“America today presents the paradox of a rich country falling apart because of the collapse of its core values. Almost everybody complains, almost everybody aggressively defends their own narrow, short-term interests, and almost everybody abandons any pretense of looking ahead or addressing the needs of others.” -Jeffrey Sachs, America’s Moral Crisis, The Guardian, October 4, […]
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Ready or not!
Monday, December 13, 2010There has been a lot of talk lately about the failure of 20-somethings to launch as demonstrated by a recent article in the New York Times magazine. Buoyed by mounting evidence of delayed marriage and childbearing, more years of education, and higher reliance on parents for economic support and shelter, some social scientists have theorized […]
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What if all city employees lived in the city?
Monday, December 06, 2010The trajectory that led me to Baltimore is a fairly common one; I came here to go to school. Baltimore and I got off to a bit of a rocky start. But over the course of my graduate school program, I fell hard for the honesty, quirkiness, and history of Charm City and decided to […]
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FamilySwap
Monday, November 29, 2010Sociologists, anthropologists and scores of human development experts have raised the question of nature verses nurture. Does the environment or the DNA determine the success or failure of a person? As it stands, growing up in Baltimore poses a myriad of challenges to speak to the variability of either position. Could a social experiment offer […]
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Moving the needle
Monday, November 22, 2010“[A] combination of realism and open-mindedness among residents—an underlying belief in the city’s potential, despite its frustrating challenges.” This is one of the responses I received when I asked Baltimoreans what they believed were the city’s strengths. Over the past two months, I have had the amazing opportunity to experience some of this realism and […]
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A jobs strategy for everyone
Monday, November 15, 2010If our goal is to redevelop Baltimore and the State of Maryland into a world class city and state, we will need to insure that everybody is working with that same goal in mind. We need a jobs strategy that involves all levels of our society. Currently, there is a jobs strategy for biotechnical, technology, […]
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Announcing the 2010 class of Baltimore Community Fellows
Monday, November 08, 2010What makes a crisp fall day even better? The announcement of the newest class of Baltimore Community Fellows! Each year, I get a double-espresso shot of inspiration as we interview the 20 top candidates—from a pool of over 225 people who begin the process every year, attending orientation sessions as early as February. Once again […]
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What if school were a home—a safe, stable, supportive environment—for every child in Baltimore who does not have one?
Monday, November 01, 2010Across the nation, the economic crisis has caused homelessness among families and youth to increase dramatically. Public schools nationwide saw a 41% increase in the number of identified homeless children and youth over the past two years, reaching nearly one million students. In Maryland, the increase reported by public schools was 26%. Yet in Baltimore […]
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Corporate law for the people
Monday, October 25, 2010My audacious idea is for citizens to make corporate law work for them. Corporations have long wielded power to the detriment of the people. What if individuals used corporate law to organize, make their communities better places to live, and hold for-profit corporations responsible for their detrimental effects on their neighborhoods? Instead of a McDonald’s […]
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Surrounding our children
Monday, October 18, 2010“Your children need your presence more than your presents.” -Jesse Jackson Since 2006, I have been actively involved in the lives of young girls in the West Baltimore community of Sandtown. As I hear stories from hundreds of girls across Baltimore, a common strand appears: the absence of parents. This problem of parental absenteeism is […]
