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I agree. As a person whose profession is working with vacant buildings in Baltimore, what always strikes me is that most of the houses that have been abandoned are either still standing vacants or rehabbed and reoccupied former vacants. The number that has been demolished is relatively small when compared with Detroit, etc. A brick rowhouse can sometimes survive decades of abandonment and still be brought back.
Not only is Baltimore not bankrupt, it ran a secret surplus in the current year's budget. I don't think the politicians want anyone to know that because it would drive demands for major cuts in state aid. The city should have cut taxes instead of keeping the surplus under wraps.
This x1000, especially considering the absurdly expensive property tax compared to the surrounding counties
This is a difficult question, you'd have to go street by street, block by block and keep track of all the urban decay to answer this question. I would recommend not doing that in person for safety concerns but virtually from the safety of your own basement using streetview on your pc.
I voted Baltimore because Detroit is at least improving at the moment while that does not seem to be the case at all for Baltimore.
This is a difficult question, you'd have to go street by street, block by block and keep track of all the urban decay to answer this question. I would recommend not doing that in person for safety concerns but virtually from the safety of your own basement using streetview on your pc.
I voted Baltimore because Detroit is at least improving at the moment while that does not seem to be the case at all for Baltimore.
Reality needs to be reconciled with Streetview and the vacancy that shows up on CodeMap: codeMap Nearly all properties that are truly abandoned and substantially decayed have one of the Vacant Building Notices that show up on CodeMap. What I and a number of community volunteers look for are houses that are recently abandoned or decaying but still occupied. The reason we do this is because recently abandoned houses in most city neighborhoods have substantial market value that declines as systems are stripped and roofs start to leak. Vacancy is down at least 75% in the areas that I have been working the longest. Interestingly, houses worth well over $100K are regularly abandoned, usually by potential heirs that don't want to be bothered with settling the estate. In that case, the city sometimes uses a process known as Vacant Property Receivership to force the property to be auctioned off. The net proceeds are placed in escrow (and usually never collected by the heirs.)
Yes, there is some risk in the survey process. It is very helpful to carry a list of properties being surveyed with you in case a drug dealer asks why you are looking around, which happens occasionally. That usually satisfies them but I leave the area immediately after someone starts asking questions and come back some other day. (fun fact: drug dealers move their operations around during the day and usually won't be there the next time.) A couple of times I have recruited a cop to go with me in the case that I absolutely need to see a property and the situation is too hot.
It is also interesting that in areas that I work about 10% of the houses that the city has listed as vacant are actually occupied... so it goes both ways.
Baltimore 1600+ vacant building and 40k vacant lots. Also still a lot of density so there s more dangerousness in a small area.
True slums cover about 10 of the city's 80 square miles of land area. BostonBorn is correct that those areas are remarkably densely populated and dangerous. The other 70 square miles of the city's land area varies from kind-of-slummy to extremely attractive and prosperous.
I used an "Other Vacancy" rate of over 20% to measure the "True Slums." The match with the situation on the ground in Baltimore was excellent. Using the same measure for Detroit, about half the city qualifies. Inevitably, since the Detroit slums cover about 7 times as much area as Baltimore's, they will tend to be less densely populated and intense. I guess we all have our own slum preferences. I like mine concentrated.
I meant 16000 abandoned homes baltimore. And no it goes from the epitome of a slum to gorgeous.
I was talking about the 70 square miles that are not the 10 square miles that are the epitome of a slum. Baltimore is about 80 square miles of land area and Detroit is about 140.
I read somewhere that some cities have sections of abandoned houses torn down, and then less dense housing built. Does anyone know anything about this process (in any city really)? I'm curious if the new housing is public housing only, or if some of it is sold. I'm also curious as to the outcome of this tactic.
I know a little about this in the Bronx. As most people know, the Bronx - especially south of the Cross Bronx Expressway — went through a rapid and hearbreaking decline in the 60's and 70's.
Much of the Bronx was designed and built as a very dense bedroom community with many subway and elevated lines running through the borough to shuttle workers to and from Manhattan. The type of housing was mostly lowrise (4-8 stories) walkups in buildings packed tightly on narrow streets. There were/are retail strips here and there, but most streets were/are predominantly residential, and the density was was once the highest of New York's boroughs because there were relatively few single family homes or townhouses. Most residents of the South Bronx lived in apartments.
Then, for reasons that are beyond the scope of this post, the borough began to experience serious depopulation and a rapid change of demographics. It went into a kind of death spiral and entire blocks were abandoned and burned or sometimes burned and then abandoned. In areas like Longwood/Hunts Point that were among the densest parts of the Bronx, relatively few sections of contiguous apartments remain. Instead, on streets like Fox or Charlotte, where 6-story walkups once stood, one finds townhouses and even ranch-style bungalows.
I love the Bronx - it's my favourite part of New York outside of Manhattan - and I have walked every neighbourhood south of Fordham road, talking to people, studying the urban renewal going on there and comparing it to what once existed. It might be the best example in America of a densely populated urban area being rebuilt at much lower densities. Especially in the areas most affected by arson in the 70's - Mott Haven, Melrose and Morisannia, Longwood/Hunts Point, one finds many stretches of newly constructed townhouses. The density of the these areas has certainly increased from the 1980's, but the Bronx is being redeveloped in a completely different way compared to its initial design. The areas most affected by arson will never again see street after street of 6-story walkups. Developers are intentionally reducing the density of the neighbourhood by building townhouses instead of apartment buildings.
Charlotte Gardens may be the strangest an most extreme example of this. Charlotte Street is a street that ran through a section of an area sometimes called Crotona Park East, sometimes East Morisannia. This area, directly southeast of Crotona Park was once like the rest of the South Bronx - densely populated narrow streets hemmed in on both sides by walkups. It's hard to find photos of the area before the arson that bruned most of it to the ground, but I imagine it was similar to the neighbourhoods around it. For some reason, this area of around 10-12 blocks with Charlotte Street at its center, was almost completely burned to the ground. Jimmy Carter visited the area to see the devastation firsthand, and reagan visited not long after when campaigning for president. It seemed that Charlotte Street and the blocks around it had become a defining example of the decline of America's cities.
Perhaps because of its prominence in the media, Charlotte Street and the area around it became kind of an experiment in urban renewal. The rubble was cleared and ranch-style bungalows with spacious yards were built. It is a very strange feeling to walk from the loud, busy, urban areas around what is now called Charlotte Gardens it into a kind of suburban dreamland. The only things that tell you it may not be a typical suburb are the bars on all the windows and the many guard dogs patrolling the front yards.
While Charlotte Gardens is an extreme example of the urban renewal and intentional reduction in density throughout the South Bronx, the phenomena can be seen all over. Mostly one finds townhouses/rowhouses - sometimes blocks of them - where once stood apartments. To be honest, I wish they rebuilt the Bronx in a way that maintained its character. The townhouses stand out because the architecture is nothing like what surrounds them. The simple elegance of the Bronx's many apartments has been replaced by cookie-cutter, generic-looking townhouses.
In the end, I don't know if decreasing density is a good idea in a city where affordable housing is a major issue. At the same time, I understand the reluctance of urban planners and developers to rebuild the Bronx as it once was.
Anyhow, I've typed a lot and not given much detail. Just thought I'd share an example of this phenomema - one that I've seen first-hand and spent hours researching. I hope this is the kind of example you were looking for.
In Detroit, they cover a larger area, but it is moving in the right direction overall and there are some good things slowly happening. Baltimore is probably in the worst shape of any large city in the U.S. right now. There are some nice things to see and Fells Point is really cool, but as soon as you get away from there, it's a mess.
In Detroit, they cover a larger area, but it is moving in the right direction overall and there are some good things slowly happening. Baltimore is probably in the worst shape of any large city in the U.S. right now. There are some nice things to see and Fells Point is really cool, but as soon as you get away from there, it's a mess.
There are far more nice areas than just Fells Point. Baltimore can go toe to toe with Detroit even in the sections that are "moving in the right direction."
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