Baltimore’s central paradox is this: there are 30,000 vacant properties while 42 percent of residents earn $25,000 a year or less and struggle to find decent affordable housing. Outsiders are often struck by the number of vacant houses they see as they pass through Baltimore on a train. Insiders too are also struck by the […]
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Reducing power and water consumption
Monday, June 22, 2009We’re all familiar with the litany of problems associated with our current electricity system. Households struggle to meet higher bills; the State faces the prospect of brownouts by 2011; and Maryland’s heavy reliance on coal-based power contributes to global warming. On top of that, the State may face a shortage of water in the future. […]
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Creating new forms of citizen participation
Monday, June 15, 2009My audacious idea is that we initiate a process to develop more democratic structures for our city. When our country began, there were town meetings where citizens participated and actually made the decisions. Today, in most places the size of Baltimore, voting is the main way we are asked to practice our “citizenship.” After one […]
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Move into the neighborhood
Monday, June 08, 2009What can a ceramics organization and its working artists do to improve the quality of city neighborhoods and the lives of its residents? Baltimore Clayworks has an audacious idea…move into those neighborhoods and be a part of the good and growing things there. Build satellite studios in partnership with community-based organizations, and otherwise simply set […]
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Talking about race
Tuesday, June 02, 2009The inauguration of the first black president of the United States capped off a year of national attention to race. From the contentious South Carolina Primary to then–candidate Obama’s historic race speech at the National Constitution Center in March 2008, the year was filled with moments when were focused on the racial significance of the events […]
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Creating green spaces
Monday, May 18, 2009Everyone knows that Baltimore has a plague of vacant lots that attract nuisances such as dumping, drug use, and crime. Some folks even do something about it, turning a vacant lot in their neighborhood into a community vegetable garden, pocket park, or even horseshoe pit. If you are troubled by a vacant lot near your […]
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The Chesapeake Crescent
Monday, May 11, 2009Baltimore sits in the greatest innovation gold mine in the world. The National Capital Region headquartered by the Federal government now stretches far to the north of Baltimore and as far south as Tidewater, Virginia, with Baltimore being the second largest and Tidewater the third largest Federal government employment centers in the nation, after Washington […]
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Ride your bike to work
Monday, May 04, 2009With spring here, my audacious idea is to ride your bike to work. I know this sounds crazy when you think of the narrow streets of Baltimore but, this city has the potential to become a great bike city. For its size, 630,000 residents, it is very compact, making many of its neighborhoods easy to […]
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Give a laptop, change the world
Monday, April 27, 2009Any day, at any of the 22 locations of the Enoch Pratt Free Library system in Baltimore you will see hundreds of people tapping away on our computers. Across the nation, 60% of people who visit public libraries come to use computers and access the internet. In Baltimore City alone, 40% of households have no […]
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Investing in young people who are investing in each other
Monday, April 20, 2009Walking through downtown Chicago it’s hard not to notice that President Obama is a native son. There are pictures in the windows, banners that hang from street posts for whole blocks, and among the people there is a heightened sense of opportunity and possibility. Yet, on the south side of the city, there is the […]
