A Grand Building
I am a true lover of old Baltimore buildings, from rowhouses to grand churches. Although I'd passed the Tremont Grand several times, I knew nothing about it and I certainly had never entered.

I did a Google search and discovered your article about the Tremont Grand (“A Grand Idea,” April 2007). It has given me more insight and has piqued my interest even further.

Thank you for sharing your gift of writing. Keep up the good work.

—Chrystal Gibson was born and raised in East Baltimore. She now lives in Laurel and works as a counselor.


If Walls Could Talk

We commend your March 2007 issue for addressing some of Baltimore’s toughest dilemmas and for promoting a fresh approach to problem solving. As residents of Baltimore and graduate students in public health, we regularly grapple with the issues raised by the authors on personal, academic, and professional levels. We strongly believe in the power of good ideas—no matter how initially outlandish they seem—to effect positive change. In commissioning innovative ideas for the future of Baltimore, The Urbanite Project has made a laudable step toward a much-needed public conversation and brainstorming session. We were excited by many of these creative approaches to Baltimore’s problems, but we were deeply troubled by the plan to wall off inner-city neighborhoods.

While we share the authors’ concern with the desperate poverty and violence experienced by many city residents, the notion that enclosing children in walled spaces would somehow protect them from the influence of harsh surroundings ignores basic social realities apparent to careful observers and well-documented by research. Children are not solitary targets for intervention: They live in families with connections that span more than a city block or a single generation. Families live in larger social spaces. They need good schools, clean streets, reliable services, and safe parks. Families’ lives are also influenced by the presence and quality of markets, workplaces, and community centers. These spaces, which are vitally important to the health of any community, do not fit within the confines of walls.

One cannot address the long-term challenges of Baltimore by focusing on children to the exclusion of their families, or by focusing on individuals to the exclusion of the structures that shape their resources and opportunities. To truly make a difference in the long-term prospects of Baltimore’s poorest neighborhoods, we need meaningful, systemic, and sustainable change.

Baltimore has an enormous intellectual capacity to generate creative solutions to its problems. It is for this reason that we were so disturbed to see this article—coauthored by people who are in a position to make a real difference—reflect a vision that is so divorced from Baltimore’s real needs and concerns. True sustainable change can only be accomplished with inclusive partnerships, collaboration, and political will situated in a deep understanding of local culture and history. We encourage Urbanite to continue providing a public forum for this debate.

—Michal Engelman, Tina Falle, Stephanie Farquhar, Danielle German, Jay Graham, Lara Ho, Marissa Mika, Faraz Naqvi, Lindsey Reynolds, Emma Tsui, Alezandria Turner, and Rachel Weber are students at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

We want to hear what you’re saying.
E-mail us at mail@urbanitebaltimore.com or send your letter to Mail, Urbanite, P.O. Box 50158, Baltimore, MD 21211. Submissions should include your name, address, and daytime phone number. Letters may be edited for length and clarity.



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