More than 270 unique communities and sub-communities, each with its own history and socioeconomic profile, fit together within the larger border of the city. The idiosyncrasies and individual character of these neighborhoods contribute to Baltimore's rich texture and coarse charm, but they also reinforce Baltimore's stratification and contribute to its entrenched problems. Neighborhoods are pitted against one another for shares of city resources, close neighbors willfully ignore problems in adjacent communities, and residents are discouraged—through ingrained habits, prejudices, or political pressure—from straying beyond their neighborhood boundaries. City neighborhoods can be just as gated as any private community in the suburbs, with walls as psychological as they are physical.

Newcomers to Baltimore are less aware of these divisions. Without the baggage of history and knowledge, a new resident may feel freer to cross borders, having yet to absorb the voices that whisper, You shouldn't go to that neighborhood. Our Urbanite Project team is composed of three transplants to Baltimore, each having moved here in the past fifteen years. With time, we each grew to love the city for all of its beauty, blemishes, and frustrating problems. The blessing of initial ignorance, which allowed us to disregard some of the city's borders, faded as we began to sense the subtle and not-so-subtle prejudices and barriers erected around each neighborhood.

The very makeup of our Urbanite Project team is indicative of the community divisions within Baltimore. How frequently in this city would a black, Ravens-loving community activist who lives in a predominantly black, middle-class family neighborhood cross paths with two white, nerdy, twentysomething graphic designers residing in a predominantly white, transient neighborhood? However, within the space of a fifteen-minute conversation, we discovered our shared passions for music and city life, as well as our mutual observation about the dual nature of Baltimore's neighborhood structure.

We decided to address our city's "walled" communities by creating the Neighborhood Exchange Program. Like a localized student exchange program, the project attempts to build connections between neighborhoods, bridging the mental and political lines that can divide two nearby places. For the purpose of this project, we chose three very different neighborhoods within the city lines: Park Heights, Mount Washington, and Hampden/Woodberry. Epitomizing the patchwork nature of Baltimore's communities, the statistics for each neighborhood could not be more different if they were thousands of miles apart (see sidebar). Yet these communities are not only within walking distance of one another but are also abutting.

To initiate the Neighborhood Exchange Program, we enlisted participants from each of the three neighborhoods: Park Heights community members Karen Evans and Oscar Cobbs; Allen Hicks, Nadja Martens, and Ben Claassen III from Hampden; and Mac Nachlas and Carol Schreter of Mount Washington. Hicks and Nachlas are presidents of their respective neighborhood organizations, and all participants in the program are active and invested community members.

We assigned each neighborhood group the task of creating a tour" of their respective community. The goal was not merely to show the well-known landmarks of each neighborhood, but to also illuminate the communities' hidden corners, local highlights, and most pressing issues—in short, to paint a realistic portrait of each neighborhood from the perspective of its residents. We also engaged each group in a frank discussion about the stereotypes associated with their community, as well as their perceptions of the two other neighborhoods.

The tours themselves took place on a Friday in December. Piling into a large passenger van, we rode through each neighborhood, disembarking at strategic points along the way as our groups discussed neighborhood highlights and issues. We saw a gorgeous aerial view of Hampden and the Baltimore skyline from the roof of 3838 Roland Avenue. We walked through the community-built Mount Washington Arboretum, tucked into a hidden nook by Western Run Park. We discussed the future of slots and the Pimlico Race Course in Park Heights, and we learned about the city's redevelopment plans for the area, set forth in the Park Heights Master Plan. Each group showed us true insiders' perspectives of their neighborhoods, illuminating each community in new and often surprising ways.

The tours gave a human and personal face to the traits and nuances of the three communities, but they also highlighted the shared goals and concerns of these three disparate neighborhoods. Park Heights, Hampden, and Mount Washington may be very different, but they all share the same four most pressing issues: safety, schools, recreation, and development. In fact, the three neighborhood groups found themselves in agreement on many fronts, and they all felt frustrated with the city government and politicians for exacerbating, and in some cases capitalizing on, the divisions between communities. "Every place I've ever gone," says Hampden's Allen Hicks, "whether it's a black community or white community, it's always the same issues: education, safety, recreation for the kids. But [within the city] it's always compartmentalized."

Each group repeated the theme that a lack of knowledge and communication between adjacent communities caused frustration, confusion, and slow progress on a number of shared issues. During our discussion, several participants expressed beliefs that the Department of Recreation and Parks moves resources from one neighborhood to another without explanation or prior discussion, that the school system makes decisions based more on political maneuvering than neighborhood needs, and that the Baltimore Development Corporation flies under the radar to evade community involvement in major development projects. The lack of communication and human connections between neighborhoods prevents residents from fully comprehending or influencing city government decisions such as these.

The participants from these three neighborhoods, along with residents of adjacent and sub-communities, aim to continue the Exchange Program's dialogue with a Neighborhood Summit. Their goal is to forge more human connections between their neighborhoods and work together to address shared issues that affect the communities at large. The Neighborhood Summit will begin convening in spring 2008 and continue to build this network of invested neighbors.

We hope that other neighborhoods will see this as an impetus for their own Neighborhood Exchange Programs, reaching across the walls to meet with the unknown other that we are taught to avoid, combat, or ignore. This idea should not be limited to community groups—any individual can take steps to expand his or her horizons. The goal is to reach out and meet our neighbors, looking outward as well as inward. We believe that a collection of neighbors and neighborhoods can rally around their commonalities and respond to their collective differences, proving literally greater than the sum of their parts.