Gentrification

Gentrification is Masqueraded as Revitalization

According to The Oxford English Dictionary, gentrification is defined as the renovation and improvement of a house or district so that it conforms to middle-class taste (Oxford English Dictionary). This definition absolutely fits the description of the current transformation of the inner City of Baltimore. When we look at neighborhoods such as Westport, Federal Hill, and Canton, it is evident that gentrification is on the City of Baltimore’s agenda. During the last two terms that Mayor Martin O’Mally has presided over the city, there have been many changes in administration and the population that are causing devastating effects on the city’s blue collar residents. The Baltimore City Department of Planning=s mission statement contends that its purpose is to provide the highest level of services and leadership in urban strategic planning, historical and architectural preservation, zoning and design, development and capitol budgeting to promote the sustained economic, social and community development of the City of Baltimore. Baltimore City=s planning commissioners adamantly declares Baltimore’s commitment to the revitalization of its most blighted neighborhoods, but at what cost? (www.ci.baltimore.md.us/government/planning/divisions.html#director). Through their strategic presentation, the Planning Departments implementation of these plans at first seems to address the needs of the city’s diverse population, but in most cases this is not the department’s true intention. What the departments mission statement does not contend but surely prescribes is, the intentional removal and displacement of the City of Baltimore=s lower class communities without any regard to how the City’s residents will be able to afford to live in their newly revitalized homes. There is much attention paid to detail when the city of Baltimore announces its newest plan for development and revitalization of a particular community. When Baltimore city developers plan the revitalization of urban developments, gentrification plays a most important role in the planning phase. Molly Rath writes:

Couched in those terms, the notion of redirecting money from tattered communities to healthier ones suddenly seems less than egalitarianвЂ"sort of the neighborhood-revitalization equivalant of corporate welfare, the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer.

Then there’s the whole other race factor: Is concern over "income levels" and "demographic change" just gloss for an underlying assumptionвЂ"that neighborhoods go south when white people move out and black people move in.

If that isn’t enough to roil the revitalization waters, this emerging shift in neighborhood policy rings all kinds of alarm bells about gentrification and social engineering. Baltimore has avoided such prickly issues for the last decade with a community development approach under former Mayor Kurt Schmoke that favored the most decayed sectors in the city. Now, as Mayor Martin O’Malley’s administration begins formulating a new approach that gives greater consideration to neighborhoods that haven’t yet deteriorated those tricky issues threaten to surface. That has raised fears in some quarters of a polemical battle. But a surprising number of community leaders and activistвЂ"including some in the most blighted neighborhoodsвЂ"recognize it’s a long-overdue change in direction, and they point to 12 years of stasis to make their point ("Turf Wars").

Revitalization in Baltimore city means that, in most cases many of its historically poor neighborhoods have or will be transformed into fast paced high income ranking communities ("Turf Wars"). Dozens of decaying drug infested communities remain unaltered, only communities like Canton and Federal Hill that have the potential to draw the attention of the upper class sector of citizens are even mentioned in the plans for revitalization ("Turf Wars"). Most of the remaining lower class citizens are relocated to several of the city’s remaining indigent communities like Patterson Park and Sandtown or the surrounding counties. Many residents are unable to afford the high costs of city living due to the process of gentrification that is currently underway in Baltimore City ("Rent Control"). Baltimore City’s remaining neighborhoods continue to fight for funding of the revitalization projects in their communities. Many areas are intentionally targeted for decay so that large companies are able to purchase enormous amounts of land at nominal fees. This is taken place in the areas surrounding Johns Hopkins Hospital and Television Hill.

Many Baltimore residents feel the same about the changes that are taking place in the city, disgusted. Baltimore City’s Department of Planning meet with developers that have their eyes set on a particular piece of property, they strategize how to appropriately carry out their plans in a manner that will not raise too many eyebrows ("The Mortgage Bubble Invades Baltimore"). Many areas are targeted because of their prime retail locations, but most are targeted because of its connection or proximity to the downtown Inner Harbor corridor ("O’Mally: Eminent domain not out of the question"). This is what has happened to the low income communities adjacent to the Inner Harbor east and west. The low income housing projects have been torn down and replaced with mixed income developments as a pacifier. This small token is to satisfy the city residents and create a distraction from projects like Cherry Hill and Reservoir Hill. Lorraine Mirabella writes that offers ranging up to $60,000 can look tempting in a neighborhood such as Westport where prices have fallen to an average $45,679 in the first quarter of this year and where many homes sell for less. "Some people will take that, thinking that’s a lot of money," said Linda Towe, executive director of Project Tour (Teaching Our Own Understanding and Responsibility), an umbrella group that includes Westport and neighboring Lakeland and Mount Winans ("Developing revival of Westport has profit, pitfalls").

The process through which gentrification is carried out is very intricately planned. Drugs, prostitution, and violence usually play the most important role in the process of gentrification. When neighborhoods are infested by crime of any sort, the first thing that happens is the immediate decline in property value in areas like Guilford and Park Heights ("The Mortgage Bubble Invades Baltimore").