(BLOOMBERG) Sarah Holder, December 22, 2022

Within an hour of Burhan Azeem moving into a new apartment this March, an NBC News crew showed up to take a tour. A month later, his selfie in front of his new front door was featured in Boston magazine.

The place wasn’t so special — Azeem had a 75-square-foot room in a four-bedroom unit he shared with three other roommates in Cambridge, Massachusetts. For a 25-year-old paying $1,000 a month to live in one of the most expensive cities in the country, the circumstances weren’t so special, either.

But Azeem wasn’t just any mid-20s renter. Elected in 2021, he was the Cambridge City Council’s youngest member, and one of a handful who don’t own their own homes. 

“It’s a really rare thing to have renters on city council, even in a city like Cambridge, where 65% of people are renters,” said Azeem, who was bemused — but not surprised — by the attention paid to his housing search. “It just is not represented in our politics at all.”

The overwhelming dominance of homeowners in elected office isn’t just a Cambridge phenomenon. It’s apparent at every level of US government, in every state and city, according to a study published this fall.

Source: Bloomberg