Metropolitan Baltimore

IT IS WIDELY acknowledged that Maryland entered a new political era last month with the election of the state's first Republican governor in more than 30 years. Some also believe that the Baltimore region began a new era when the Maryland Court of Appeals unveiled a new political map last summer eliminating the city-county districts that had existed since 1994. Since these moves would appear to politically isolate heavily Democratic Baltimore, one could easily conclude that they constitute a double blow to efforts to promote greater interjurisdictional cooperation in the area.

Until recently, Darrell Waddell, 16, and Kevin Baldwin, 15, say they had no place to hang out but the streets. The teenage boys live in Brooklyn Homes, a sprawling public housing development in South Baltimore with 500 homes and more than 1,000 children. Yesterday, they played bumper pool as music thumped in the background. Younger children swarmed around them, playing pool (or attempting to), pingpong and air hockey. Nearby, two children watched The Little Rascals. The Brooklyn community center was officially christened a Boys & Girls Club of Metropolitan Baltimore yesterday, making it one of three clubs the national group will have opened in less than a year in an effort to boost its profile in Baltimore and provide youths a safe space to hang out and benefit from its education, prevention and other programs.

Barbara Cutko, the author of "Flanagan's tale about bus wheels nothing but spin" on yesterday's Opinion * Commentary page, was misidentified. She was co-chairwoman of the Transit Riders League of Metropolitan Baltimore from 2002 to 2003. The Sun regrets the error.

Home prices flattened in July in metropolitan Baltimore, as unsold houses swelled to a record and buyers faced tightening credit from a distressed mortgage industry. The average price of a home in the region rose less than half a percent to $331,053 last month from $329,855 in July 2006, according to Metropolitan Regional Information Systems Inc., a Rockville multiple-listing service. Average prices rose as much as 4.2 percent in Carroll County and 3.5 percent in Baltimore City, but were down slightly in Anne Arundel, Baltimore and Harford counties and flat in Howard County.

On February 21, 2003 JUDY L. LINDSAY beloved daughter of the late John and Helen Lindsay, loving sister of Joan L. McMahon and Kathy L. Bennett, cherished aunt of Allison, Lauren and John, beloved niece of Glenn and Ann Lindsay. The family will receive friends in the LEMMON FUNERAL HOME OF DULANEY VALLEY INC., 10 W. Padonia Rd. (at York Rd.) Timonium-Cockeysville on Wednesday, February 26, 1 to 2 P.M., at which time Services will begin. Interment Dulaney Valley Memorial Gardens. Expressions of sympathy may be directed in Judy's name to The Alliance for the Mentally Ill of Metropolitan Baltimore Inc., 5210 York Rd., Baltimore, MD 21212.

Spotty bursts of rain pelted metropolitan Baltimore yesterday afternoon, but the drenching wasn't enough to reverse drought conditions.Downpours sent revelers at the Greek Folk Festival at St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church running for cover under tents and awnings in East Baltimore. In Towson, some motorists on the Baltimore Beltway pulled off to the side of the road because they couldn't see in the driving rain.But Maryland's drought, which has harmed some crops, isn't over, said Andy Woodcock, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Sterling, Va."

Bell Atlantic Mobile Systems and Westinghouse Electronic Systems plan to launch the nation's first wireless data system in Baltimore early next year, giving users of laptops and other portable devices a way to easily send and receive information on the road.The landmark system -- a first for Bell Atlantic and the industry -- represents the initial large-scale entry by a cellular carrier into the data transmission market.The network is expected to provide business customers with two-way wireless data transmission throughout metropolitan Baltimore.

A $55,000 grant to provide scholarships to Western Maryland College education students as an incentive to begin their teaching careers in metropolitan Baltimore schools has been made by the Goldsmith Family Foundation.The foundation, based in Baltimore, will award the money over the next two years to as many as 10 juniors and seniors in the college's education department. Grants ranging from $2,500 to $5,000 will be made to students who meet the criteria of the program and who agree to accept teaching positions in schools in metropolitan Baltimore following graduation and teacher certification.

A new report from Johns Hopkins University says the Baltimore region's communications and transportation networks are lagging behind the region's shift to a service economy.In response, it argued, metropolitan Baltimore needs a coordinated plan to upgrade regional telecommunications so that it becomes the nation's first "smart region."The report is set for formal release Monday, but Hopkins made the study available yesterday. University spokesman Dennis O'Shea said its primary authors, Lester M. Salamon and Michael E. Bell, were traveling and not available for comment.

Sales of existing homes in metropolitan Baltimore showed the first modest signs of a possible recovery in February but were still well below sales in the same month of 1990, the Greater Baltimore Board of Realtors said yesterday.The number of homes on which contracts of sale were reached fell 19 percent to 1,465 homes, but that dip followed several months in which sales fell 25 percent to 30 percent. Brokers say lower interest rates and a boost in consumer confidence seem to be bringing home shoppers at least part of the way out of their deep funk.

The two biggest long-term threats to Maryland's economy are an eventual decline in federal spending and a growing shortage of affordable housing for future workers. The first we can't do anything about. The second we can. All jurisdictions in the Baltimore-Washington corridor should strongly promote apartment construction or risk wasting our brilliant potential because of a lack of talent. Growth happens at the margin, on the edge of the economic base. Apartments house the marginal worker: young, footloose and able to swoop into labor vacuums, especially vital technology jobs.

Barbara Cutko, the author of "Flanagan's tale about bus wheels nothing but spin" on yesterday's Opinion * Commentary page, was misidentified. She was co-chairwoman of the Transit Riders League of Metropolitan Baltimore from 2002 to 2003. The Sun regrets the error.

The Maryland Transit Administration's M12 bus route meanders through Baltimore County's Green Spring Valley - stopping here and there to let off a maid or a nanny outside the sprawling home of her prosperous employer. If beautiful scenery or friendly vibes were the standards for a bus route, the M12 would run forever. It's a bus where people take up collections when their fellow passengers have a death or wedding in their lives. "You get to know everybody. It's a little like family," said longtime rider Carolyn Perry.

The Maryland Transit Administration has scheduled a series of public hearings next month on its plans to revamp its bus service in metropolitan Baltimore - the most sweeping changes to the system in decades. The MTA is proposing to change more than 50 of its bus routes, create four routes and eliminate or consolidate about a dozen others as part of what state Transportation Secretary Robert L. Flanagan has called "the first comprehensive restructuring of our bus routes in the last 30 years."

Home prices rose faster in Maryland last year than in most of the nation, increasing 18.63 percent. The state ranked sixth nationally in home-price appreciation, the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight said in a report released last week. Nationally, home prices rose 11.2 percent. Prices increased at a faster pace only in Nevada, Hawaii, California, the District of Columbia and Florida, the report said. The cost of an average home in Nevada rose 32.38 percent, according to the quarterly report known as the House Price Index.

The Downtown Partnership announced its 2004 Downtown Baltimore Awards yesterday, recognizing eight groups and one individual. The awards recognize contributions to making downtown an attractive area for living, working and shopping. This year's winners include Uniform City USA, a provider of uniforms to medical and hospitality professionals, for expanding and upgrading its North Howard Street location. "They've really done a lot to make their building an attractive building, to draw people to the west side that wasn't getting a lot traffic," said Mike Evitts, the partnership's director of public relations.

A new study of housing by a University of Michigan professor says metropolitan Baltimore may face slow sales and some equity erosion, but the researcher who did the study cautioned that his findings aren't cause for major alarm among local homeowners.The study ranks housing markets for risk based on local job growth, average income, construction rates, tax rates and recent price trends, said Dennis Capozza, professor of real estate and director of the Real Estate Risk Project in the School of Business Administration.

New home sales in metropolitan Baltimore fell 21 percent during the third quarter, compared with the April-to-June period, but were 19 percent better than they were during the third quarter of 1990, according to a new report by Legg Mason Realty Group Inc.The Legg Mason executive who prepared the report said that the drop reflected continuing economic weakness but that most of the dip was caused by the fact that summer sales have been on average about 16...

On February 21, 2003 JUDY L. LINDSAY beloved daughter of the late John and Helen Lindsay, loving sister of Joan L. McMahon and Kathy L. Bennett, cherished aunt of Allison, Lauren and John, beloved niece of Glenn and Ann Lindsay. The family will receive friends in the LEMMON FUNERAL HOME OF DULANEY VALLEY INC., 10 W. Padonia Rd. (at York Rd.) Timonium-Cockeysville on Wednesday, February 26, 1 to 2 P.M., at which time Services will begin. Interment Dulaney Valley Memorial Gardens. Expressions of sympathy may be directed in Judy's name to The Alliance for the Mentally Ill of Metropolitan Baltimore Inc., 5210 York Rd., Baltimore, MD 21212.

IT IS WIDELY acknowledged that Maryland entered a new political era last month with the election of the state's first Republican governor in more than 30 years. Some also believe that the Baltimore region began a new era when the Maryland Court of Appeals unveiled a new political map last summer eliminating the city-county districts that had existed since 1994. Since these moves would appear to politically isolate heavily Democratic Baltimore, one could easily conclude that they constitute a double blow to efforts to promote greater interjurisdictional cooperation in the area.