Does Baltimore need a Trolley?

Slow going?

What's happening with the proposed Charles Street corridor trolley in Baltimore?
The last press (via JHU) on their website (dated September 08') made it sound like funding issues and mixed community sentiment were slowing things down.

The project funding proposal seems to hinge upon Johns Hopkins University's willingness to voluntarily pay 50$ tax for each $100,000 assessed value of their property in the area, which probably comes to an enormous sum. Obviously, the current economic climate may make this voluntary payment unlikely to happen.

Secondly, the use of city funds to build a trolley serving an allegedly homogeneous population has been called into question: (from the above press link)

Ed Hayes, a resident of Remington and an opponent of the trolley, put his concerns about the trolley in stark terms. He believes that it would be a "gated transportation system" which would only serve to connect the "all white Charles Village to the all white Inner Harbor."

The three primary districts in question, Inner Harbor, Mount Vernon and Charles village/JHU homewood are unquestionably neighborhoods that are 'whiter' than average in Baltimore.

But shouldn't one also note that are neighborhoods with great historical and architectural significance, house multiple city cultural institutions (museums, schools, etc) and serve as a city business corridor?

















(Postcard depicting street trams in Richmond, VA--1920's. Public Domain)

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Just a Tourist Trap?

Some opponents of the Trolley, on a website here(Trolleytrouble), take issue with the cost (they quote 300 million, the JHU article quotes 150 million) compared to busing. They also argue that the trolley wont provide reliable transport and in fact, may cause congestion.

One thing I noticed however, is that in fact nowhere do trolley supporters suggest that the project would ease congestion or provide convenient transportation. They carefully use words like 'calming' or 'connectivity' when describing befits--never efficient or economical.

The official page here suggests that increased tourism, "image" and retail visibility are the concrete primary goals of the project--and frankly, I think that a trolley probably would help meet these.

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Fair?

And so, the question seems to be: "Is it fair to use some public (special tax district, state and federal) funds to build a private tourist amenity for the benefit of a culturally and historically significant yet possibly elite 'minority*' enclave."

My personal answer would be "Not unless the people who are paying for it, or their representatives, approve the project by democratic process."
Its currently unclear to me if this has really happened yet.
When and if it does however, I hope neighborhoods not impacted by the Trolley will allow it to proceed.

Under current plans, the Private, not-for-profit 'Baltimore Development Corporation' plans to use 71 million dollars of "state and federal" [funds] for building the line.

If and when elected state officials find the project worth funding, I believe one must consider it the same as a majority of it's citizens democratically doing so as well.

The remainder 85 million would be raised by a 'special tax zone' 1/4 miles on either side of Charles Street.

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The Future

I like the idea of a Trolley in Baltimore. It would be fun to ride and increase ease of transportation for some--but I don't think I can support the proposal until it is either approved democratically by the citizens of the communities that will pay for it,-- or payed for entirely by private voluntary revenue.




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NOTES:

• Interesting site: why people don't ride mass transit.

• The entire budget for the general fund for the city of Baltimore in 2008 was about 1,004 million dollars.

• The JHU article prices total construction costs at 156 million--71m of which would be from state/federal sources.
  

• Here's a great article about history of streetcars in Baltimore.
  

• Some more reactions, via YouTube:

Farming the city.

A mega-rich Detroit libertarian is considering intense urban farming as a solution to his city's woes. I wonder what it could do for other depressed post-industrial cities?



The article (Fortune via cnn) suggests that many view Detroit citizens see the proposal as a selfish land-grab by an untrustworthy 'invader'. I'd have to agree that in this case, it probably is.

Detroit has learned (and I think other cities should take note,) that large corporate entities are not good investments.-- They exploit city space and resources until it becomes no-longer profitable to do so. Then they leave us with the bag in one hand and a dysfunctional landscape in the other.

A few statements in the interview raise red flags for me:

"What if we had seven lakes in the city?" [the millionaire] wonder[s]. "Would people develop around those lakes?"
"It all sounds very exciting," [responds] the DEGC's Jackson, whose agency is working on assembling a package of incentives for Hantz, including free city land. "We hope it works."

Hope it works? I don't know what the outcome will be, but I surely hope that Detroit's citizens get more than such a weak assurance before they consent to let their landscape be used for a for-private-profit experiment.

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All these Detroit problems aside, I am interested in thinking about ethical large scale public farming could do for other cities.

For a program to be ethical and useful, I think the following guidelines are required:

• Land to be redeveloped into farm must be land that the neighborhood democratically chooses to be re-purposed.
• The new farm must be community owned in perpetuity.
• Farms, if chosen to be run as for-profit by their communities, must return their profits to the farm's home community.
• Coterminosity is not important--neighborhood integration is important.
  

Despite it's problems the now-defunct South Central Farm in LA seems to be a good model for how larger urban farms can enrich a city.


(photo:Jonathan McIntosh, South Central Farm, L.A.)

Why raze thousands of acres indiscriminately, as is proposed in Detroit? (at 14 acres, South Central was the largest urban farm in America at the time.)
It seems like the kind of broad stoke that a city or community could regret later, if not well considered.

Hopefully it will be the people, and not just a rich individual or private corporation, that make this call.

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Also, shout out to archipreneur , an interesting architecture blog, that mentions this story here.

City Limits?

In the 1960's the population inside Baltimore city limits was about 1 million.
Today there are 600,000 in the same space.




Baltimore currently faces the same problems as most older US cities--crime, decay, maintaining infrastructure--
but could it be that trying to solve these problems in our underpopulated city spaces is made more difficult because of all this empty space?

-- much like a single person trying to repair a crumbling house that's far too big?

What about the strategy of shrinking the city to better serve a shrunken population?

These questions spurred me to discover the historical city boundaries of Baltimore.


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Baltimore became an independent city in 1851, breaking away from Baltimore County.

In The History of Baltimore City and County, from the earliest period to the present day: including biographical sketches of their representative men by John Thomas Scharf, published in 1880,(and found here on google books) I found a map showing Baltimore Town in 1730 and its original 60 or 80?(hard to make out..) acres.


(note that the 'boundaries' are 1880 boundaries--much smaller than in 2010.)

And here's an 1880's map, with historic limits and some unusual tract names. It's funny to recognize some names, like Mt. Royal (a contemporary neighborhood), amid the other wild ones--I wish there were still a 'haphazard' neighborhood!


These early maps all show a relatively small Baltimore in from 1852-1880's.
Baltimore's 1852 population was about 500,000.(census data)

An 1852 map:




















Here are Baltimore's Limits today with its 1852 limits (the map above) superimposed:



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In 1888 the city annexed 2 miles to the north limit of the city (Additions included the areas that now include lake montebello and druid hill park) and 2 miles to the west limit, adding 36,000 people and increasing the city space by about 18.5 square miles (my rough calculations) to ~30 square miles.

Before the 1888 annex Baltimore had a population of 380,825 , area of 11.6 sq/mi, and density of ~32,000 persons per square mile.

In 1889 the population was boosted to ~417,000, area 30.1 sq/miles, and density was 13,853 persons per square mile.


(from Baltimore: its history and its people, Volume 1 By Clayton Colman Hall)



The new city 1888 limits looked like this:



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Another large annexation occurred in 1919 (Baltimore, Volume 11) that nearly tripled the size of the city:

Baltimore's 1919 annexation:

A link to more details. (Baltimore County police, 1874-1999. via google books.)

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In 1910 Baltimore had 558,000 residents and was 30 square miles,
population density 18,500 person/square mile.

In 1920, after the annex, it had 733,000 residents in 79 square miles,
and average density fell to 9,200 person/square mile.

And today?...

Its difficult to discern what has happened to the limits since, if anything.

Baltimore now has 80.8 sq/mi of land within city limits--awfully close to the 79 sq/mile total after the 1919 annex.
Perhaps there were was another very small annex, or perhaps land was built into the harbor.

As of 2009, Baltimore has a density of 7,882 persons per square mile--even less than after the 1919 density-dropping annex.

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Some musings:

From a satellite, there is a visible area of notable development within Baltimore. Maybe this should be the 'city limit'? It pretty much coincides with the city limits in the 1910's:



Doubts:

-Maybe we have more parks today, which drives down density but increases happiness.
-Too many parks can be a bad thing.
-What if current density can't be recollected into a smaller, leaner city?
-Can a city contain a more urban core and a 'suburbanish' fringe and not betray or underserve one group?
-Do cities need the tax dollars from suburbs-within-city-limits to pay for the actual city-within-city-limits?

What might resizing to a smaller Baltimore do for its residents, budget, demeanor and quality of life?