The corner of North Calvert Street and Lafayette Avenue provides a stark example of the vast differences in Baltimore's housing market, as a neighborhood once known more for crime has become the center for renovation.No wonder,according to census estimates,Baltimore has lost over 15,000 people since 2000.
A block from rotting and boarded-up homes west of Green Mount Cemetery rise shells of new townhouses that are nearly sold out at prices approaching $500,000.
As Baltimore's real estate market transforms some neighborhoods into gentrified and ever-more-expensive communities, it is diminishing affordable housing for middle-class professionals and the poor, according to a new comprehensive report released yesterday.
While the building surge has been good for the city's tax coffers, experts fear that Baltimore could sabotage its own momentum by backing housing projects that are pricing many longtime residents out of their homes and preventing others from moving into the city.
"If every development is perceived negatively as an effort to displace existing community residents - who have nowhere else to go in an increasingly expensive region - then development could become so contentious and difficult that private investment would be driven away," states the report produced by the 13-member Baltimore City Task Force on Inclusionary Zoning and Housing.
Tuesday, July 11, 2006
Pricing Middle Class Workers Out of Baltimore
The Baltimore Sun reports:
