54,840" · verified August 17, 2026

  • 53,907

    Total housing units — 2020 decennial census

    Fact— show source

    Direct from an identified authoritative or primary source.

    Demographics and Statistics FAQ · City of Cambridge Community Development Department · "2020 decennial census housing unit count: 53,907" · verified August 17, 2026

  • 9,021

    Income-restricted units in the City inventory

    Fact— show source

    Direct from an identified authoritative or primary source.

    Demographics and Statistics FAQ · City of Cambridge Community Development Department · "58,966 total units, of which 9,021 (15.3%) are affordable" — CDD inventory as of June 30, 2025 · verified August 17, 2026

What would have to be published

9 conditions defined · 1 published

A home works for a multigenerational household when all of these hold at once, not when one does. Nobody publishes them together, and several nobody publishes at all — so this is the specification rather than the result, with the office that holds each missing piece named against it.

  • Cost fitNot publishedHeld by: City of Cambridge Community Development Department, Housing Division, for a cost distribution cross-tabulated by household composition; and the federal Comprehensive Housing Affordability Strategy tables at huduser.gov, which are the only public tables shaped this way.
  • Right-sized spaceNot publishedHeld by: City of Cambridge Assessing Department property attributes joined to a published household-by-bedroom table — federal Comprehensive Housing Affordability Strategy tables, or American Community Survey table B25041 crossed with household type.
  • The occupancy standard behind right-sized spacePublished
  • Privacy and connectionNot publishedHeld by: City of Cambridge Inspectional Services Department occupancy records, and the Community Development Department Housing Division, for a count of units whose sleeping spaces are separated by a door or a change in story.
  • AccessibilityNot publishedHeld by: City of Cambridge Inspectional Services Department, for an inventory of units with a step-free route and a usable interior; and the Massachusetts Architectural Access Board, for the applicable standard. The Board's regulation 521 CMR 9.00 could not be retrieved on this date, so no threshold, percentage or classification term from it is used to define this measure.
  • StabilityNot publishedHeld by: City of Cambridge Community Development Department, Housing Division, for tenure by household pattern; and the Massachusetts Trial Court Housing Court for aggregate filing counts, taken only as suppressed aggregates above a threshold.
  • CareNot publishedHeld by: City of Cambridge Community Development Department for accessory dwelling unit permits, and the Cambridge Council on Aging for live-in aide provisions, so that a care arrangement is recorded rather than inferred from building attributes.
  • Daily needsNot publishedHeld by: Cambridge GIS for the pedestrian network and public open space, and the published transit stop locations, so that the shortest path can be computed rather than estimated. The inputs are public; this module has not yet run the computation.
  • ResilienceNot publishedHeld by: City of Cambridge stormwater and flood mapping, reached through the Rainfall, Space and Flooding tracker; and canopy and heat, reached through the Tree, Canopy and Microclimate tracker. This tracker holds the join key and shows the other tracker's badge.

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People out in Cambridge: front porches in flower, a street of shopfronts, a park lawn and a shaded public shelter.