Aspirations of the two Baltimores

It is the purpose of my weekly blogs to go beyond the breathless instant opinions and thruths of the moment and provide a more in depth analysis.

However, after Baltimore became the center of the national tension between police and minority communities and the focal point for observations about race relations from the President down to national and international reporters, it is hard to write about any other topic even if real understanding will need more time and distance.

The two Baltimores each happen to have an outpost on North Avenue, a once grand boulevard, that is now known around the world for where it intersects with Pennsylvania Avenue, once the city's version of Harlem, a place where blacks could have a business and where African American culture thrived during the Jim Crow laws.

The other Baltimore has only a small bridgehead on the long North Avenue, a few blocks to the east, where it intersects with Charles Street, Baltimore's historic axis of glitz. It is here where artists made their mark with the help of the art institute  MICA and Hopkins University and with galleries, alternative bookstores, bars and coffee shops.

Just at that time when Freddie Gray died while "in custody" of the Baltimore police, I had worked on an article about the "authenticity"of cities and gentrification. The research for the article and the discussions around it had made it clear again how divided the community really is, not only into rich and poor and white and black but also into those who see new investment in Baltimore as good and those who hate the "new" Baltimore that of investment and that of hipsters alike. 

Those who welcome hipsters and millenials and those who despise them. Those who celebrate that Baltimore had finally begun to shed its inward looking inferiority complex and saw new residents, mostly young or foreign born, and those who mourned the demise of a Baltimore they had learned to cherish in spite of all its shortcomings.

I had discussed the matter on WYPR's Midday radio talk show with the young African American writer M. Watkins who had expressed his aversion against this new Baltimore in an article on the Salon website. In his article Watkins had said:

My city is gone, my history depleted, ruined and undocumented. I don’t know this new Baltimore, it’s alien to me.

Like the talk show host, belonging to a third group, one that likes the "new Baltimore" but doesn't think that we have enough investment  especially not in poor neighborhoods, I had written my own article as a response to Watkins lamentations, arguing for positive change and for learning from each other I had noted  this:

Baltimore's success (if one wants to call it that) is too lopsided, too limited to certain areas of the city and even there too fragile to be celebrated without legitimately questioning inequality, motives and the forces that stand behind development. [..]
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.

After the radio show host Dan Rodricks had written his regular column in the Baltimore Sun titled "the fragile dream of the 'Next Baltimore' cracks". An irate reader responded with a statement much stronger than what D Watkins had written in Salon. The reader's hyperbole was fueled from a day in the streets of Baltimore after the Freddie Gray protests on Saturday, he wrote this:

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 outer 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 in the cleansed neighborhoods and on the backs and ruined corpses of black men and women [..]

A day later, ( two weeks after my article), and after Gray's funeral, anger, frustration and discontent erupted in a flash across the entire inner city, spreading from the west to downtown and then the east. 

Surprising everybody, including a fully unprepared police, the streets filled with black young man far from the hotspot at Mondawmin Mall, fists in the air. Glass broke a mere 80 feet from my office desk and disrupters broke a window and took 7-11 items from a shelf  right when I  passed on foot on my way home. This gave me a front row seat of some of the faces of the young men.  For once they did not hold their heads down, did not stay invisible but looked triumphant, even happy. Not like how I imagine thugs, more like high school kids on a really cool field trip. Of course I saw only a very few faces out of the many, and some had, indeed, covered their faces. The groups swarmed rapidly and almost instantaneously across a large area creating significant property damage. Ironically, these young men's pride also damaged the pride of the "next Baltimore". This begs the bigger question, can these you men be successful at the same time when Baltimore as a city is successful? Or maybe the real questions should be, can Baltimore or any city be successful when so many of its young men are not?

My new home. Wishing us all peace. And that what is at the core of all this.... the complex core.... will find justice and resolution. (From a friend who recently moved here from San Francisco)

After those few hours when the power was in the hands of those who are usually powerless, the city hasn't been the same. Finally many people asked those questions.

The events, depending of perspective, described as riots or uprising have caused a lot of handwringing, explanations and opinions from the President of the United States down to 15 year old neighborhood kids being thrust into the spotlight of national television. You tube, Twitter, talk shows, bloggers, all offer their own accounts and opinions, the online folks with a clear disdain for the traditional media. 

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). The nation clearly saw that Baltimore's eruption was not a matter of that particular city alone but a matter of national urgency. Many other cities could be next, any minute.

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.

Those in power, those who hold office,  and those who benefit from a new Baltimore went out of their way to condemn looting saw stealing or breaking stuff as an inexcusable offense. In the words of one protester who was pushed by CNN's Wolf Blitzer to condemn the looting, "is broken glass worse than a broken back?"

So the politicians and many citizen in good standing called the people who looted and set fires "thugs and criminals". Baltimore's Mayor used the term in her first riot press conference and, unfortunately, President Obama used this ugly word too.  That both hastened to add some understanding and compassion with the frustrations of people living in neighborhoods that are invisible to most and often seem largely forgotten did not make the word much better.  The Mayor was more convincing when she exclaimed with some emotion that those who worked for decades on a better Baltimore would not allow progress to be  undone in one night. She may have thought of her father and his long history of improving the impoverished west-side neighborhoods. But the damage was done and the city had slipped out of her control.

Others did not only understand the motives but consider the destruction a necessity  for achieving attention.  This small but determined group doesn't  mind that Baltimore's path towards being a "cool" and attractive city was disrupted. They believe that the entire system is rotten, guilty and needs to be fought. They point to the fact that Sandtown Winchester, the home of Freddie Gray, is still one of the most dysfunctional communities in the city in terms of incarceration rates, vacant homes, schools , health, stores and services, no matter how shiny some other neighborhoods have become. They point to the rich getting richer and the poorer not going anywhere, not only in Baltimore but everywhere in America.

A third group unexpectedly stepped into full view on Tuesday morning and quickly took control. People of all walks of life but especially community residents and activists who neither called the youngsters thugs nor condoned of their actions. Instead these were the people of a compassionate type of direct action: Assistance and clean-up.  With this group holding control for a week this group emerges as the one that could hold the key for bridging the pro and anti development groups, those who benefitted and those who have not. It felt like a sigh of relief went through the city along with the sprouting hope that Baltimore may not have been thrown quite as far back as many people feared during the night of the fires. 

After the morning after cleanup the city looked outright presentable in the spring sun and slowly fading Bradford pear tree blossoms were it not for the helicopters, the international media that had descended like so may vultures and the now deployed National Guard which was kept tastefully hidden in most places. Baltimore boosterists were quickly out there declaring the night of rioting an exception and not the usual Baltimore.

But what is the longer perspective? We can't simply go back to the days before the eruption and pretend nothing happened. Even professional Baltimore boosters like the Downtown Partnership or Live Baltimore or the directors of the arts districts have to admit that Uber, water taxis, bike share (not even rolled out yet), a lively bar scene, cool restaurants and hip loft units are considered by many as toys of only a few, that even a strong influx of millennials could not balance the continued flight of black and white middle class families and that the African American communities barely participated in any progress at all.

Fellow blogger James DeVinnie wrote this on April 28 (I didn't check all the facts in here, some are taken from Forbes but found that they appeared to be in the right ballpark)

Let me provide just a small sampling of the inequality and oppression that afflicts Baltimore’s black population: The citywide poverty rate is 25%, but in the 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 country. 10% of the city’s Black adults have college degrees, while 50% of its White adults do. The infant mortality rate is 9 times higher for blacks than for whites. The median income for Blacks is about half that of whites. Wealthy white neighborhoods in the city have a life expectancy that is about 20 years longer than poor black neighborhoods. The youth of Baltimore face a graver social and economic situation than those of India or Nigeria. If you still aren’t convinced that systematic inequality and oppression has something to do with the anger and violence of the black community right now, you’re not only not paying attention, you’re not thinking. 

Even though it is impossible to decipher the meaning and ultimate read on the events so close to the initial eruption a few lessons 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 progress 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.

Ostensibly for those reasons, aspiring to revolution has become quite offensive to most in who live in democracies, no matter that revolutions elsewhere, for example in Egypt or Iraq are glorified even in mainstream media.

Still, who hasn't wondered from time to time how long it could go on 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 metrics, not to do injustice to those two countries. Who hasn't asked when the moment would come when people who experience slippage instead of progress in their lives would not only be the object of sermons and speeches but take the matter in their own hands?

An advanced society should not wait until a powder keg blows up but build a social compact based on incremental but broad progress for all. Maybe Baltimore and the country can come through this phase not only with some severe bruises but with a recipe for moving forward with a more just American city. We must see Ferguson, Baltimore and the world's attention on the deplorable conditions in large parts of our cities as wake up call for changing our ways. Charging the officers involved in the death of Freddie Gray is a good beginning but must not be taken as the solution.

Klaus Philipsen, FAIA

Updated 5/10/15

As the "mayor of Sandtown" Elder C.W. Harris said: "it's one thing to build houses; it's another to rebuild people."

So below I assembled those quotes from my friends on my Facebook page or my e-mail that speak about people. I picked only text from African American friends and only from folks I have actually worked with on overcoming some of the conditions in our city on work I did in Sandtown, Druid Heights, Rosemont, McElderry Park, Middle East, Sharp Leadenhall and Reservoir Hill to name just a few.  

Peaceful demonstration Tuesday evening on Eutaw Street (Photo: ArchPlan)

Monica: This is my response to another post where someone called them "thugs" It's easy to call them "thugs" from the outside. But I live where they live; I work where they shop; my children went to school where they go to school. They are "thugs" because it's easier for people to talk about them than get involved in their lives. It's easier to run from them in fear than find a way to engage them and show them something different and something better. I in no way condone this behavior but I understand it. Say what you want but as a mother of a young black man who works hard everyday to keep my son and the young black men in my neighborhood from being involved in this kind of behavior and volunteering as youth leader in the neighborhood in my church and providing education at a mission where men have made these kinds of bad decision but are trying to make amends. As a sister of a young black man who was murdered in the streets of Baltimore . . . REALLY?

Peaceful demonstration Tuesday night on Eutaw Street, African Americans in front, while sympathisers in the rear
(Photo: ArchPlan)

Monica: To my friends and associates in Baltimore who are watching the news, the CVS you see on fire and was looted earlier is one of two stores where I work part-time. I was just there Saturday night. My heart is breaking. All of my coworkers got out safely but all I can do right now is shake my head. Physically I am safe. Spiritually I am sound. Emotionally I am devastated and angry. I have much to say about this state of affairs but I can't right now. I ask you all to pray for us as we are left to recover. Pray for the many elderly and sick people whose prescription medicines are now gone. Pray for my coworkers who are now temporarily unemployed.

Damaged Seven Eleven on Franklin Street (photo: ArchPlan)

Staycie: I can't hold back...did our mayor just resort to calling these angry young souls "thugs" as a way of soothing their simmering rage. How is this helpful? By denying that they are a part of this city is to deny that we are responsible for who they are in some way.We have participated in this system of haves and have-nots, a system that requires a percentage of us to live in poverty in order to function as a winner take all. Pass judgement if you will, but I will not. I want to understand and work with them to make it better for everyone, not just some who are lucky enough to get out.

Saturday demonstration with legal observers, including my daughter (green cap)

Ernst: And take gentrification - instead of being about the gentry moving in - it's not at all --- a predominately black neighborhood of young professionals is rarely called a gentrifying neighborhood -- but a neighborhood filled with young white artists and hipsters with no money is instantly called gentrified and it ushers in more positive policing and amenities...
 so our challenge is to gentrify without displacing people - we need to increase density and amenities in the City --- bring in all people - and have an open conversation about how to live together - teach each other to fish and stop the culture of hand-outs (which i think keeps people poor) - create jobs - educational opportunities - recreational opportunities -- and an attractive landscape...

National Guard protecting City Hall, Tuesday and Wednesday

Zelda: Try this on for size...what have we done for our children lately...can we come together and make it better...speak up mothers and dads, aunts and uncles, guardians, neighbors, men and women of God...government officials...etc...oooh i forgot bricks and mortar..Open your eyes...I have lived with decades of disenfranchisement in my community...I have not done enough...the children are the expression of the society they live in...we have not done enough...

The whole world is watching: Full size article on page 3 of the national German conservative newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung with the sympathetic headline: "Wake up call of the ones usually not listened to"

Lisa: Just as a tree is pruned, suffering the cuts of a gardener's tool, we as a society must experience the painful consequence of ignoring the overgrowth of poverty, disinvestment, and disregard of Black male lives. Voices that have gone unheard will hopefully now find an audience re

Ken:  most of us got a real dose of what everyday life is like for the heavily impoverished - no stores, no transportation, noise, chaos, fright, no sports or entertainment, litter, no work,no convenience, the government as police state authority, and just no joy........I did/do not enjoy this and have learned this lesson. It was placed on our doorstep this time.....