Kudos to WHOI for hitting the pavement and actually getting some local reaction immediately instead of just parroting back the news conference on Bradley’s expansion plans.

Carl Bloch, who lives on Cooper and will be looking at a five-story parking deck in his back yard soon, explains what’s happening as a result of Bradley’s covert expansion plans:

Bloch lives on Cooper Street, just a block from where the new sports complex will be built. As the university’s borders expand, Bloch says more families are leaving the area.

“It seems like more and more of these houses are going for rental properties and families are moving out,” said Bloch.

That’s what I mean by Bradley’s actions destabilizing the neighborhood. Stable families move out and the area becomes more transient, and less attractive to stable families. That’s what happens when people don’t know what to expect from their 800-lb. gorilla neighbor to the east.

The funny thing is, I don’t know what Bradley is afraid of — a lot of people are actually quite understanding. They know Bradley needs to expand. They just wish the university would “work with the neighborhood” ahead of time, instead of waiting until the planning is all completed, like they have in fact done.