Among the negative impacts the luxury boom invites:

Higher Land and Housing Costs. The luxury building boom is driving up the cost of land in central neighborhoods, with a ripple impact on the cost of housing throughout the city. Affluent, but not superrich, households in Boston find themselves pushed to outer neighborhoods, increasing competition for scarce affordable and moderately priced housing.

A More Unequal City. Bringing more millionaires and billionaires to Boston will exacerbate an already grotesque inequality of income, wealth, and opportunity. New residents of these buildings will likely be wealthy white U.S. nationals and international buyers from European and Asian countries in the global 1 percent, compounding the extreme racial wealth divide that already exists in Boston.

A Harboring of Criminal Activity. Boston’s luxury buildings can be used for crimes ranging from international money laundering to tax avoidance.

Ecological Degradation. Luxury projects such as One Dalton Place are requiring the construction of a new fossil fuel energy infrastructure at a time when Boston should be moving aggressively to transition toward 100 percent renewable energy in order to meet our clean energy commitments.

Weak Public Oversight. The pretext of an urgent affordable housing crisis has led to the fast-tracking of dozens of luxury real estate projects. The government oversight bodies responsible for protecting the public interest have become boosters of these projects. Most luxury developers with projects before Boston agencies make campaign contributions to the mayor.

A Less Independent Media. The media, constrained by diminished reporting resources and dependent on advertising revenue from the luxury real estate industry, may be constrained in informing the public about the potential downsides of Boston’s luxury real estate boom.

An Unequal Immigration Welcome Mat. Destitute asylum seekers fleeing persecution and danger are currently facing family separation and deportation. But wealthy foreign investors are buying their citizenship through the EB-5 visa program by investing in luxury properties such as One Dalton Place in Back Bay and Pierce Boston in the Fenway. EB-5 recipients receive a two-year green card and a pathway to apply for full citizenship in exchange for their cash.

Neighborhood Apartheid. Boston’s luxury buildings function as vertical gated communities, walling off their residents from surrounding neighborhoods and communities. Developers are even constructing privatized recreation facilities. As one Architectural Digest article featuring One Dalton Place puts it: “Who Needs a Neighborhood When You Can Have These Wild Amenities?”

A More Vulnerable Future. If the luxury real estate market crashes, will the people of Boston be stuck holding the bag? What will be the impact on Boston in the event of a global slowdown or depression in real estate? What will happen with these dozens of behemoth buildings that require extraordinary amounts of energy and maintenance? Boston taxpayers may end up subsidizing luxury white elephants long after the developers, profits in their pockets, have walked away.