Howard County must be willing to double its population of poor people if Baltimore is to become the vibrant city it once was, urban poverty expert David Rusk told a packed crowd of about 110 people last night at Johns Hopkins University's Columbia Center.
And Columbia itself must "revitalize the spirit" on which it was founded -- construction of housing for people of all incomes -- instead of building areas like River Hill that are primarily for the rich, said Rusk, author of "Baltimore Unbound: a Strategy for Regional Renewal."
"One gets the sense," he told the audience, "that with each new development, with each new village, you move a little bit farther away from that concept."
In an interview, he added: "There has obviously been some flagging in that effort. That reflects a sort of distance and time from the guiding and spirit of [Columbia's developer] Jim Rouse."
Still, Rusk repeatedly praised Columbia's overall commitment to housing poor people.
"I do not want the perfect to be the enemy of the good," he said. "If all suburbs in Maryland, and in the nation, had been developed this way, society would be a lot better place."
But the subsidized housing that amount's to 6 1/2 percent of all Columbia housing falls short of its original goal of 10 percent, Rusk said. And that 6 1/2 percent is not necessarily the poorest of the poor, Rusk pointed out, because a lesser percentage of Columbia's population is below the poverty line.
As for the Baltimore region, Rusk provided a series of overhead projections and statistics to support his central themes:
Because they live primarily in poor neighborhoods. poor blacks in the Baltimore region face more challenges than poor whites who live primarily in middle-class neighborhoods. "If you're a black, poor kid who lives in the city, your network just leads you to the streets," he said.
The suburbs contributed to Baltimore's problems, because their sprawl helped draw the middle class from the city. Therefore, the suburbs should be part of the solution by taking in more people to live in federally subsidized housing.
The city, with less concentration of poverty, would become more attractive to middle class families, he said.
"Baltimore City cannot solve its problems by itself," said Rusk, who spoke in a booming voice while walking up and down the center aisle of a large classroom.
