Older Neighborhoods

Baltimore County's problems aren't hard to spot, David Fields says.More elderly people are living in older, sometimes neglected neighborhoods. School buildings are crowded. Rental communities are unstable. Poverty, crime and drug abuse are increasing.Except for the city, Baltimore County has the lowest median household income, the slowest income growth and the lowest median home value in the region.Political pressure has kept tax rates and revenues down, while slow growth has cut off the kind of money that fast expansion has generated in Howard, Carroll and Harford counties.

As open land disappears and real estate prices soar, communities built decades ago are becoming the next growth frontier in Howard County - to the dismay of some who live there. Landowners are subdividing generous yards and putting up two, four, even six or more new houses where one had stood. Ellicott City residents - complaining that this "infill" development is breeding sore-thumb buildings on odd-shaped lots that dump traffic onto roads meant for fewer vehicles - are demanding new laws to regulate small subdivisions.

At the urging of community groups, Baltimore County is beginning a program to increase home ownership in certain aging neighborhoods.The county will use about $1.2 million in federal grant money to lend first-time homebuyers as much as $5,000 toward settlement costs in four older areas. These areas gradually have been depopulated by economic decline and a steady loss of senior citizens."This is a very much needed program," said Frank W. Welsh, director of the county Department of Community Development.

REBUILDING ALLEYS ranks right up there with fixing sewer mains as one of the most un-glitzy chores local government has to perform, which may explain why the Baltimore County administrations that reigned during the cash-rich '80s didn't do it.They were more interested in investing in "growth areas." Two years ago, then-County Executive Roger B. Hayden began at long last to focus attention on the county's older communities, where basic infrastructure has been rotting away. Current Executive C. A. Dutch Ruppersberger promptly picked up the ball.

Hoping to revitalize older communities by encouraging homeownership, Baltimore County has increased the number of neighborhoods in which first-time buyers can get help with settlement expenses.Low- and moderate-income buyers can get loans of up to $5,000 toward a down payment and closing costs through the county's Settlement Expense Loan Program (SELP), which has $2 million available through next June.The program, now in its second year, has been expanded to include nearly all established neighborhoods as part of a county initiative to conserve older areas.

Looking for a bargain on holiday wrapping paper, Desiree Bialek and her boyfriend, Tom Starks, made a beeline for the Rite Aid in Dundalk Village Shopping Center a couple blocks from her home."

Imagine you're 26, a newlywed with a few thousand dollars tucked away in a savings account. You're looking to buy a rowhouse in one of Baltimore's historic neighborhoods, but you can't afford to pay more than $2,500 up front.An impossible dream?Not for Thomas and Kelly Rudis.Obtaining some financial help from the seller and using two settlement-assistance programs, by the time they got to the settlement table all they needed was a mere 39 cents.Hundreds of couples like the Rudises have bought homes in Baltimore's aging neighborhoods during the past few years, drawn to the city by the promise of settlement- and closing-cost assistance -- the kind of help that is seldom offered in the counties.

Development has been under way for years on the 809-acre Turf Valley property near Ellicott City, but one of the key parcels will get a high-profile addition next week when a new 48,000-square-foot Harris Teeter supermarket opens Tuesday in Turf Valley Towne Square on Resort Road. "We're very excited," said Louis Mangione of Mangione Family Enterprises, the Lutherville-based firm that owns Turf Valley. "We made a point of getting someone like Harris Teeter, who is new and exciting, and we think they're going to be a tremendous asset to the community.

Surrounded by clusters of trees and tall grasses, the community garden on Woodland Avenue provides Mary Waller with a serene, pastoral view from her wide front porch, less than half a mile from the Pimlico Race Course . But only a few of Waller's neighbors are left to enjoy it. Her side of the street is lined with rowhouses long abandoned and left to deteriorate, a lasting reminder of how her block in Northwest Baltimore has languished since...

NEWS THAT Howard County is the nation's seventh-richest county means the American Dream is a reality for many households in the Baltimore suburb. The numbers are good for the families and good for budget officers in the county and state who salivate over the tax income revenue these households generate. Howard doesn't have gaping pockets of poverty, but disparities exist. It's becoming increasingly clear, for instance, that parents prefer some parts of the county to others because the quality of education varies by zip code.