When the children come, the families go

Quality: It's a rare Baltimore neighborhood in which the public schools are a selling point to attract new residents.

Neighborhoods

Special Report / City Schools Violence

By 2025, she wrote, the traditional family nationwide is projected to account for only one in five households.

"It definitely means the schools are less of a factor in where people decide to live," she said in a recent interview.

Others argue that Baltimore and other cities cannot thrive over the long term without a well-functioning school system.

While acknowledging that Baltimore is "on the rise," Donald C. Fry, the president of the Greater Baltimore Committee, said, "Having a quality educational opportunity for young people is a key ingredient for the population and jobs growth of the city.

"When you have incidents such as the fires, that detracts from the confidence-building you're trying to do," he said.

Peter Smirniotopouls, a faculty member in the graduate real estate program of the Johns Hopkins University, argued in the October issue of Urban Land magazine that cities were "not likely" to achieve widespread revitalization without public schools that are competitive with their suburban counterparts.

"When you look at the neighborhood conditions for real urban revitalization as distinguished from niche revitalization such as downtown housing, the No. 1 issue is public safety and the second issue is the quality of the school system," Smirniotopouls, the founder of a Washington-area development consulting firm, said in an interview.

Housing and lifestyle

C. William Struever, a prominent local developer and former city school board member, agrees that urban renaissance in Baltimore and elsewhere has been fueled largely by households without children. But he said that, besides the quality of schools, the kind of housing being built and renovated is a factor in who moves into the city.

Projects such as Tindeco Wharf, a closed factory converted to apartments on the Canton waterfront, have attracted mostly singles and couples without children. But more suburban-style developments by his firm, such as the Woodlands at Coldspring in Northwest Baltimore and the new Frankford Estates in Northeast, have drawn families with children. "It's in part a lifestyle issue," he said.

Struever is among those who believe that the schools are better than their public image. He and others hope that the increase in kindergarten-through-eighth-grade schools and the recent approval of 10 charter schools will help keep middle-class families with children from leaving the city by giving them alternatives to the traditionally troubled middle schools.

At the same time, city planners have begun working more closely with school officials to set new school boundaries and make physical improvements at schools in neighborhoods that are being revitalized or are poised for renewal.

These changes are too late for couples such as the Nemoys, who have already made up their minds to leave the city. But the changes might help others like them when they make their decisions in the coming months and years.

"Schools will always play a role in people's decisions to move in or out of a neighborhood," said city Planning Director Otis Rolley III. "We think we can hold on to more population by strengthening the schools in areas that are hot or are going to be hot."