CPHA’s 70th Annual Meeting was held on November 29th, 2011
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The theme of the event was Baltimore: Building from Strengths, Coping with Challenges, and it was inspired by a presentation during AIA week. Paul Brophy, co-director of the report Reinventing America’s Legacy Cities: Strategies for Cities Losing Population, began the program with a presentation that broke down Baltimore’s population loss in the past decade and offered strategies for attracting potential residents to Baltimore. Click here for a copy of the PPT presentation.
The subsequent panel discussion was moderated by CPHA board member Jayne Miller of Channel 11 WBAL-TV and featured Scot Spenser of the Annie E. Casey Foundation, Dana Johnson of The Reinvestment Fund and Tom Stosur, Director, Baltimore City Department of Planning as well as Mr. Brophy.
The discussion was spirited and wide-ranging, with significant differences among the panel on how best to present Baltimore to outsiders, and whether successful redevelopment of harbor-adjacent areas can be seen as progress in addressing Baltimore’s biggest challenges. The advantages and disadvantages of “mothballing,” or prohibiting occupancy in heavily blighted areas so as not to expend public resources on those areas until they are redeveloped, were discussed. Audience questions brought school quality and other related issues into the discussion.
CPHA’s Frances Morton Froelicher Civic Statesmanship Award was given to City Council President Bernard “Jack” Young, and CPHA’s Hathaway Ferebee Neighborhood Achievement Award was given to the No Boundaries Coalition for their outstanding work in community organizing.
Thank you to everyone who attended. The event was quite informative, and we look forward to more discussions about Baltimore’s future!
It was a great pleasure to be with CPHA as it turned 70. The key follow up point I want to make is that Baltimore is positioned well to thrive for the next 70 years and it needs a force for pushing the city in the right direction–and that is, to me, seeing to it that our neighborhoods are good enough to hold the current population and to attract newcomers. Today some are, some are not. The message from the American Assembly, and certainly my emphasis, is (1) we need to build from market strength wherever it exists, and (2) the interventions–be they code enforcement, financial incentives, neighborhood organizing, slum clearance (to use a very old CPHA phrase) need to meet the market conditions in the neighborhoods. City Planning is on the right track to use the Market Value Analysis from the Reinvestment Fund and the learning from that work should be understood by every neieghborhood group, so groups can shape their neighborhood improvment strategies based on solid information.
Council President Jack Young is also right on track by emphasizing public safety and schools, the first a precondition to holding and attracting anyone; the second, to holding and attracting households with children.
I hope this space can become a meeting place for ongoing dialogue, debate and planned action to improve Baltimore’s neighborhoods.