Why Baltimore is in such bad shape (Rosemont: home, schools)

[Infinite_heights77]

Don't get me started on the people of Cherry Hill!

Originally Posted by TommyCarcetti

I'm living in reality.

Talk to people in Cherry Hill and ask if the community was better off in the 1990s. Most would say that problems still exist today but its nowhere near as bad as it was in the 1990s. A brand new rec center and pool for residents is in the pipeline.

Talk to folks at Greenmount & North Avenue - an area that is seeing signs of life and reinvestment for the first time in generations. Things are better at that particular intersection than they were just 5 years ago.

Head over to O'Donnell Heights were a significant portion of the older temporary housing stock is being replaced with brand new affordable town homes.

Talk to the families of children who attend Lieth Walk Elementary School - one of the first new schools built in Baltimore in nearly 30 years - and more are on the way.

Remember Flaghouse Courts? Thats now Albemarle Square - a community that is significantly safer and more livable than its predecessor.

Do I even need to explain the uplands development?

Is there still work to be done? Yes.

Are things for perfect? No.

Are our worst days behind us? I believe that they are.

My advice to you is to shut the hell up unless you know what you're talking about. When I talk about the City of Baltimore I'm talking about it in its entirety. Not just the neighborhoods on the water, not just downtown, not just its periphery, the whole city. You hear me InfiniteHeights?

[dogpark]

Actually I_H77 - its you that refuses to look at the city as a whole when you post like this - your last two posts here are chicken little sky-is-falling-BS. TommyCarcetti is right - the city as a whole has improved a lot since the bottoming out of the Schmoke period murder/addiction/teen pregnancy highs, and again TC admits there is still plenty of work to do. Things are improving, so our love is not in vain, but like everything in life, we still have burdens to shoulder. Carry on...

[Infinite_heights77]

Wrong! Wrong! Wrong! The city has not improved! Once again, we are visually 2 different things. If a person gets an extra crumb for dinner, is that considered an improvement??! Just because you put up a football stadium, steal another city's football team, through some purple streamers from city hall is considered an improvement?!! Just because you have a few more restaurants considered a major improvement? Is that what liberal white folks considered progress and advancement?! Glass is half empty, half full with dirty stagnant water an improvement? Your love for Baltimore is in vain!

Originally Posted by dogpark

Actually I_H77 - its you that refuses to look at the city as a whole when you post like this - your last two posts here are chicken little sky-is-falling-BS. TommyCarcetti is right - the city as a whole has improved a lot since the bottoming out of the Schmoke period murder/addiction/teen pregnancy highs, and again TC admits there is still plenty of work to do. Things are improving, so our love is not in vain, but like everything in life, we still have burdens to shoulder. Carry on...

[dogpark]

Originally Posted by Infinite_heights77

Wrong! Wrong! Wrong! The city has not improved! Once again, we are visually 2 different things. If a person gets an extra crumb for dinner, is that considered an improvement??! Just because you put up a football stadium, steal another city's football team, through some purple streamers from city hall is considered an improvement?!! Just because you have a few more restaurants considered a major improvement? Is that what liberal white folks considered progress and advancement?! Glass is half empty, half full with dirty stagnant water an improvement? Your love for Baltimore is in vain!

Are you saying that because Baltimore's poor black community (teh community you disparage regularly - sometimes you sound worse than some of the old white guys that blockbusted out, really...) is not showing enough gains for you that Baltimore is stagnant? Any development, any fresh blood at all, any improvement in city public schools, any new employment is positive after the nadir in the 1990s. If you cannot admit that, you are decidedly biased.

Here's what I see -
working class poor are moving out of eastside and westside - drive through there and see for yourself, drive through at night and see how many houses have lights in them. Why is this good? Because concentrated poverty is worse than non concentrated poverty. Yet the population for Baltimore finally ticked up last census - college educated young workers are coming. So there are still poor (the poor will always be with us), but Baltimore is gaining new residents that are working, not adding to poverty. So its not that the poor are shuffled off (like anyone, they want to live in better places and move when they can), but that they are less concentrated and that more tax payers are coming in.

Areas are redeveloping. They have to redeveloped as they were already developed and then declined, and I'm not just talking about Fed Hill and Fells Pt, but Canton and Patterson Park and Station North and Remington etc. The next 10 years are going to see a lot of new buildings downtown, Harbor East and environs, Port Covington. These buildings will house people and jobs and need subsidiary services, generate revenue for city coffers (even despite TIF deals etc).

There is more, but I don't have time to list that now, got work to do (here, in Baltimore, where I live!).

Baltimore may not be what you want it to be, it may never be what you want it to be (have reasonable expectations dude), but there is no argument that it is improving. The sky is not falling chicken little, the 1990s are over.

[terperoni]

lol..They've been trying to redevelop Baltimore for over 30 years. What's different now? NOTHING.

A few areas have gotten better, but most of the city is still a dump and many of the people that live there are hopeless.

[dogpark]

Originally Posted by terperoni

lol..They've been trying to redevelop Baltimore for over 30 years. What's different now? NOTHING.

A few areas have gotten better, but most of the city is still a dump and many of the people that live there are hopeless.

If you lived here, you'd know that there is a lot going on around the city, but you don't.

[eliminatethenegative]

IH77, no, dogpark is right right right! you are wrong wrong wrong!

[Infinite_heights77]

"Baltimore may not be what you want it to be, it may never be what you want it to be (have reasonable expectations dude), but there is no argument that it is improving. The sky is not falling chicken little, the 1990s are over."

*The sky has already falling and is floating down the Chesapeake Bay. Man, please! Spare with all of that BS. You know this town is effed up beyond comprehension! All this redevelopment is about how to lure young, professional whites into a predominately poor African American city while not being murdered in the process.

Originally Posted by dogpark

Are you saying that because Baltimore's poor black community (teh community you disparage regularly - sometimes you sound worse than some of the old white guys that blockbusted out, really...) is not showing enough gains for you that Baltimore is stagnant? Any development, any fresh blood at all, any improvement in city public schools, any new employment is positive after the nadir in the 1990s. If you cannot admit that, you are decidedly biased.

Here's what I see -
working class poor are moving out of eastside and westside - drive through there and see for yourself, drive through at night and see how many houses have lights in them. Why is this good? Because concentrated poverty is worse than non concentrated poverty. Yet the population for Baltimore finally ticked up last census - college educated young workers are coming. So there are still poor (the poor will always be with us), but Baltimore is gaining new residents that are working, not adding to poverty. So its not that the poor are shuffled off (like anyone, they want to live in better places and move when they can), but that they are less concentrated and that more tax payers are coming in.

Areas are redeveloping. They have to redeveloped as they were already developed and then declined, and I'm not just talking about Fed Hill and Fells Pt, but Canton and Patterson Park and Station North and Remington etc. The next 10 years are going to see a lot of new buildings downtown, Harbor East and environs, Port Covington. These buildings will house people and jobs and need subsidiary services, generate revenue for city coffers (even despite TIF deals etc).

There is more, but I don't have time to list that now, got work to do (here, in Baltimore, where I live!).

Baltimore may not be what you want it to be, it may never be what you want it to be (have reasonable expectations dude), but there is no argument that it is improving. The sky is not falling chicken little, the 1990s are over.

[Infinite_heights77]

White folks think that redevelopment, which is catered to them and their group as progress. I don't see the progress taking place in Baltimore ghettos. I don't see the progress in the thinking of Baltimoreans in general. Whites and Blacks in Baltimore see totally different things.

Originally Posted by eliminatethenegative

IH77, no, dogpark is right right right! you are wrong wrong wrong!

[dogpark]

Originally Posted by Infinite_heights77

*The sky has already falling and is floating down the Chesapeake Bay. Man, please! Spare with all of that BS. You know this town is effed up beyond comprehension! All this redevelopment is about how to lure young, professional whites into a predominately poor African American city while not being murdered in the process.

Originally Posted by Infinite_heights77

White folks think that redevelopment, which is catered to them and their group as progress. I don't see the progress taking place in Baltimore ghettos. I don't see the progress in the thinking of Baltimoreans in general. Whites and Blacks in Baltimore see totally different things.

What I see is opportunity, work - and I see more of it than in the late 1990s. New buildings, more people.