Postcards from Baltimore
This is where I grew up and, by turns, bought a house and started a family. Living here is occasionally bizarre and maddening, but there are also moments of joy, lovable local institutions, a respectable food scene, and groups of people advancing the civic good simply by tending their respective gardens. It's a lot like anywhere else in that respect.
I genuinely believe all of that.
A friend (who I had a hand in convincing to move here) asked me whether and how the feeling in Baltimore now compares to the Bad Old Days of the mid-90s. I don't have a single answer to this question, so I've fired up a blog again to try.
A few points for context:
I grew up in the city's most privileged neighborhood. The neighborhood where I grew up, and where my parents still live, literally invented the restrictive housing covenant. It is within the boundaries of Baltimore City but is better thought of as an internal upper-class suburb. The neighborhood where I now live, laid out as a professional-class streetcar community, directly abuts the main campus of Johns Hopkins University. It also directly abuts a community redlined by the FHA in the 50s and dealing with the effects of that divestment. However I might think of the city's crime issue, I'm at something of a physical remove from it. But its effects are proximate to me in a way they weren't growing up.
I have not directly experienced violent crime. Some years ago my sister was mugged; my parents' house was broken into in 2017. Isolated incidents both. I've dealt with nothing more serious than the odd package swiped from my porch. The crime issue is not personal for me as it is for others, and is not a part of my daily experience of life. If I do not watch the local news or log into Citizen I can generally tune it out. This is a big privilege.
I'm a leftie with a political science degree. By political inclination and academic training I am given to institutional explanations and critiques. I think intersectional analysis is important; I think any discussion of crime has to consider root causes; I do not think "allowing the police to do their jobs" is a relevant solution.
My relationship to the city is different now than it was 20-25 years ago. Then, I was a child living in a wealthy enclave. Now, I am a parent and homeowner in a neighborhood from which one can see to the other side of the tracks. Crassly, I now have a direct economic stake in that community's success. I have an incentive to be attentive to its problems even if I were not politically inclined to be.
This context is important so that you can qualify and position my opinion. As further reading I would suggest seeking out the views of folks for whom the crime and murders are directly personal.
A few points for context:
I grew up in the city's most privileged neighborhood. The neighborhood where I grew up, and where my parents still live, literally invented the restrictive housing covenant. It is within the boundaries of Baltimore City but is better thought of as an internal upper-class suburb. The neighborhood where I now live, laid out as a professional-class streetcar community, directly abuts the main campus of Johns Hopkins University. It also directly abuts a community redlined by the FHA in the 50s and dealing with the effects of that divestment. However I might think of the city's crime issue, I'm at something of a physical remove from it. But its effects are proximate to me in a way they weren't growing up.
I have not directly experienced violent crime. Some years ago my sister was mugged; my parents' house was broken into in 2017. Isolated incidents both. I've dealt with nothing more serious than the odd package swiped from my porch. The crime issue is not personal for me as it is for others, and is not a part of my daily experience of life. If I do not watch the local news or log into Citizen I can generally tune it out. This is a big privilege.
I'm a leftie with a political science degree. By political inclination and academic training I am given to institutional explanations and critiques. I think intersectional analysis is important; I think any discussion of crime has to consider root causes; I do not think "allowing the police to do their jobs" is a relevant solution.
My relationship to the city is different now than it was 20-25 years ago. Then, I was a child living in a wealthy enclave. Now, I am a parent and homeowner in a neighborhood from which one can see to the other side of the tracks. Crassly, I now have a direct economic stake in that community's success. I have an incentive to be attentive to its problems even if I were not politically inclined to be.
This context is important so that you can qualify and position my opinion. As further reading I would suggest seeking out the views of folks for whom the crime and murders are directly personal.
So, for me, how does the feeling in Baltimore now compare to the Bad Old Days? I think there are four elements to the answer that paint a somewhat uneven picture. There's a lot I feel good about, but I have some concerns. I had hoped the city would be further along by now and am anxious for us to get there. All of my political efforts these days are oriented in that direction.
1. The city is in a crisis of leadership. Excepting the current occupant, our previous three mayors in succession:
And the city can no longer rely on the state's leadership for help. Where our current governor has not actively divested resources from the city, he has offered poison pills: demolition of vacant homes with nothing in their place; reallocation of state employees away from a major transit hub he refuses to redevelop despite a plan on the table; demolition of the old Civil War-era jail, to be replaced with another carceral structure.
We simply lack, at the highest and most influential levels, leaders who are committed to progress beyond the status quo.
2. Targeted neighborhood revitalization is no longer a speculative exercise. In the early 2000s it was not entirely clear whether the Harbor East redevelopment would take hold. Fells Point had only just emerged from the gentrification cycle; North Fells Point houses were being sold for dollars; investment into Remington and Highlandtown were at least ten years out.
Harbor East is now a second downtown. All of the neighborhoods I mentioned above are now nice places to live with developing (or developed) "mini Main Street" business corridors. We now know that revitalization can work; can be profitable for its investors; can be sustainable. All of this progress has happened in spite of the city's leadership, rather than because of it. And the progress has yet to touch the neighborhoods that would most benefit from it. Imagine what could be accomplished with a more equitable distribution of resources and just an iota of strategic vision.
3. The pre-blight years are receding further into historical memory. The current and growing generations don't have an experience of Baltimore before the blight and crime wave. The folks who do are passing away, moving to surrounding counties, giving up. The current reality takes a psychological toll; the stubbornness and frequency of the murders appears less a human problem than a divine one. If this is your daily reality, it can lead to a bias for action that yields weird or counter-productive solutions (spy planes! martial law! let the police do unconstitutional stuff!) We have not experienced a modern Baltimore without the crime. Without a clear sense for what the city can be it's hard to devise a strategy to get there.
4. We now know that the crime decline from 1999-2015 came at the cost of mass incarceration and unconstitutional policing. There is a frequent argument from the city's police union (and certain quarters of the population who live in leafy neighborhoods) to simply let the police "do what they know works". There is a corresponding argument from an older generation that young folks "need to learn respect for the law". Taken together, these arguments advocate (however indirectly) for the kind of broken-windows, militarized policing that culminated in Freddie Gray's death. Even if the city's police department were not corrupt and increasingly staffed by individuals who live outside the city's borders, coming to view it as an occupied territory rather than a community of which they're a part, these methods are morally and legally hazardous. They might result in a short-term decline--but how sustainably? Baltimore has yet to experience what constitutional policing looks and feels like. I think it's worth a try to find out.
1. The city is in a crisis of leadership. Excepting the current occupant, our previous three mayors in succession:
- Resigned after being convicted of a misdemeanor stemming from a kickback scandal
- Declined to run for re-election in 2016 after mismanaging the Freddie Gray aftermath
- Resigned facing federal indictment for money laundering, campaign finance violations, and miscellaneous graft
And the city can no longer rely on the state's leadership for help. Where our current governor has not actively divested resources from the city, he has offered poison pills: demolition of vacant homes with nothing in their place; reallocation of state employees away from a major transit hub he refuses to redevelop despite a plan on the table; demolition of the old Civil War-era jail, to be replaced with another carceral structure.
We simply lack, at the highest and most influential levels, leaders who are committed to progress beyond the status quo.
2. Targeted neighborhood revitalization is no longer a speculative exercise. In the early 2000s it was not entirely clear whether the Harbor East redevelopment would take hold. Fells Point had only just emerged from the gentrification cycle; North Fells Point houses were being sold for dollars; investment into Remington and Highlandtown were at least ten years out.
Harbor East is now a second downtown. All of the neighborhoods I mentioned above are now nice places to live with developing (or developed) "mini Main Street" business corridors. We now know that revitalization can work; can be profitable for its investors; can be sustainable. All of this progress has happened in spite of the city's leadership, rather than because of it. And the progress has yet to touch the neighborhoods that would most benefit from it. Imagine what could be accomplished with a more equitable distribution of resources and just an iota of strategic vision.
3. The pre-blight years are receding further into historical memory. The current and growing generations don't have an experience of Baltimore before the blight and crime wave. The folks who do are passing away, moving to surrounding counties, giving up. The current reality takes a psychological toll; the stubbornness and frequency of the murders appears less a human problem than a divine one. If this is your daily reality, it can lead to a bias for action that yields weird or counter-productive solutions (spy planes! martial law! let the police do unconstitutional stuff!) We have not experienced a modern Baltimore without the crime. Without a clear sense for what the city can be it's hard to devise a strategy to get there.
4. We now know that the crime decline from 1999-2015 came at the cost of mass incarceration and unconstitutional policing. There is a frequent argument from the city's police union (and certain quarters of the population who live in leafy neighborhoods) to simply let the police "do what they know works". There is a corresponding argument from an older generation that young folks "need to learn respect for the law". Taken together, these arguments advocate (however indirectly) for the kind of broken-windows, militarized policing that culminated in Freddie Gray's death. Even if the city's police department were not corrupt and increasingly staffed by individuals who live outside the city's borders, coming to view it as an occupied territory rather than a community of which they're a part, these methods are morally and legally hazardous. They might result in a short-term decline--but how sustainably? Baltimore has yet to experience what constitutional policing looks and feels like. I think it's worth a try to find out.
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