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Monday, May 04, 2015

Why couldn’t $130 million transform one of Baltimore’s poorest places?

BALTIMORE — Along the street where Freddie Gray was arrested, abandoned houses are gashed with gaping holes. The roof on an old red-brick building is collapsed. A storm drain is clogged with concrete.

Sandtown-Winchester is crumbling, and there is little to suggest that two decades ago visionary developer James Rouse and city officials injected more than $130 million into the community in a failed effort to transform it. Instead there are block after block of boarded-up houses and too many people with little hope.

“It’s frustrating,” said Stefanie DeLuca, a Johns Hopkins University sociologist who has studied the neighborhood. “How much money would it take? It certainly seems on an instinctual level that $100 million should have made some difference.”

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10 comments:

Anonymous said...

This is the real Baltimore City. The horse drawn wagons are known as Arabbers. They sell produce. The horses are stabled in West Baltimore near the epicenter of the riots. A few months ago several were removed due to neglect to Day's End horse rescue.

Anonymous said...

A great comment from the linked post-

"People have been wondering the same thing about Haiti. What happened? Demographics happens. Fifty years later and the same hoary ideas are being put out there as if black culture, black ghetto values and all the rest of it just need an infusion of cash to make everything splendid. B.S. Lies, lies, and more lies have been planted in the political discourse, boundaries sets, lines not to be crossed and all involve the prohibition on telling the truth. Black people were more apt to conform to society's behavioral codes two generations ago when they were closer to the ravages of slavery than they are now. Back then the idea was to be a "credit to your race" now it's FU white cracka - we're not gonna be actin' white. This is the only demographic in the country that does what it does until the left finishes importing more hostile demographics who have nothing in common with Western civilization and are coming here to take and exploit. Blacks in America today are by and large racist. They blame white people for everything. They hate white people. I didn't see one white person torching a cop car or flaming a business in Baltimore. Just the usual demographic which has been fouling their nests and destroying their own lives since I can remember. When you stupids on the left stop wondering what YOU can do for them and asking why they aren't doing for THEMSELVES then they might have a chance. They are not children. Stop treating the like the slave masters did more than a century ago. Let them figure it out. It's about time. They hate whitey so much? Do it on your own. Let them sink or swim on their own. Just like everybody else"

Anonymous said...

You can give them all the jobs in the world. Getting them to work would be the hard part. Most couldn't be bothered to pick up a plastic bags laying on the ground. Most can't be bothered to call the landlord when the toliet won't stop running.

Anonymous said...

Bc the lawyers and politicians stole it.

Anonymous said...

From the article: "Others visited the homes of truant students to find out what was preventing them from attending school."

This is the real problem in Bmore. When around 40-50% of any given 9th grade class doesn't ever graduate then the city is doomed. This is the City wide HS rate not just the black student rate. The black dropout rate is greater than 50%. This has been going on for over 25 years. What this means in real terms is in the age bracket of 14-40 over half the population doesn't even have a HS diploma. So how do they expect to have any kind of decent paying job?
Would any kind of decent company locate there if they can't find an educated and reliable work force?
So my questions is: What did cause them to quit going to school? Notice in the article they don't give a reason and also notice in the article they use the word PREVENTED, how liberal/progressive PC of them. The problem is an uneducated population and workforce. Until that is corrected there is no hope for Bmore or any town or city like it. Check out the graduation rates in Salisbury to see where you're headed.

Anonymous said...

It Dosent matter how much money it takes to fix it. Once they move in it will take more money to repair it the next day. No one has ever respected anything they didn't work for. The welfare system needs to be used to build and operate prisons. Then they will respect what they have or starve to death. The strong and proud will survive. Then the United states will once again be the dominant country.

Anonymous said...

The only way to save our cities and our country is to do what Abe Lincoln wanted to do.

ginn said...

8:29PM is on the right track. The 'untouchable' crooks carried the $130megabux back to Chevy Chase and Potomac.

Anonymous said...

Sandtown has a chronic absentee rate of over 60%.

Anonymous said...

city officials injected more than $130 million into the community in a failed effort to transform it

Most definitely Bmore