tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30400278.post116025892305094373..comments2010-02-08T11:02:17.159-05:00Comments on The Gross Report: Lessons from Baltimore: The Inner HarborStephen Grosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08704949337738506028noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30400278.post-79085036924352096562006-12-11T08:40:00.000-05:002006-12-11T08:40:00.000-05:00The problem with viewing Baltimore as a visitor to...The problem with viewing Baltimore as a visitor to the Inner Harbor is that one makes assumptions that are not necessarily true. For example, most of those buildings that you mention are being developed, although it may not yet be evident.<br /><br />Downtown, by the way, currently has two full-service grocery stores (not to mention Lexington Market) and extensive retail, including the more suburban stores like Best Buy. Their is a new department store -- a real one -- currently being built, with several others in the wings. <br /><br />That said, the real "Lessons from Baltimore" are to be found in her neighborhoods ... Fells Point, Federal Hill, Otterbein, Hampden, Charles Village, Union Square, etc. I doubt that there is a neighborhood in Cleveland that has the vitality of these neighboroods. These neighborhoods have full-service grocery stores, retail (both of the needed amenity and "draw" types). Several have public markets (12 in the city). Hopkins, unlike the Cleveland clinic, is revitalizibg, with its own money, the entire adjacent residental/retail neighborhood.<br /><br />Yes, some of the neighborhoods are deplorable and still have a long way to go, but several are on the rebound and that rebound is spilling over into adjacent neighborhoods (ex: Charles Village "bringing up" the "fallen-on-hard-times" Upton/Pennslyvania Ave. neighborhood. The city is buying large tracks of vacant homes, reselling many of them dirt cheap with financial incentives. Baltimore is also honest about the plight of its neighborhoods (if you buy into a neighborhood, you know exactly what to expect). For example, check out the LIVEBaltimore website and read the news clippings below the neighborhood info.<br /><br />Baltimore has just completed her 25 year master plan (something Cleveland hasn't done), which interestingly is less about buildings than about residents and their desires for their neighborhoods. It is an interesting document that is available online. In the Park Heights neighborhood (heavily Caribbean & Hasidic/Orthodox Jewish), for example, the city planners have created a "what could be plan," rather than a "this is what will happen" plan, telling residents and shopkeepers that the final results are up to them. The city the CDC's will provide the resources, but the residents (and their associations) will make it happen as they want it to happen. Baltimore, by the way, has only 11 or 12 CDC's which provide resources for about 300 organic (natural) neighborhoods in a city with a population of a couple hundred thousand more than Cleveland.<br /><br />While it is true that Baltimore is an industrial city, it was (and is) much more diversified than Cleveland, and it is still one of the world's busiest ports.<br /><br />There is much more that could be said, but I think this highlights the differences between Baltimore and Cleveland. I should note that while I am a Baltimore native, and surely biased, I have had the opportunity to study the master plan and to be involved with what's going on in the city's neighborhood revitalization efforts.Frank A. Millshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11035370736411387840noreply@blogger.com