Crime and the 'burbs
Madison Park has an interesting story today about Edgewood's slide into violent crime and what people in the Harford County community are trying to do about it. As activists pull out the bullhorns, the police are turning to methods familiar to anyone living in Baltimore:
The pockets of crime in this once-rural county are forcing law enforcement to adopt urban police strategies, such as surveillance cameras and CompStat, a crime-mapping system that analyzes statistics. Deputies will begin using "HarfordStat" this month.
Safety, like schools, is such a key part of what makes a community a place where people want to live. When things start to go downhill, gravity can take over because homeowners move out, hastening decline. I wonder, are these cycles of disinvestment inevitable? Can we learn anything from Baltimore's 20th-century experience? Can a few determined residents turn things around in a neighborhood?
We'd probably all benefit from some good answers.
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Comments
The Patterson Park neighborhood shows that determined residents (with a business plan and some savvy) can turn things around.
A particular problem for that Edgewood neighborhood is the houses weren't well built to begin with, and they're showing "older" than they are. Unlike some of the architectural charmers in PP, these place seem ripe only for demo.
Posted by: jamie hunt | March 10, 2008 4:41 PM