Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Make this thread constructive, intellectual, critical and progressive! In your perspective, how do rate the current Mayor of Baltimore? (A+, C-?) What has she done and not done in term of advancing Baltimore's imagery, vision and mission? Where is the room for improvements (or not)? Are you happy with her performance, her administration, policies and etc...or neither?!
Make this thread constructive, intellectual, critical and progressive! In your perspective, how do rate the current Mayor of Baltimore? (A+, C-?) What has she done and not done in term of advancing Baltimore's imagery, vision and mission? Where is the room for improvements (or not)? Are you happy with her performance, her administration, policies and etc...or neither?!
As I have posted before.. The Mayor.. any Mayor.. of Baltimore City is going to have to make a concerted effort to improve Baltimore neighborhoods.. that are outside of the gold coast tourist districts
This includes the following
Seek to find ways to bring more service and white collar jobs back to the City that includes cultivating more small businesses, and cottage industries that can take advantage of flexible zoning and some of the existing warehouse/ loft warehouse space to create tech centers, food processing, light manufacturing/craft/arts, related industry that can often spin off into creation of jobs and improve neighborhoods since the creative class may choose to co habitat with their business or live near by (live work housing) They also may get involved in their neighborhood association and community activities that promote their business and thus the neighborhood making attractive for others or attracting like minded residents and developers (ex. Hampden, Remington, Station North, and the Jones Falls Corridor)
Neighborhoods like Remington, Hampden, Lauraville, Station North, and Pigtown are evolving organically without the City.. The City need to study what is working in these areas and attempt to create the environment for it to occur in other areas. I dont think the City should necessarily DO the development.. but help facilitate it since the private sector involvement is key to making it sustainable and the City needs to make sure its not getting in the way with unecessary or arcane regulations that inhibit this type of growth and that they are responsive in these areas in an effort to nurture them... (ex no calls to the City Permitting office going un returned on rude/unresponsive staff.. need to be more customer service oriented.)
The City should continue to redevelop public housing/ crime ridden apartment complexes for mixed income housing by shifting "incentives" from the Gold Coast where they can stand on their own to areas of the City that have development POTENTIAL.. Again, key word POTENTIAL which are often neighborhoods sandwiched between nice communities and not so nice areas. Dumping more money into areas that are a generation away from any private interest is a waste of everyone's time.
All of the above impacts the big three (Schools, Crime, and Taxes) in some form or another thus chipping away at these structural impedients to City Growth by addressing them indirectly through the creation of stronger neighborhoods.
I think the current Mayor has focused more on "big ticket" items like the Casino, Grand Prix, Harbor East etc... and has not balanced it with some of the above referenced ideas..which could hurt her in the long run...IF.. she want to stay Mayor of Baltimore.. which may be questionable given some of her political inclinations towards higher office or post... The big ticket stuff do contribute to the political machine.. and positions one for bigger things and higher office..... but is only at the advantage when there is significant voter apathy..which is what currently exist in Baltimore. Any candidate that can spur the imagination, civic pride, and can root it in action to where people can picture the ideal state as being a shared vision and being obtainable.. can stimulate the electorate and challenge any "big ticket" candidate at the ballot box....
Last edited by Woodlands; 12-30-2014 at 09:14 AM..
As I have posted before.. The Mayor.. any Mayor.. of Baltimore City is going to have to make a concerted effort to improve Baltimore neighborhoods.. that are outside of the gold coast tourist districts
This includes the following
Seek to find ways to bring more service and white collar jobs back to the City that includes cultivating more small businesses, and cottage industries that can take advantage of flexible zoning and some of the existing warehouse/ loft warehouse space to create tech centers, food processing, light manufacturing/craft/arts, related industry that can often spin off into creation of jobs and improve neighborhoods since the creative class may choose to co habitat with their business or live near by (live work housing) They also may get involved in their neighborhood association and community activities that promote their business and thus the neighborhood making attractive for others or attracting like minded residents and developers (ex. Hampden, Remington, Station North, and the Jones Falls Corridor)
Neighborhoods like Remington, Hampden, Lauraville, Station North, and Pigtown are evolving organically without the City.. The City need to study what is working in these areas and attempt to create the environment for it to occur in other areas. I dont think the City should necessarily DO the development.. but help facilitate it since the private sector involvement is key to making it sustainable and the City needs to make sure its not getting in the way with unecessary or arcane regulations that inhibit this type of growth and that they are responsive in these areas in an effort to nurture them... (ex no calls to the City Permitting office going un returned on rude/unresponsive staff.. need to be more customer service oriented.)
The City should continue to redevelop public housing/ crime ridden apartment complexes for mixed income housing by shifting "incentives" from the Gold Coast where they can stand on their own to areas of the City that have development POTENTIAL.. Again, key word POTENTIAL which are often neighborhoods sandwiched between nice communities and not so nice areas. Dumping more money into areas that are a generation away from any private interest is a waste of everyone's time.
All of the above impacts the big three (Schools, Crime, and Taxes) in some form or another thus chipping away at these structural impedients to City Growth by addressing them indirectly through the creation of stronger neighborhoods.
I think the current Mayor has focused more on "big ticket" items like the Casino, Grand Prix, Harbor East etc... and has not balanced it with some of the above referenced ideas..which could hurt her in the long run...IF.. she want to stay Mayor of Baltimore.. which may be questionable given some of her political inclinations towards higher office or post... The big ticket stuff do contribute to the political machine.. and positions one for bigger things and higher office..... but is only at the advantage when there is significant voter apathy..which is what currently exist in Baltimore. Any candidate that can spur the imagination, civic pride, and can root it in action to where people can picture the ideal state as being a shared vision and being obtainable.. can stimulate the electorate and challenge any "big ticket" candidate at the ballot box....
Baltimore has done some of what's mentioned in this article as far as developing near the water, but nothing for it's citizens, schools or to dramatically reduce crime. Maybe the latter part of her term she will focus on the citizens of Baltimore.
Baltimore has done some of what's mentioned in this article as far as developing near the water, but nothing for it's citizens, schools or to dramatically reduce crime. Maybe the latter part of her term she will focus on the citizens of Baltimore.
I give her a 'D'
Good Article.. so all we need to do is get the Democrat Convention and get Carmelo Anthony (along with a basketball team) and we are good to go.....
I will give SRB a C- mainly because she hasnt done any better or worse than her predecessors and has basically kept the City afloat but hasnt done anything really impressive either.. She just "maintained the course" which is good in the sense that she hasnt destroyed the City and bad in the sense that nothing new unique or innovative has happened.. just rehash of the same ole same ole.. vacants to value, Gold Coast development (that was already in the works before she came-same with the Casino) and the Grand Prix was a hail mary gimick really geared towards politically connected donors.. which is no different than what any other old Baltimore Mayor would have done unfortunately.All the good stuff that has happened such as some of the events, developments, festivals, etc would have happended no matter who was in office.....Focusing on neighborhoods is a different course and would require some bold action and leveraging/cultivating the private sector's interest to invest.. which would require real political savy and moxy..that has yet to be demonstrated since Willie Don. The Don focused on the Harbor as well.. but that was at a time when we NEEDED a real big project "win" to spur interest in downtown as a whole and is not needed for the Inner Harbor or Harbor East of today.. We need the Willie Don moxy again with a focus on neighborhoods and other strategic areas of interest.
Good Article.. so all we need to do is get the Democrat Convention and get Carmelo Anthony (along with a basketball team) and we are good to go.....
I will give SRB a C- mainly because she hasnt done any better or worse than her predecessors and has basically kept the City afloat but hasnt done anything really impressive either.. She just "maintained the course" which is good in the sense that she hasnt destroyed the City and bad in the sense that nothing new unique or innovative has happened.. just rehash of the same ole same ole.. vacants to value, Gold Coast development (that was already in the works before she came-same with the Casino) and the Grand Prix was a hail mary gimick really geared towards politically connected donors.. which is no different than what any other old Baltimore Mayor would have done unfortunately.All the good stuff that has happened such as some of the events, developments, festivals, etc would have happended no matter who was in office.....Focusing on neighborhoods is a different course and would require some bold action and leveraging/cultivating the private sector's interest to invest.. which would require real political savy and moxy..that has yet to be demonstrated since Willie Don. The Don focused on the Harbor as well.. but that was at a time when we NEEDED a real big project "win" to spur interest in downtown as a whole and is not needed for the Inner Harbor or Harbor East of today.. We need the Willie Don moxy again with a focus on neighborhoods and other strategic areas of interest.
no the part about the development on the water, Baltimore has overdone that. There does need to be more time and money invested in the neighborhoods and the people. I think that the was the jest of the article.
Good Article.. so all we need to do is get the Democrat Convention and get Carmelo Anthony (along with a basketball team) and we are good to go.....
I will give SRB a C- mainly because she hasnt done any better or worse than her predecessors and has basically kept the City afloat but hasnt done anything really impressive either.. She just "maintained the course" which is good in the sense that she hasnt destroyed the City and bad in the sense that nothing new unique or innovative has happened.. just rehash of the same ole same ole.. vacants to value, Gold Coast development (that was already in the works before she came-same with the Casino) and the Grand Prix was a hail mary gimick really geared towards politically connected donors.. which is no different than what any other old Baltimore Mayor would have done unfortunately.All the good stuff that has happened such as some of the events, developments, festivals, etc would have happended no matter who was in office.....Focusing on neighborhoods is a different course and would require some bold action and leveraging/cultivating the private sector's interest to invest.. which would require real political savy and moxy..that has yet to be demonstrated since Willie Don. The Don focused on the Harbor as well.. but that was at a time when we NEEDED a real big project "win" to spur interest in downtown as a whole and is not needed for the Inner Harbor or Harbor East of today.. We need the Willie Don moxy again with a focus on neighborhoods and other strategic areas of interest.
Baltimore will never get the democratic or republican national conventions because the Baltimore Convention Center is not big enough. There are only a few convention centers in the US that are big enough to hold a national political convention of the two major parties. Those wonderful "urban planners" and crooked politicians should have considered that when they were building and expanding the convention center in Baltimore. Again, lack of planning, or maybe they purposely did not make it that big because they did not want the business.
Also, there were never enough hotel rooms in downtown Baltimore for a major party's national political convention. I do not know if there are now with the Hilton, Waterfront Marriott, and several other hotels that have opened up in recent years, but still, the small convention center rules those conventions out.
The last major political convention held in Baltimore was in 1912 at the 5th regiment armory. Woodrow Wilson was nominated.
Good Article.. so all we need to do is get the Democrat Convention and get Carmelo Anthony (along with a basketball team) and we are good to go.....
I will give SRB a C- mainly because she hasnt done any better or worse than her predecessors and has basically kept the City afloat but hasnt done anything really impressive either.. She just "maintained the course" which is good in the sense that she hasnt destroyed the City and bad in the sense that nothing new unique or innovative has happened.. just rehash of the same ole same ole.. vacants to value, Gold Coast development (that was already in the works before she came-same with the Casino) and the Grand Prix was a hail mary gimick really geared towards politically connected donors.. which is no different than what any other old Baltimore Mayor would have done unfortunately.All the good stuff that has happened such as some of the events, developments, festivals, etc would have happended no matter who was in office.....Focusing on neighborhoods is a different course and would require some bold action and leveraging/cultivating the private sector's interest to invest.. which would require real political savy and moxy..that has yet to be demonstrated since Willie Don. The Don focused on the Harbor as well.. but that was at a time when we NEEDED a real big project "win" to spur interest in downtown as a whole and is not needed for the Inner Harbor or Harbor East of today.. We need the Willie Don moxy again with a focus on neighborhoods and other strategic areas of interest.
As usual, I generally agree with Woodlands. What I find particularly frustrating about the mayor is that she can't seem to whip up any real enthusiasm for the city she governs. Last time I saw her speak she seemed to be defensive when she could have easily gone on the offensive. Mayors are expected to tout their cities. The public is always there to bring them back to reality.
no the part about the development on the water, Baltimore has overdone that. There does need to be more time and money invested in the neighborhoods and the people. I think that the was the jest of the article.
It is interesting to contemplate that a massive redevelopment of Westport and Port Covington might be in the works. The project is potentially so big that the city will have to be involved in some way. The trick will be supporting the project without giving away the store (as I suspect happened at Harbor Point.) I would be very suspicious of the city offering incentives to the developer that isn't limited CLEARLY PUBLIC infrastructure improvements, perhaps improvements that would help tie the project to the existing Westport neighborhood or Port Covington to South Baltimore.
The respective neighborhoods you stated are prospering because housing costs are more affordable. Not everyone can afford to live in Bolton Hill or pay a grotesque fee to live in Canton because it's cleaner.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
In your perspective, how do rate the current Mayor of Baltimore? (A+, C-?) What has she done and not done in term of advancing Baltimore's imagery, vision and mission? Where is the room for improvements (or not)? Are you happy with her performance, her administration, policies and etc...or neither?!
