Urban Problems

Annapolis still has the feel of a small town, with its historicbuildings and narrow streets. But the city is increasingly facing some of the same urban problems as its metropolitan neighbors.Like Baltimore and Washington, Annapolis is struggling with aging roads and utilities, crime and suburban sprawl. Its business district has been hurt by the sour economy, development has shifted from the downtown, and its work force is shrinking as companies move outside the city limits.To combat these troubles and better compete with the rest of the county, city officials are thinking of establishing an independent planning agency.

DETROIT -- Next door to Comerica Park sits St. John's Episcopal Church, where an electronic sign beckons with bright orange letters, "Pray here for the Tigers." The plea should erase any doubt that religion and baseball intersect sharply in the Motor City. But the role sports plays - the role the Tigers play - can be a bit tougher to dissect. The electricity that flowed through the stadium for last night's World Series opener was evident - so evident, in fact, that first glance would lead you to believe it lit up the whole neighborhood.

WASHINGTON -- President Clinton this week dramatized his vision for how to help impoverished areas left out of the current prosperity by taking a handful of high-powered corporate executives to East St. Louis, Ill., one of America's most degraded urban landscapes.His message? The inner city is a fine place to set up shop, and with a little government assistance, big business can help turn the rubble-strewn lots of forgotten cities into the next emerging market.The president rolled out his New Markets Initiative, which includes a 25-percent tax credit for new investment in the worst sections of the nation's cities.

Baltimore lawmakers grilled Col. Edward T. Norris yesterday during his confirmation hearing for state police superintendent, questioning his position on such issues as racial profiling, bringing troopers into the city to fight crime and a citizen's right to bear arms. Discussion of Norris' confirmation before the Senate Executive Nominations Committee was the longest and most heated of the dozen hearings yesterday. Although it is widely expected that he will be confirmed as Maryland's next top police officer, the battery of questions from city senators signaled their displeasure with his decision to leave his post as Baltimore's police commissioner.

Baltimore Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke is planning to go to Istanbul, Turkey, next month as part of a high-level U.S. delegation to an international conference on urban problems -- at a cost to city taxpayers of more than $2,000.Schmoke will be part of a group of local and federal officials, led by U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Secretary Henry G. Cisneros, attending a United Nations conference called "Habitat II: The City Summit."The mayor was asked by the White House two weeks ago to be among those representing the United States at the conference, which begins June 3, mayoral aide Lee Tawney said.

EVEN RESIDENTS along an affluent corridor in the nation's sixth wealthiest county find the American Dream elusive. Though 14 miles from Baltimore, Ellicott City dwellers expressed fears in The Sun's "Voices of America" series of big-city problems -- crime, traffic and constant rush. One resident of plush Turf Valley Overlook says his 9mm handgun is ready to protect his family from an impending invasion of urban crime.These fears might sound strange to families trying to survive tough city neighborhoods, where not just the fear of gunshots but actual shooting and death have created an American nightmare.

CAIRO, Egypt -- The names suggest kiddie parks or country clubs -- Dreamland, Royal Hills, Gardenia Park. Out in the desert wastelands surrounding Cairo, a new world is springing up -- one that, for better or worse, could determine the future of Egypt's teeming, overpopulated capital.Long fed up with the pollution, noise, traffic and general hassle of Cairo life, upper-class Egyptians have started looking outward -- to the dozens of elite, gated communities being built outside the city.Construction is nonstop -- and so is the debate about whether these new communities will save Cairo or finish it off.Egypt has always been a place of rigid class divisions, but until now rich and poor had lived side by side in relative harmony.

Joshua Civin is a New Haven, Conn., alderman. And a volunteer in an AmeriCorps project who works with middle-school students from poor urban neighborhoods. And a summa cum laude graduate of Yale University.And, as of Saturday, the Baltimore-bred Civin is a Rhodes Scholar."I think he was actually screaming when he called to tell us," his mother, Nancy Civin, said last night of his call home with the good news. "He was very, very excited."Civin, 22, a graduate of Gilman School, was one of 32 Americans selected over the weekend for the prestigious two-year scholarships to Oxford University in England.

I am stressing that we must not permit Maryland to become, as Judge Otto Kerner warned America almost 25 years ago, . . . two separate societies: one rich, one poor; one with jobs, one without work; one with good schools, the other barely literate; one with quarter-million dollar homes, and the other with homeless shelters.Every time we move economic development ahead and into already established communities, we take one giant step forward for the environment. And we make one big step toward solving urban and social problems, and we make a major step for business.

Baltimore lawmakers grilled Col. Edward T. Norris yesterday during his confirmation hearing for state police superintendent, questioning his position on such issues as racial profiling, bringing troopers into the city to fight crime and a citizen's right to bear arms. Discussion of Norris' confirmation before the Senate Executive Nominations Committee was the longest and most heated of the dozen hearings yesterday. Although it is widely expected that he will be confirmed as Maryland's next top police officer, the battery of questions from city senators signaled their displeasure with his decision to leave his post as Baltimore's police commissioner.

While in his 20s, Brian Le Gette and a friend at The Wharton School got the idea to create a pair of earmuffs that wraps around the back of the head, does not mess up a person's hair and has pockets to hold stereo headphones. Le Gette and his friend managed to turn a profit out of that idea. They co-own Big Bang Products, a Canton-based company that designs, manufactures and markets consumer goods. Recently, Le Gette, 35, began using his knack for entrepreneurship in another arena - philanthropy.

Why do politicians talk so much trash? The conversation is universal, from small-town U.S.A. to Paris, where 33 mayors from across the globe gathered last week to talk about city life. And for all the troubles facing the world's urban areas, trash topped the list. "Being a mayor is all about picking up trash, cleaning the streets, keeping them lighted and safe," Washington, D.C., Mayor Anthony A. Williams told a reporter at the Paris Summit of World Mayors. Baltimore Mayor Martin O'Malley has turned trash cleanup into a campaign.

CAIRO, Egypt -- The names suggest kiddie parks or country clubs -- Dreamland, Royal Hills, Gardenia Park. Out in the desert wastelands surrounding Cairo, a new world is springing up -- one that, for better or worse, could determine the future of Egypt's teeming, overpopulated capital.Long fed up with the pollution, noise, traffic and general hassle of Cairo life, upper-class Egyptians have started looking outward -- to the dozens of elite, gated communities being built outside the city.Construction is nonstop -- and so is the debate about whether these new communities will save Cairo or finish it off.Egypt has always been a place of rigid class divisions, but until now rich and poor had lived side by side in relative harmony.

WASHINGTON -- President Clinton this week dramatized his vision for how to help impoverished areas left out of the current prosperity by taking a handful of high-powered corporate executives to East St. Louis, Ill., one of America's most degraded urban landscapes.His message? The inner city is a fine place to set up shop, and with a little government assistance, big business can help turn the rubble-strewn lots of forgotten cities into the next emerging market.The president rolled out his New Markets Initiative, which includes a 25-percent tax credit for new investment in the worst sections of the nation's cities.

It's not the Rolling Stones tour, but Baltimore City Council President Lawrence A. Bell III has begun visiting a half dozen other U.S. cities to explore ways to attack mutual urban problems such as violent crime, drug addiction and unemployment.Last month, Bell visited Atlanta to see how city managers operate and to inspect a successful program through which a private company was hired to handle city water and wastewater services.Bell, who has said he wants to be mayor, plans to visit six cities -- Boston, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Indianapolis, New York and Washington.

As the population of the Baltimore region continues to move farther into the outlying suburban counties, crime, poverty and bad schools will follow, says a new report touting regional cooperation and controlled growth."

No one can accuse Alan L. Keyes, the Maryland Republican running against Democratic Sen. Barbara Mikulski, of campaigning on vague platitudes. The outspoken former diplomat and college instructor has devoted much campaign attention this year to an issue that is probably more familiar to academics and community organizers than it is to ordinary voters. The political scientists call it "empowerment;" Mr. Keyes calls it "grass roots community self-government."Sounds like a sleep-inducer. But it is, in fact, a truly radical idea: shifting some real governmental powers to elected officials at the neighborhood level.

Whenever Washington-based foreign journalists want to escape the inside-the-beltway myopia and sample real America, they take a 45-minute ride up the parkway. In Baltimore, where nearly one-fifth of the population is on government assistance, they find a microcosm of the nation's urban problems -- and promises.More than 200 mayors from America's biggest cities will conduct a similar reality check today as part of the the U.S. Conference of Mayors' winter meeting in Washington.Only last night, the mayors were watching fireworks over Washington's monuments during a pig roast and catfish buffet.

"The End Is Near!" may be the title of the current exhibit at the American Visionary Art Museum in downtown Baltimore, but the end is nowhere in sight for the museum itself.Founder Rebecca A. Hoffberger's vision of expanding the museum to include a $5 million "Center for Visionary Thought" appears close to receiving formal endorsement from city officials and community representatives, who are selecting developers for a long and narrow, city-owned parcel just south of the museum at 800 Key Highway.

Joshua Civin is a New Haven, Conn., alderman. And a volunteer in an AmeriCorps project who works with middle-school students from poor urban neighborhoods. And a summa cum laude graduate of Yale University.And, as of Saturday, the Baltimore-bred Civin is a Rhodes Scholar."I think he was actually screaming when he called to tell us," his mother, Nancy Civin, said last night of his call home with the good news. "He was very, very excited."Civin, 22, a graduate of Gilman School, was one of 32 Americans selected over the weekend for the prestigious two-year scholarships to Oxford University in England.