The Great Divide

And now for the  musings part of this blog. I don't mean to offend anyone with this post... Just give y'all a gentle, friendly shove!

You Boston people who think there's nothing in Cambridge but Harvard and MIT? Give the place a shot. Kendall Sq, Central Sq, Inman Sq, Porter Sq, and if we slip over to Somerville, Union and Davis all have good shops, restaurants, even clubs, theaters and music venues. Almost everything is on the red line or within a 10 minute walk of it, completely easy to get to, and tons of stuff.

Cambridge people who think Boston is too busy, too touristy, whatever? Let yourself see more of the city than just Newbury and Fenway. Chinatown, the South End, East Boston, Jamaica Plain, they're all on the T and full of way more than just tourists and financial district suits.

There are great things on both sides of the river, and 6 bridges (I'm counting Weeks) to cross it, so stop thinking the other side of the river is too far, it's really only another 10 minutes on the train. Enjoy the whole metropolis, people. I'm not saying don't be proud of your hometown, just, you don't have to pick sides, spread the love around!

Those of you from here I'm sure have experience with all of this and don't need to keep reading, but for those of you from someplace else:
On a map, Boston and Cambridge, (and let's include Somerville too since it's the north side of the river's equivalent to Jamaica Plain) look like one big mass of density, divided into a northern and southern section by the Charles River. Cambridge is north, Boston is south. But there are some major differences.
To start, Boston is bigger, even if you mush the north bank into  Camberville. And correspondingly, has a much bigger population; triple I think.
Then there's history. Cambridge is older, and a quintessential college town, Harvard has been there almost since day one. Boston, meanwhile, is a few years younger, and was founded as a shipping center. It makes sense that the two towns would end up so different based on their very different beginnings.
Now, Boston has way more universities than Camberville, I'm not even going to try to count, but it also has all kinds of other industries. East Cambridge's brief stint as a candy manufacturing hub is all but completely gone, and it's back to being a city of universities and the tech/ "knowledge based" jobs that their graduates fill. Cambridge is quieter, in the purely volume sense of the word, and has church steeples sticking up instead of high rises (Kendall is the exception here). Boston is busier, with a financial district and major sports venues.
Of course, all of this is an incredible oversimplification. I've left out the Hatian and Portuguese populations of Cambridge, all of Southie, East Boston, etc., it would just take way too long to get into all of that. Needless to say the two cities have a lot of differences, but they are both totally worthy of spending time in them, and full of interesting incredibly diverse populations and things to do.