Great City

BALTIMORE FINDS itself in good urban company in state testing of elementary math and reading, but the city's middle schools haven't kept pace with similar schools nationally, according to a report released yesterday. A national advocacy group for urban schools issued a city-by-city testing analysis stretching back to 1994, but not including state testing this year. What researchers for the Council of the Great City Schools found was that the nation's urban school systems - from Oakland, Calif.

IN 1868, America's great landscape architect, visionary and planner Frederick Law Olmsted Sr. proclaimed: "No great city can long exist without great suburbs." If alive today, he might add: Great suburbs and metropolitan counties cannot long exist without a great city. Baltimore's claim to a spot on the roster of great cities advanced several places recently when city officials announced that they have decided to preserve nearly half of the buildings in a 26-block area previously slated for condemnation on the west side of downtown.

LONG after millennial fever has faded, city leaders and others will ponder how to move Baltimore forward in the new century.With this in mind, we are running a four-part series of interviews with people who feel passionately about the city. We asked them to share their dreams for Baltimore.In the third installment of the series, Steve Bova, a scientist who does prostate cancer research at Johns Hopkins Hospital, says the coming revolution in cancer treatment could be a boon for the city's poor -- if the schools adequately prepare students.

ATLANTA - I have a deep affection for New Orleans. It is easily one of the nation's most distinctive cities - a rich and charming cultural polyglot that refuses to succumb to the sterile sameness of the rest of the Sun Belt. The city is older than the nation. When my sister and her husband moved there in 1998 - and especially after their daughter was born - I had more reasons to visit than the city's ample tourist attractions. And I've gone there often, using every opportunity to explore not just the touristy French Quarter but also its many other distinctive neighborhoods, from the Garden District to Gentilly.

News item: The Maryland Senate has given preliminary approval to a bill that would authorize the state to acquire the rights to the Preakness and Maryland's two major horse racing facilities by eminent domain or in a bankruptcy auction. My take: This is the logical end to the tragic bungling of the slots issue by the legislature. Great, let's use taxpayer-backed bonds to buy the failing horse racing industry right after making Pimlico Race Course and Laurel Park economically inviable under the poorly conceived slots plan that is five years and about $2 billion late to the budget-balancing party.

PALM DESERT, Calif. -- NFL expansion -- an elusive animal once feared near extinction -- has been spotted among the palm trees and crystal swimming pools of this resort city.Increasingly, if somewhat tentatively, football owners say they are willing to revisit the issue they've delayed almost as many times as there are teams in the league."I think things are heating up," said Philadelphia Eagles owner Norman Braman.The expansion committee, of which he is a member, is preparing to get more involved in issues once relegated to staffers, he said.

Editor: I am Dave Glenn and I am really excited for the opportunity to run for the Havre de Grace City Council in the city I am so proud to call my home. Let me first introduce you to the candidate. I have been a resident of Havre de Grace since 1967. I have been happily married to the former Terri Culley for the last 29 years. I have two children: Kellie, a trauma nurse at Christiana Hospital and Shawn, who is serving his country in the U.S. Air Force. I am a proud graduate of Havre de Grace High School (class of 1975)

A newcomer who reminds residents of city's treasures I am a newcomer to the Baltimore community who has found a wonderful new home in the heart of this great city. When I decided to leave Columbus, Ohio, my home for 16 years, I could have moved anywhere in America. I researched many cities. I have to admit that Baltimore was not initially on my list, but after I saw the high cost of housing in cities such as New York and Washington I began considering other eastern communities. I decided to visit the region, and drive to several cities to get a feel for each them.

CAESAREA, Israel -- Stare for long at the blue sea here with Kenneth Holum, and you will find yourself in the past.The University of Maryland professor will take you back 1,600 years, back to a great city on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean, an important outpost of the Roman Empire. This is Caesarea, pride of Herod the Great, provincial capital for the Holy Land.In A.D. 400 -- four centuries after Herod built it -- the city is comparatively quiet. It is no longer vogue to throw Christians to the lions in the amphitheater, and the sweeping invasion by Muslims -- and brutal reprisals of the Crusaders -- are yet to engulf the city.

MY FELLOW Americans: You lived through the horror of 9/11, witnessed our nation under attack in an unprecedented way. Now you see our ruined cities and towns along the Gulf Coast, and you look at your government's response to this devastating natural disaster, predicted several days in advance, and you wonder whether your government is prepared for another surprise attack by terrorists in this dangerous age. It's an understandable concern. The catastrophe of 9/11 should have made us razor-sharp ready for anything, even something on the scale of a Category 4 hurricane hitting a major coastal city sitting below sea level.