A Cambridge city councilor is making a significant proposal: He’s urging his city to annex Boston, reclaim the mantle of the state capital, settle a centuries-old grudge, and lead Massachusetts as “MegaCambridge.”
In ads appearing across Boston on Monday, Burhan Azeem, who is now in his second term as a Cambridge city councilor, is making the case that Cantabrigians should seize their larger neighbor.
“In 1630 Cambridge was chosen to be capital,” the ad’s copy reads. “That was until Boston took that from us. It’s time to fix that. Let’s annex Boston.”
The timing for the ad campaign: April 1.
Advertisement
An April Fool’s joke, but one with a serious point, said Azeem. It’s his way of nudging people to think more about regional collaboration — on issues like the MBTA and public infrastructure, between local communities and the state.
“We do a great job of running our city, I think that Boston has been running into some budget issues; I saw their school budget was struggling,” Azeem said in a phone interview. “And in Cambridge, we don’t have those issues.”
The dream of a Cambridge-led Massachusetts is portrayed as a video. As words roll by calling for annexation, a crown is swatted away and shattered. In a dramatic flourish, the word “Boston” is repeated eight times; there’s no audio, but it’s presented like a hero shouting the name of their archrival.
(Azeem’s sister designed the ads, he said, and he spent $5,000 to place the ad on 77 digital billboards across Boston.)
This isn’t the first time Azeem has pushed for a tongue-in-cheek land grab. Two years ago, he pitched making Camberville — the regional portmanteau of Cambridge and Somerville — a thing, with Cambridge (naturally) in charge.
Big News! Monday's night city council agenda is out and it contains my policy order asking for a feasibility study on Cambridge annexing with Somerville. @CambMA @SomervilleCity
— Burhan Azeem, Cambridge City Councillor (@realBurhanAzeem) April 1, 2022
Read More Here: https://t.co/cdXk9eeUgM pic.twitter.com/5LybCQBM7r
This time, he’s proposing to turn the City on a Hill into a benign fiefdom of the People’s Republic of Cambridge. It would work out for the best, Azeem said in a phone interview Sunday.
Advertisement
Azeem, who is the Cambridge City Council’s chairperson of Transportation and Public Utilities Committee and an MIT-trained engineer, does talk about what a MegaCambridge might look like in very specific terms.
“Somerville is very vulnerable, they’re a smaller city,” Azeem said.
Then, on to Charlestown, said Azeem. “It’s not really connected to Boston proper, and I think that’s a great entry peninsula.”
So what would the municipal gestalt of MegaCambridge be like?
Would it be the partnership of the ages, like Holmes and Watson, or more like Brady and Belichick, a team-up where one part turns out greater than the whole?
Or maybe, it might not be all that different from what’s there now — which is sort of Azeem’s point.
A back-of-the-napkin rundown of both cities shows how much they have in common: bound together by mass transit and public infrastructure; the core of the region’s medical, financial, and biotech sectors; and Harvard’s college on one side of the river, while its business and medical schools are on the other.
But of course, MegaCambridge would be run under the auspices of Cambridge’s city government — a service Cambridge is only too happy to provide its larger neighbor, according to Azeem.
“If Boston needs any financial help, we’d be happy to bail them out,” Azeem said.
How does Boston Mayor Michelle Wu feel about this? Azeem did text Tiffany Chu, Wu’s chief of staff, to let them know about the ads.
Advertisement
Wu’s office did not respond to a request for comment Sunday.
John Hilliard can be reached at john.hilliard@globe.com.