Harm City

“As recently as 2014, Baltimore’s population, which is 63 percent African-American, was increasing, up slightly to 623,000 after decades of decline. Office buildings downtown were being converted to apartments, and a new business-and-residential district was rising east of the Inner Harbor. The city was even attracting those ultimate imprimaturs of urban revival, a couple of food halls. The subsequent regression has been swift and demoralizing.” Alec MacGillis in ProPublica with a very interesting look at a city in crisis. The Tragedy of Baltimore. “To understand how things in Baltimore have gotten so bad, you need to first understand how, not so long ago, they got better.”