A Tale Of One City Split In Two

http://archplanbaltimore.blogspot.de/2015/05/aspirations-of-two-baltimores.html

Baltimore skyscrapers
uscg.mil

Hello Everyone:

Before I get going on today's post, Blogger would like give a big shout out to the National Trust for Historic Preservation for the mention in your tweet this morning.  Blogger would like to give a big shout to the City of Baltimore and let you all know that still have fond memories of my previous visits.  This bring us to today's post on Baltimore.

Klaus Philipsen recently posted a wonderful article on his blog archplanbaltimore.blogspot.com, titled "Aspirations of the two Baltimores."  The controversial death of Freddie Gray and similar deaths of African-American young men following encounters with police, has highlighted the fact that despite all the careful planning and policy measures, tensions between law enforcement and minority communities do exist.  It seems that our cities are split into two.

Thames Street
Fells Point, Baltimore, Maryland
en.wikipedia.org

Like other cities around the United States, Baltimore has two faces.  These faces are not only rich and poor; white and black but also "new" versus "old"  The new face is gentrified complected.  Mr. Philispen writes, "...those who see new investment in Baltimore as good...the "new" Baltimore that investment brings.  Those welcome hipsters...millennials and those who despise them.  Those who celebrated that Baltimore...recently begun to shed its inward looking inferiority complex...those who mourned the loss of a Baltimore they have learned to cherish in spite of all its shortcomings."  It is a sentiment echoed in every corner, the demise of a beloved city, its history in ruins.  Baltimore has become a city, alien to its long time residents.

East Baltimore
weblogs.baltimoresun.com

Klaus Philispen sat down with M. Watkins, an African-American writer and and host of WYPR's Midday show, to discuss the "two Baltimores."  Mr. Watkins has expressed his dislike for the new Baltimore in an article for Salon, stating My city is gone, my history depleted, ruined and undocumented.  I don't know this new Baltimore, it's alien to me.  (http://www.salon.com/2015/03/23/black_history_bulldozed_for_another_starbuck-against_the_new_baltimore)   Mr. Philipsen places himself in a third category, as someone who "likes the "'new Baltimore' but doesn't think that we have enough investment especially not in poor neighborhoods."  In response to Mr. Watkins and making the argument for positive change and learning from each community, Mr. Philipsen wrote, "...And now in the de-industrialized city, depopulated and marred by abandonment, we see the bifurcation into places of glitz and others of abject poverty.[..]  Though Watkins narrative is correct, it misses one important point: those deprived neighborhoods [..] are still without any of the investments that create rapid change elsewhere.

Baltimore Inner City
123rf.com

Following a column by radio show host Dan Rodricks, titled "The Fragile Dream of the 'Next Baltimore' cracks," an irate reader responded in more forceful manner than Mr. Watkins.  Mr. Philipsen notes that the reader's rage had been fueled by overwhelming anger on the city streets.  The reader wrote,

The gentrified hell of The Next Baltimore is not a place I want to live.  The Next Baltimore, owned and operated by Seawall, its poor driven to the counties in favor of "young professionals [..] in the municipal ethnic cleansing game sounds like a dystopian 80s science fiction film set in the present day.
[..] this nightmarish "Next Baltimore"...[..], built on the cleansed neighborhoods and on the backs and ruined corpses of black men and women[..]

Freddie Gray's Death protests
nbcnews.com

Not long after Klaus Philipsen's article appeared and Freddie Gray's funeral, the long simmering frustration and anger boiled over, sweeping the entire inner city, from west to downtown and eastward.  Mr. Philipsen observed some of the young men participating in the melee, "For once they did not hold their heads down, did not stay invisible but looked triumphant, even happy..."  Ironically, there pride also damaged the pride of the "next Baltimore."  This begs the overarching question, "can these young men be successful at the same time when Baltimore as a city is successful?  Or maybe the real question should be, can Baltimore or any city be successful when so many of its young men are not?"

No doubt the linger after effects of riots or uprising (depending on your point of view) have created another endless round of handwringing, people groping for explanations, and opinions from every sector of society.  Naturally, the social media has had and continues to have their say.  Blogger supposes that the Marshall McCluhan aphorism, "The revolution will be televised," should be updated to "The revolution will be tweeted, posted, uploaded to YouTube, and blogged."

"Justice for Mike Brown"
Ferguson, Missouri
usatoday.com

 Blogger does not concur with Mr. Philipsen when he writes, "Baltimore is the culmination of a whole series of brutality and death brought to young black men, either by vigilanti (Florida) or by police (Ferguson)."  That statement as a sense of finality to it and blogger does not believe that the protests in Baltimore will be a catalyst for any real change.  However, having experienced the 1992 post-Rodney King verdict riots (no other word to describe the mayhem) in Los Angeles, Blogger can concur with this statement, "Not surprisingly, the views about what happened bifurcated into similar camps as those for and against the 'new' Baltimore, not to mention those who never thought this city could get anywhere, the cynics, the racists and those who just opine without thinking."  Just as not surprising were the swift condemnations from those in power and the terse dismissals of the protests as just a means of getting attention.  The latter believed "that the entire system was rotten, guilty and needs to be fought."  They point to the widening income gap between rich and poor, not just in Baltimore but across the United States.

Post uprising clean up
Baltimore, Maryland
theatlantic.com

From these two camps, emerged a third group that quickly took control of the situation.  This group was made up of a cross section of people, who acted out of compassion, immediately took direct action, and began the process of clean up and repair.  This group held control for a week and, as Mr. Philipsen speculates, "...could hold the key for bridging the pro and anti development groups, those who benefitted and those who have not."  The city returned to its normally presentable state.  However, Mr. Philipsen asks, "But what is the longer perspective?"  Pretending that everything is status quo is unfathomable.  Even all the amenities geared toward enticing the privileged few cannot balance out the
middle class flight to the suburbs.  Blogger James DeVinnie (http://www.occupydemocats.com/author/devinne/) had this to say,

Let me provide jus a small sampling (http://www.forbes.com/sites.dandiamong/2015/04/28/why-baltimore-burned) of the inequality and oppression (http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/how-baltimores-young-black-men-are-boxed-in/) that afflicts Baltimore's black population: The citywide poverty rate is 25%, but in parts of West Baltimore where the riots broke out it is almost 40%.  The unemployment rate for young black men in the city is 37%; for young white men it is 10%.  Baltimore city's notoriously pathetic public schools have a high-school graduation rate of 58%, one of the worst in the ountry.  10% of the city's Black adults have college degrees, while 50% of its White adults do.  The infant mortality (http://urbanhealth.jhu.edu/media/reports.healthdis_baltimore.pdf) rate is 9 times higher for blacks than for whites.  The median income for Blacks is about half that of whites.  Wealthy white neighborhoods have a life expectancy (http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/how-baltimores-young-black-men-are-boxed-in/) that is about 20 years longer than poor black neighborhoods.  The youth of Baltimore face a graver social and economic situation (http://www.vocativ.com/culture/society/baltimore-poverty/)

Baltimore police officer playing with two boys
darkroom.baltimoresun.com

Klaus Philipsen writes, "Even though it is impossible to decipher the meaning and ultimate read on the events so close to the initial eruption a few less emerge pretty clearly:"

• Social capital in poor and disinvested communities has grown since the 1960ies. Baltimore showed communities who were vested in the progress that has been made coming together in repair and healing.
• Improvements and development in Baltimore as well as most other American cities is very unevenly distributed.  What is needed is not less development overall but a better distribution of it with more focus on affordability, access and equity.
• Equating all developments to evil is silly.  Destruction occurred predominantly in the disinvested areas where is so terribly hard to come by.  Just about anybody who is in any way vested into community, progress is deeply troubled seeing the very things destroyed for which they have worked.
• Ignoring the eruption and going back to business is usual may not only prove, impossible, it will also an even bigger eruption in the future more likely.
• Bricks and mortar are not the only investment that is needed, instead there is a dire need of investment in people, social capital and a much broader social compact across all classes and races.
• Social eruptions are never pretty nor are revolutions of any kind.  Whether throwing tea into the Boston Harbor in the fight against Colonial powers or picket lines during labor struggles, none of it has ever looked as heroic at the time when it happened as it did later in the history books.  Instead, what happened was often ugly, messy, violent and full of senseless destruction.  Only with centuries of distance do actions appear as glorious with right and wrong, good and bad neatly divided.

West Lafayette Street in West Baltimore
flickr.com

Whatever the reason, revolutionary aspirations are an anathema to most people who live in democracies around the globe.  Yet, one of the questions that continues to linger is , "...how long it could go one with the disparities within our country which grow year after year and have reached dimensions where some parts of our own cities resemble Nicaragua or Nigeria more than the USA on many metric..."  It almost seems like American cities, and cities around the world, are on the precipice revolution-when speeches give way to action.  Mr. Philipsen writes, "An advanced society should not wait until a powder keg blows but build a social compact based on incremental but broad progress for all."

The lessons of Ferguson and Baltimore are still being parsed but one thing is quite clear, change will not come right away.  More community policing and body cameras on police officers are a step, whether or not they are a good idea is for law enforcement experts to decide.  What is key to easing tensions is a holistic approach to community development.  It is not just about jobs, it is about access to those jobs-i.e affordable, reliable, safe transportation, vocational and academic training, child care for working parents, in short a more proactive approach to moving people off the unemployment rolls onto the payrolls.  This will not happen without consensus from all sides.  There are signs of consensus but only time will tell.