Boston has a history of throwing tax breaks at large firms. But Glaeser’s report suggests that if Boston and Cambridge are serious about growing, they need to focus more on what’s causing companies like Biogen, Novartis, Pfizer, Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Zipcar to grow locally. The answer is in Greater Boston’s startup engine — MIT and Harvard, the Cambridge Innovation Center and MassChallenge. Kendall Square and the Seaport are only magnets as long as they continue growing the small firms that compel big firms to stay in town. And those small companies can only grow as long as they can find affordable office space — something that’s becoming increasingly difficult, as more big firms flock to greater Boston’s tech clusters.
