Abstract
Based on ethnographic fieldwork and 39 formal interviews with 42 participants, we examine the influence of higher education institutions on a transitional, revitalizing neighborhood in Central Baltimore: Station North, a state-designated Arts and Entertainment District. This case study applies new urban regime theory to the development strategies of two universities near the neighborhood, Maryland Institute College of Art and Johns Hopkins University. We find the confluence of revitalization strategies in this declining city, as anchor institutions and the creative arts and entertainment–based economy attempt to revitalize neighborhoods as attractive places to live and visit. Yet these revitalization strategies may not address the quality of life issues that current or future residents most value, nor are they necessarily enacted with transparency or neighborhood stakeholder reciprocity. Furthermore, as neoliberal government relinquishes the task of neighborhood redevelopment to private institutions, neighborhood stakeholders question how the neighborhood will change and for whom.
Introduction
Baltimore, Maryland, is a city with a long history of decline and resurgence. Even though the so-called “Charm City” has become a popular tourist destination with trendy restaurants and quaint revitalized neighborhoods, the 2015 protests and uprising over the death of Freddie Gray shined a spotlight on extreme, longstanding class and race inequality in the city. This inequality stems partially from neighborhood decline and disinvestment, built over generations of geographical racial segregation and employment loss (Elfenbein, Hollowak, & Nix, 2011; Pietila, 2010). Between 1940 and 1980, Baltimore City lost 30% of its population, while the population in the neighboring counties (Baltimore, Carroll, Harford, Anne Arundel, and Howard) more than tripled. As in other American Rustbelt cities, much of the industrial activity that provided jobs has disappeared. Bethlehem Steel, which used to employ over 30,000 people in the Sparrow’s Point plant alone, is now shuttered. The American Can Company in Canton closed production in 1984. The Poppleton Street B&O railroad car shop is now a museum. The textile warehouses in Old Town (east of the Inner Harbor, in the former Jewish quarter) were left abandoned. By the 1960s, changes in shipping left the Inner Harbor deserted. Almost every manufacturing center shut down, leaving a yawning gap between service sector jobs and white collar employment (Olson, 1997).
Even with the decline in population and employment, in the 1970s, Baltimore began a long process of revitalizing its downtown through a major private–public partnership and redevelopment plan, remodeling itself in the 1980s to attract tourists and conventioneers (Levine, 1987). Hailed as a “comeback city” since the Inner Harbor’s festival marketplace opened in 1980, Baltimore has been a model of self-promotion for other declining Rustbelt cities such as Detroit and Cleveland (Grogan & Proscio, 2000). While still losing population (from 786,755 in 1980 to 620,961 in 2010, a 21% loss), the city nevertheless attracted a number of the “creative” and professional classes to keep a steady population buying houses in various gentrified, previously working-class neighborhoods (Florida, 2002). The major employment anchors for Baltimore are in health and education, most notably Johns Hopkins University (often referred to as Hopkins or JHU) and the University of Maryland, both large institutions with research medical centers and hospitals in the city.
As Baltimore rebranded itself as an offbeat and charming alternative to its more popular, expensive neighbor, Washington, DC, it has expanded its cultural and consumer offerings for tourists and residents alike. Recognizing that tourists and employment for suburban commuters cannot sustain a city, more recent urban renewal strategies have focused on neighborhood revitalization and quality of life issues. For Baltimore, a focus on the arts is a “natural” strategy, as it has long been a refuge for artists seeking inexpensive warehouses in which to live, work, and form tight communities (Stern & Seifert, 2007, 2013). Two of the most prestigious arts schools in country, Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) and the Peabody Institute of Music, are located near mid-town, along with the many art museums and galleries scattered throughout the city. In recognition of the many artists who already laid claim to neighborhoods in need of revival, in 2002, Baltimore became one of the first cities in Maryland to create an Arts & Entertainment (A&E) District in the central city neighborhood of Station North. After Station North, two more areas in the city were designated as A&E Districts. In 2003, Highlandtown (on the east side) received the designation. In downtown Baltimore, the Bromo Tower area was named an A&E District in 2012.
Baltimore is not alone in its focus on arts and culture–based development, as many other declining cities have used this strategy to revitalize. This may be driven by a large anchor institution, such as the Guggenheim in Bilbao, Spain (Gómez, 1998), or by a state-designated arts and culture district, as in Providence, Rhode Island (National Assembly of State Arts Agencies, 2012), or both. Much has been said regarding the strategies of declining cities in their use of arts and culture to revitalize neighborhoods (see Clark, Lloyd, Wong, & Jain, 2002; Florida, 2002; Miles & Paddison, 2005; Peck, 2005; Strom, 2002, 2003), but few studies have investigated the confluence of arts and culture–based neighborhood revitalization strategies with university anchor institutions. As both community development strategies (cultural and anchor institutions) are used throughout many cities in the world, it is not surprising that universities are getting into the arts and culture game: developing institutional real estate projects, expanding cultural offerings and educational programs for the public, and offering new creative interdisciplinary undergraduate and graduate programs.
For these reasons, we examine the influence of higher education institutions on a transitional, revitalizing neighborhood in Central Baltimore: Station North, a state-designated A&E District. The Station North A&E District includes part or all of three different neighborhoods: Greenmount West, Charles North, and Barclay (see Figure 1). We focused our research on the first two neighborhoods, which are completely enclosed within the A&E District. The first of these, Greenmount West, is predominately residential. It includes brick rowhouses dating from the early 20th century, as well as multiple industrial warehouses, some of which have been converted to residences. In contrast to the largely residential Greenmount West, Charles North is a mainly commercial neighborhood that includes two streets (Charles Street and North Avenue) which intersect near the geographic center of Baltimore city. Census data indicate that the main tract overlapping with Station North has a population of 1,751, with the following racial/ethnic composition: 68% African American, 26.4% White, 2.5% Asian, and 1.5% Latino. This is not very different from the composition of the entire city of Baltimore, which is 63.3% African American, 31.6% White, 2.6%.
Three distinct Central Baltimore neighborhoods of Station North. (Map by Lee Ashlin).
We have previously explored how the A&E District designation affects neighborhood change and neighborhood stakeholders, as well as the nature of the relationship between arts clustering and development (Author, Forthcoming). Throughout our research in Station North, we observed the increased influence that surrounding universities have in shaping the trajectory of neighborhood gentrification through community and development partnerships. The three main players in the area—MICA, JHU, and University of Baltimore (UB)—have dedicated many resources in Station North, even though none of these institutions situate their main campuses in this neighborhood. UB, a public institution, is probably the least influential, despite its location across a short bridge from the neighborhood’s borders. MICA, a prestigious private arts college, has the largest impact, directly shaping the creative placemaking and real estate development strategies utilized by Station North A&E District, Inc. (or SNAED, a four-person office overseeing the A&E District). JHU, a top-tier elite private research institution and the biggest employer in the state of Maryland, had been relatively uninvolved in Station North until recent years (the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences at the Homewood campus sits approximately 1 mile north in Charles Village). Yet in 2012, JHU extended its reach to Penn Station, dedicating US$10 million to the Homewood Community Partners Initiative (HCPI), a program to strengthen the quality of life and economic base of the 11 neighborhoods surrounding the JHU Homewood campus (McNeely, 2012). They also funded the redevelopment of the long-shuttered Centre Theatre, a classic Art Deco theater on North Avenue, to house a joint film studies program with MICA, as well as nonprofit organizations, retail stores, and restaurants.
Educational institutions within Station North include the Baltimore Design School, a public middle/high school, and a public Montessori charter school for grades K through 8, both located in Greenmount West. As for commercial institutions, Station North has two movie theaters (including the redeveloped theater described above), as well as multiple bars and venues for live music. For artists, there are many galleries and workspaces, as well as the City Arts Apartments, subsidized housing for lower and middle income artists. Some of the warehouses in Greenmount West have been repurposed as spaces where artists can live and work, including the Copycat Building and Copycat Annex, the Cork Factory and Area 405.
Our study is based upon ethnographic fieldwork and interviews conducted in Station North. We conducted ethnographic fieldwork in Greenmount West and Charles North between June 2013 and June 2014, attending cultural events, neighborhood association meetings, and other gatherings where the ongoing changes to the area were discussed. One such gathering was the “Artists & Neighborhood Change” conference on gentrification, organized by SNAED and held during two days in June 2013. At the conference, we identified individuals to target for interviews, including Station North residents, business owners, and representatives of organizations involved in neighborhood development. We characterized these people as stakeholders in the A&E District. Ultimately, we completed 39 face-to-face interviews with 42 participants. Interviews lasted an average of approximately 90 minutes, during which time participants expressed their views concerning Station North, the ongoing changes (and problems) within the area, and the various institutions at work there, as well. A representative from each of the three nearby universities was interviewed, but all participants were asked if—and if so, how—these universities influence the development of Station North. Interviews were recorded, transcribed by a research assistant, and then coded for themes, which were grouped according to the topics described in the interview schedule. Although our main fieldwork concluded in 2014, as residents of nearby communities, we continue to spend significant time in Station North.
New Urban Regimes: Universities and Neighborhood Revitalization
Universities and medical organizations serve as anchor institutions for urban neighborhoods by providing services, employment, education, and capital investments in places where they are physically rooted. It has been well-documented that universities are particularly important for neighborhood stability, especially in declining cities (e.g., see case studies in Maurrasse, 2001; Patterson & Silverman, 2014b; Perry & Wiewel, 2005). However, as oftentimes nonprofit and public institutions, universities and colleges have a presumed moral obligation to not just play real estate developer but to engage with and serve the communities within which they sit.
As local city governments have weakened and allowed neoliberal policies to govern neighborhood development, universities have gained in prominence in what has been termed by Patterson and Silverman (2014a) as new urban regimes. A theory of urban regimes is conceptualized by Stone (1989) in his study of Atlanta’s longstanding biracial governing alliances. He defines urban regimes as “the informal arrangements by which public bodies and private interests function together in order to be able to make and carry out governing decisions” (Stone, 1989, p. 6). Using Rae’s (2006) and Stone’s (1989) analyses, Patterson and Silverman explain that “new urban regimes have emerged to replace older growth regimes composed of private industry, commercial interests, and public service unions in rust belt cities. [Rae’s] new urban regimes consist of well-capitalized nonprofits and public sector institutions such as hospitals, universities, and cultural centers” (Patterson & Silverman, 2014a, p. 8). In this way, anchor institutions serve as development corporations, working with a web of other groups (developers, grassroots community groups, and nonprofit organizations) to revitalize declining neighborhoods. These anchor institutions are part of what Adams (2014) calls “the Third-Sector”—the nonprofit, nongovernmental sector of the U.S. economy. Using the example of the predominance of suburban elite leadership in Philadelphia, Adams argues that Third-Sector organizations have outsize influence on the development of inner city neighborhoods (Adams, 2014). Although nonprofit organizations such as universities may pick up the slack where local governments have failed, unlike government, universities have little accountability to the public, lack transparency and democratic decision-making processes, and often act in their own institutional interests (Deitrick & Soska, 2005; Patterson & Silverman, 2014a; Silverman, 2014; Strom, 2005).
The “town versus gown” conflict has long been known in university communities, but such conflicts have higher stakes when a university is entrenched in community development in declining neighborhoods. Some universities have been quite successful at bridging the social, economic, and educational divides in their development strategies (e.g., University of Pennsylvania and its redevelopment of West Philadelphia [Etienne, 2012; Rodin, 2007; Strom, 2005]), whereas others irrevocably damaged their reputations with local communities through redevelopment perceived as forced by stakeholders (as in the case of JHU’s Medical Institute in East Baltimore, discussed further below [Gomez, 2013]). Wiewel and Perry (2005) contend that universities that engage in community development are most successful when the university has strong leadership and good relations with the local government and the neighborhood where development is to occur, among other guiding principles. Using the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) expansion near downtown Chicago as an example of problematic machine-politics development, Weber, Theodore, and Hoch (2005) argue that university real estate development should be guided with a set of ethical principles, including reciprocity and transparency for neighborhood stakeholders. Reciprocity “requires that all partners achieve some sort of mutually advantageous exchange through sustained cooperation,” and transparency “requires that information channels allow partners to comprehend the interest, intentions, and capabilities of each partner” (Weber et al., 2005, p. 288).
In short, although development is done in the university’s best interests, the university retains legitimacy if stakeholders in development plans are aware of the timeline and outcome of neighborhood development, and will benefit from it in some way (Weber et al., 2005). Thanks to new expectations in university neighborhood redevelopment, many universities can serve as models of reciprocity and transparency—although most are not without critics and may have longstanding antagonistic relations with the community— including the University of Chicago, University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, Ohio State University, and University of Louisville (Bromley & Kent, 2006; Gilderbloom & Mullins, 2005; Wiewel & Perry, 2005). The Netter Center for Community Partnerships (2008) at the University of Pennsylvania publishes the Anchor Institution Toolkit, which argues that not only is university (and other neighborhood anchors) community engagement “good for business” and helpful for attracting and retaining talent, but it is the “moral and right thing to do” (p. 11). (The University of Pennsylvania also maintains the National Anchor Institution Taskforce within their Institute for Urban Research.) Our case study of Station North investigates two major anchor institutions in Baltimore that have a significant influence on the revitalization efforts in an A&E District. As we discuss here, the tactics and stakeholders’ perceptions of the two institutions are quite different. With an array of stakeholder partnerships in play, university-driven development may result in positive changes in the neighborhood. The following section considers the rising importance of culture-based revitalization strategies within cities, along with anchor institutions.
Arts and Culture–Based Neighborhood Revitalization
Much of the research on the role of arts and culture–based strategies for urban redevelopment traces its roots to the work of Sharon Zukin (1991, 1992) on gentrification in the SoHo district of New York City. Zukin (1991) points out the ways in which areas renewed through culture combine “the influence of major institutions: public and private, culture and economy, market and place” (p. 269). The public–private partnerships involved in developing Station North certainly exemplify this combination discussed by Zukin, who was skeptical about the ability of culture to endure in the face of commercial priorities.
In the 21st century, Richard Florida’s (2002) work on the “creative class” refocused attention on the potential for arts and culture to inject life into urban areas. Other researchers on the topic used terms such as “cultural industries” (Miles, 2005), the “creative city” (Boren & Young, 2013), and the “creative sector” (Stern & Seifert, 2008) to address the same phenomenon. The general argument is that “in post-industrial situations, the cultural industries, and related knowledge sector of electronic communication and higher education, can provide a new economic base” (Miles, 2005, p. 889) upon which to rebuild decaying areas. Despite questions raised by researchers (Markusen & Gadwa, 2010; Stern & Seifert, 2008; Strom, 2010) over the actual effectiveness of such culture-based development strategies, excitement about these ideas motivated the state of Maryland to designate A&E Districts, beginning with Station North in Baltimore.
However, to understand redevelopment efforts in Station North, it is not enough to just study it as an example of arts and culture–based neighborhood revitalization efforts. Two universities, JHU and MICA, play important roles in Station North, and the role of educational institutions in urban (re-)development is a topic with its own distinct literature (Patterson & Silverman, 2014a; Perry & Wiewel, 2005; Rodin, 2007). Patterson and Silverman (2014a) discuss the prominent role that “anchor institutions” (p. 7), such as universities, play in U.S. cities and new urban regimes. Arts and culture intersect with new urban regimes insofar as “[t]he agenda of new urban regimes extends beyond physical redevelopment and is often driven by an ideology that recasts inner-city neighborhoods as centers of art, culture, health, and learning” (Patterson & Silverman, 2014b, p. 8).
As an arts and design school, it is not surprising that MICA’s involvement in Station North is visible largely in the realm of arts and culture. On the contrary, JHU, as a research university, is ill equipped to contribute arts and entertainment to Station North. With its emphasis on anchor institutions, however, new regime theory suggests other strategies for neighborhood revitalization beyond arts and culture. Because these “institutions are anchored—they don’t get up and move—and are actually channels for a lot of public money” (Gessen & Squibb, 2015), their potential for economic contribution to localities is immense. Under programs such as the “Cleveland model,” hospitals and universities in that Rustbelt city spend approximately US$3 billion per year on goods and services, directing “some of that purchasing power to the multi-stakeholder firms and co-ops” (Gessen & Squibb, 2015) established by local residents. As we describe below, some in Station North recognize the enormous potential for JHU to contribute. However, the institution faces skepticism and mistrust, based in part upon development actions it has undertaken outside of Station North without community input.
The importance of community input often arises in discussions of arts and culture–based development. Darchen (2013) criticizes creative economy for reflecting “the interests of a particular set of stakeholders” (p. 201) that often does excludes local residents. This criticism, however, is not limited to arts and culture–based attempts at neighborhood revitalization. In East Baltimore, the expansion of Johns Hopkins Hospital with minimal local input earned the university a good deal of enmity, as detailed by Gomez (2013). In light of this, local participation has been a contentious issue in Station North. Our interview respondents exhibited a higher level of suspicion and distrust about the motivations and actions of JHU, compared with MICA. Clearly, the ways that local residents and other small-scale stakeholders view MICA and JHU reflect those institutions’ past actions as much as their present efforts.
University-Driven Development in Station North
“A Great Partner”: MICA
Founded in 1826, MICA is one of the leading arts and design colleges in the United States, offering undergraduate and graduate degrees in studio art, design, film, art history/theory, and other professional programs to more than 2100 enrolled students. The campus, situated mainly on Mount Royal Avenue in the mid-town Bolton Hill neighborhood, has grown in the past 20 years with the purchase and redevelopment of nearby historic buildings and construction of new, architecturally stunning buildings, such as the Brown Center (opened in 2003). In 2012, MICA officially crossed into Station North with the opening of the US$18 million Graduate Student Center on North Avenue (rededicated in 2014 as the Fred Lazarus IV Center, to honor the recently retired MICA president), partially funded through the National Endowment of the Arts (NEA). Hopping the Howard Street Bridge into the Station North A&E District was a strategic move, considering that the neighborhoods in Station North had been known as the hub for Baltimore artists, including current and former MICA students. “MICA kids” are not the typical sheltered college students; they enjoy branching out from their campus to hang out at Club Charles, watch independent films at the Charles Theater, or attend underground parties at the Copycat Building, where they might also reside. For Fred Lazarus, President of MICA for 36 years, the creation of the Graduate Studio Center was a centerpiece of the effort to redirect arts education toward the public good—civically engaging with the surrounding community and partnering with community organizations to redevelop dilapidated neighborhoods. While building and rehabilitating properties, during Lazarus’s tenure, the school also refocused arts education to engage with the public, creating new Master of Fine Arts (MFA) programs in Curatorial Practice and Community Arts and opening the Center for Social Design. The Office of Community Engagement oversees student community–based learning and other programs such as the Baltimore Art + Justice Program, designed to engage MICA students, faculty, and staff with various Baltimore communities in need (Maryland Institute College of Art, 2015).
Although yearly tuition at MICA is quite high (more than US$52,000 for undergraduate program in 2015, including room and board), the overall reputation of the school in Baltimore is positive, making physical inroads into Station North less controversial among neighborhood stakeholders. The view from people in Station North is that, as a “naturally-occurring” arts district, the impact MICA has on the neighborhood, both in terms of student and arts programming and real estate development, makes perfect sense (Stern & Seifert, 2007, 2013). A director at MICA explained how the school decided to get involved in Station North development: I think there’s some sort of symbiotic relationship . . . if Station North wasn’t starting to do what it was starting to do, we would have been neither under the pressure to, nor have the opportunity to say “we also want to up the ante in terms of our investment.” I mean we always love a better building because it creates a better learning environment for our students. But if none of that other stuff had been going on around us, I don’t think the NEA would have given a hoot. Frankly they’d be like, “well why should we invest in a graduate building in a bombed out neighborhood in Baltimore?” Since it was seen as part of this larger revitalization effort, and since we were starting with like, “let’s replace concrete with glass and let’s do some landscaping and let’s invite the general public in, let’s try and create,” you know. That was a big change, shift in our identity in this neighborhood. It kind of went from, “yeah, we’ve got this old warehouse across the bridge [and] because we need more space too, we want to be a vital active part of what’s going on in Station North.” And that’s why Fred [Lazarus] asked one of his VPs to be the chair of the board of the Arts and Entertainment District. I mean it was a very intentional decision on the college’s part to invest in this effort. Because it’s the right thing to do but it’s also totally self-serving because it helps to, I mean as we’re expanding our footprint we want to expand into a world, into a community that’s vibrant and exciting and that our students want to hang out in and where they feel safe walking at night and all those sorts of things . . .
We see here how the university’s involvement in neighborhood development coalesced with the existing structure of the A&E District, strengthening institutional bonds through overlapping board membership and reciprocal relationships. It is also revealing that the design of the Graduate Studio Center purposely engaged the neighborhood with a large entrance on North Avenue and expansive windows. This is an aesthetic rebuke to the closed-off, almost windowless brick university structures built throughout Baltimore, post-1968 riots (e.g., the Mattin Center on the JHU Homewood campus).
Not surprisingly, most of the neighborhood stakeholders we interviewed had a very positive view of MICA, President Lazarus, and the partnerships MICA fostered in the neighborhood. Part of that has to do with the view that MICA is not isolating itself from the city and its social problems. A neighborhood association leader in Greenmount West asserted, “MICA has been phenomenal [in the neighborhood]. We lost a huge champion of the entire area when Fred Lazarus retired, but you know you can’t begrudge the man for that. Hopefully that kind of support continues from there. I think it will just because, again, the number of students that we have in our area.” One particularly positive project has been a partnership with the Baltimore School of Design, a public middle/high school that opened in 2012 in a 100,000 square foot former Cork Crown & Seal Co. machine shop in Greenmount West. A community organizer and resident in Greenmount West explained: MICA . . . I think it’s cool that . . . they’re not just trying to have a really isolated campus, that they’re actually contributing to the area. You know, the president that’s retiring has been the chair of Central Baltimore [Partnership]. I don’t know what will happen once he’s not anymore. He’s also really involved in, you know, the Baltimore Design School, which is a transformational high school in Greenmount West, and I think they’re doing really good things with it, as they can be. They have a workforce training program and then beyond that, just their actual programming, like community arts and social design stuff, I think is really contributing in much smaller, but interesting ways too. Like, re-envisioning . . .
Many interviewees mentioned that one of the positive things that MICA did for the neighborhood is the Open Walls mural project. This is a creative placemaking mural project completed in the springs of 2012 and 2014, with murals by internationally renowned artists painted on rowhouses, warehouses, and commercial buildings throughout Station North. Yet MICA did not organize or fund that project, rather, it was curated by the artist Gaia (a MICA graduate), managed through Station North A&E District, Inc., and funded by the National Endowment for the Arts and PNC Bank. This is an example of how an anchor institution’s positive reputation in a community can have a proxy effect: Anything viewed as improving the neighborhood is seen as tied to that institution, whether it is or not. A nonnative (to Baltimore) graduate of the institution wanted to “give back” to the neighborhood that fostered his creativity while he attended college (Judkis, 2012). Although some interviewees did criticize the murals as symbols of neighborhood gentrification and real estate speculation, the intent of the artists was beautifying the neighborhood with themes tying local Baltimore issues (and real Baltimoreans) to global concerns. As Gaia states in a Washington Post article, “Artists don’t gentrify neighborhoods. They don’t have the capacity and/or the money and/or the capital and/or anything. But we’re used as a tool. When you think about it, [public art] is something that can be politically charged, but it’s bringing beauty and quality and an attractive force to this neighborhood” (Judkis, 2012).
The negative perspective some neighborhood stakeholders have regarding gentrification in Station North (and its resultant resident and business displacement) means that anchor institutions involved in community development must walk a fine line between revitalization and gentrification. We have explored this issue previously (Rich & Tsitsos, 2016) and have found that it is an almost impossible task, given the diverse interests of the stakeholders in Station North. At the interpersonal level, neighborhood residents, including longtimers, newcomers, and artists, engage in give-and-take in their interactions with each other. Meanwhile, universities, development corporations, and the city itself make changes to the neighborhood, often to serve economic interests. However, these larger-scale changes, such as the opening of two new public schools in Greenmount West, are not always initiated with purely economic motivations. Local residents have some voice in these changes, as well. (Rich & Tsitsos, 2016).
Although artists settling in Greenmount West are viewed with suspicion by some as the first step in the classic gentrification process, this did not diminish the anchor institution most closely tied to artists in many stakeholders’ minds. Many understand that MICA will continue to invest in the neighborhood, but to do so in a way that is transparent and mutually beneficial to the community. A director of a promotional arts organization explained MICA’s community development tactics: We [arts organization] can always rely on MICA. Whereas I think a lot of the neighborhoods around MICA have this fear of this big monster coming in and changing how things are now, they don’t really feel that way anymore. I was talking to Fred Lazarus a few months ago and five years ago, ten years ago . . . Bolton Hill [neighborhood association] made him sign an agreement that they would not try to acquire anymore property in Bolton Hill. To stop moving in that direction, and they did. And then a couple years ago they came back to him, “we want to rip this up, this property is for sale and we don’t want it to get into the hands of some developers to do something blank with it, we want MICA to buy it and do something positive with it.” So it’s interesting that MICA’s now seen as—it’s predictable [that] MICA buys a building you know what they’re going to do with it for the most part. It’s going to be a dorm or an art building or something like that. Which is generally a positive thing depending on your perspective, more positive than many other things that could happen. They do have as part of their mission to reach out to the community, help the neighborhood that surrounds them.
The most recent MICA project, The Centre Theatre at 10 E. North Avenue, is a partnership with JHU and Jubilee Baltimore, Inc., a community development corporation. This long-derelict property, which once had a tree growing inside it, is now a beautifully restored US$18.5 million Art Deco theater, redeveloped to house the joint MICA/JHU film program, retail/restaurant spaces, and community development offices (Sherman, 2015). Although the involvement of JHU in the project worried some, many viewed the project as acceptable because MICA was also involved. An employee of a community development corporation explained the complicated negotiations that went on behind the scenes to get JHU on board with MICA with this development: I kind of remember . . . they [community development corporation] had been going back and forth with Hopkins. You know, one minute it was this, and one minute it was that, and MICA’s president, Fred Lazarus, is on our board, and so we have a really good relationship with him and I heard he was up a couple sleepless night too wondering whether that was gonna happen. But I remember [president of community development corporation] coming in a couple weeks ago and saying “Finally. It’s a done deal,” but it was a lot of back and forths before it became a done deal, you know.
To support the joint film studies program with MICA, in 2014, JHU named Thomas Dolby, the technology and sound guru best known for the 1980s hit song “She Blinded Me with Science,” Homewood Professor of the Arts to teach and serve as a cultural liaison between the university and the Station North neighborhood. Dolby also sits on the SNAED board, although he has very little background with the neighborhood or Baltimore in general. The hire was seen with great skepticism by the alternative newsweekly City Paper in a piece titled “Blinded with science: Hopkins bring in Thomas Dolby to ‘do a neighborhood’ and evangelize for its troubling model” (Woods, 2014).
As explored below, JHU is not as well trusted in the community or among the community development organizations that have had such a major physical and economic impact in Central Baltimore over the past 15 years. While recognizing that partnerships with JHU can assist MICA in funding and completing new developments in Station North, there is some difficulty for stakeholders trying to control the “800-pound gorilla” in Maryland.
“Show Me the Money”: JHU
JHU, named after a Maryland-born Quaker and wealthy philanthropist, began accepting students in 1876. A world-renowned research and medical institution, JHU is the largest employer in the state of Maryland and in Baltimore, accounting for more than 85,000 employees in the Baltimore/Washington, D.C., metropolitan area and 40,000 employees in Baltimore alone (Baltimore Development Corporation, 2015; Johns Hopkins University, 2015). The largest JHU campuses within Baltimore City are Homewood, in the northern neighborhood of Charles Village, comprising the schools of Arts, Sciences, Engineering, and Education, and East Baltimore, comprising Johns Hopkins Hospital and the schools of Medicine, Public Health, and Nursing. In addition, JHU operates the music conservatory Peabody Institute in Mount Vernon (mid-town, below Station North) and the Carey Business School in downtown’s Harbor East area (Johns Hopkins University, 2015).
Having enjoyed the reputation as an “Ivory Tower” elite institution for long, JHU attempts to engage the surrounding city through academic and administrative programs, especially under the current JHU President (since 2009), Ronald Daniels, who made community engagement a cornerstone vision for the university. Under Daniels, the school has done more to engage with the community (“commitment to our communities” one of the stated “Ten for 2020” goals of JHU) by investing heavily in East Baltimore through a US$1.8 billion revitalization program and the 2012 opening of the Hendersen–Hopkins public school, run through the School of Education. JHU has a huge endowment (US$3.43 billion) and is the recipient of one of the largest university gifts ever given: more than US$1 billion from former New York City Mayor and alumnus, Michael R. Bloomberg. The Bloomberg School of Public Health and 50 Distinguished Bloomberg Professors bear his name (Johns Hopkins University, 2015).
Although JHU’s reputation regarding community engagement may have improved somewhat during Daniels’s tenure, there are decades of distrust and anger directed at JHU over past practices in the neighborhoods where it resides. This negativity is palpable as the institution redevelops parts of Charles Village and East Baltimore. Although Johns Hopkins Hospital was established as a medical institution in 1889 to serve the poor, including African Americans, the African American community in Baltimore has long distrusted the institution, as the bestselling book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks illustrates (Skloot, 2010). Gomez’s extensive study of the grassroots opposition to JHU’s expansion, housing redevelopment, and residential and institutional displacement in the Middle East neighborhood of East Baltimore explains this uneven process: Demolition of homes began with no regard for the health and safety of nearby residents. Construction of moderate and market rate homes were planned to assure that this urban renewal project of the twenty-first century would guarantee a gentrified community for the safety and benefit of the prestigious Johns Hopkins Medical community—to live work, learn, and play. Public support in the form of tax credits, subsidies, grants, and bonds—guaranteed by the poverty-stricken condition of the community—invited private developers to come and grow their assets on this abandoned community. There was no plan for the historic residents to participate in the rebuilding of their community, remain in their community, or return to the rebuilt community. (Gomez, 2013, p. 4)
In the end, the residents of Middle East were not able to overcome the confluence of powerful institutions redeveloping their neighborhood and were displaced. In a cruel twist, Gomez argues that one of the most famous institutions of public health perpetrated an extremely unhealthy and dangerous outcome for the surrounding community: The destruction of housing and neighborhood institutions was devastating to those who endured it (Gomez, 2013).
In northern Baltimore, the relationship between the community in Charles Village and the main Homewood campus is less adversarial, perhaps due to the fact that Charles Village is historically White and relatively well-off. Although the neighborhood declined in the 1970s with middle-class Whites fleeing to the suburbs for “better” public schools, large brownstone rowhouses were divided into apartments, and the neighborhood today is lively, racially diverse, and popular among students, families, and professionals (Rich, 2009). Although neighborhood associations in Charles Village (there are numerous sub-neighborhoods within this area) struggle periodically with JHU’s development plans, policies on student conduct, and student residency requirements, neighborhood stakeholders ultimately appreciate that the university serves as their anchor institution, with a perpetual interest in maintaining the neighborhood (for instance, JHU has their own security force that surveils much of the neighborhood; Rich, 2009). A longstanding joke portrays JHU as “The 800-pound gorilla.” “Where does an 800-pound gorilla sit? . . . Wherever it wants” (a metaphor used to describe other large research universities, such as the University of Pittsburgh [Deitrick & Soska, 2005]).
Knowing that JHU has deep pockets and the requisite political and development ties, stakeholders in Station North often regard the institution with a wary eye, hoping that a financial commitment from the institution does not mean ignoring community stakeholder interests. An employee in the Mayor’s Office compared the two anchor institutions’ roles in Baltimore quite bluntly: I think when you look at MICA and you look at Johns Hopkins, two anchor institutions in the community, while Hopkins has donated a shit ton of money for development, for you know, community projects, for all these things, I think they’re more on the “make myself feel good publicity,” self-serving side . . . I feel like Hopkins is doing it for Hopkins. Not to make the city better around Hopkins. With MICA, I think that MICA has a bit of a self-serving take on it but it’s for their students and faculty . . . They want everybody within MICA to be able to go out into the community. They want them to be a part of the community. But at the same time I think you have some people within that organization that do care about the existing community. But I think that Hopkins is more on the self-serving side and MICA is on the, you know, “how do we include, how are we inclusive?”
This juxtaposition of differing motives in community relations between JHU and MICA was commonly mentioned in our interviews. Many people are aware of the negative view of JHU by some communities in Baltimore, especially with regard to their redevelopment of East Baltimore. A director of a neighborhood promotional organization asserted (as did other stakeholders) that JHU’s involvement in Station North “will be different” from what happened in East Baltimore, when a whole neighborhood was dispossessed without stakeholder input. One of the major differences between JHU’s development projects in Central Baltimore and the JHU Medical Institute redevelopment is the influence of Joe McNeely, recently retired director of Central Baltimore Partnership, a well-connected community development organization. McNeely authored the plan for the HCPI, of which JHU dedicated more than US$10 million to the revitalization of the 11 neighborhoods surrounding the Homewood Campus in Charles Village, including Charles North and Greenmount West in Station North. An employee of a community development organization explains how this happened: Our expanded agenda within the larger Central Baltimore area and the adoption of the Homewood Community Partners Initiative Agenda, which was initiated by President Daniels about two and a half or so years ago . . . Hopkins hired Joe [McNeely] to take on the Community Investment and Engagement Strategy Planning process for that, which he then, kind of manipulated it away from a Hopkins-centric plan to a community shared vision planning process. So the set of 29 major recommendations, 16 million dollars later, each partner, including Hopkins has a role in implementing that agenda, and that agenda is based on a lot of existing plans and activities and venues or, visions of the existing neighborhoods, you know, other planned developments. Kind of pulling it all together and identifying really cross-cutting opportunities to really take the area to the next level and to really achieve, a real healthy stable market, a diverse area. Because all the neighborhoods are very different from each other, and throughout the whole thinking it’s always been to maintain that diversity . . .
The quote above is an example of the need for university–community partnerships, a model successfully used by other universities and supported by case study after case study (Bromley & Kent, 2006; Deitrick & Soska, 2005; Gilderbloom & Mullins, 2005; Maurrasse, 2001; Perry & Wiewel, 2005; Rodin, 2007). A longtime community relations director at JHU explained to us that, admittedly, the university had not done very much to engage the surrounding community of Charles Village until the 2000s, let alone reach further into neighborhoods not directly adjacent to the campus. The HCPI report explains that the school has a moral obligation to use its deep resources to revitalize most of Central Baltimore and it has many self-interested reasons for doing so. First, many of JHU faculty, staff, and students reside, travel through, and raise families in Central Baltimore neighborhoods; the university cannot simply concern itself with what happens on their secluded campus. Second, as Baltimore has an image problem outside of the city, many students who are accepted to JHU decline to enroll, often citing safety concerns. The area around JHU, although interesting and diverse, does not provide the “college town” atmosphere of Madison, Wisconsin, or Chapel Hill, North Carolina. The report further states the three points of the “shared vision” of the plan: “a vibrant urban center,” “a livable community,” and “active collaborative stakeholders” (McNeely, 2012). A director of a neighborhood promotional organization that is partnered with JHU explained the benefit of this: [The HCPI plan] was really more of, as it should have been, an attempt to use Hopkins connections and money to move forward the agendas of individual neighborhoods in this area. So if everyone has their own neighborhood plan and they don’t have the money of course to implement things Hopkins can come in and say “well we’ll put money into this project,” so we think that creates a better environment for everyone.
Other stakeholders were rightfully wary of the plan, not because JHU is “the 800-pound gorilla,” but because it may not make good on its promises or focus on quality of life improvements to the neighborhood. A community association leader in Charles North points out that there are real, endemic social problems in Station North that should be addressed before real revitalization can happen: Well . . . show me the money. You [Hopkins] can talk but show me the money. Are you going to put up like you say you’re going to? Or how is it going to be used? . . . I was on the panel to decide who to give the development of the Centre Theatre [to] and Johns Hopkins got in on that very late . . . It may be an institutional presence that’s good for this neighborhood . . . I assume it’s not going to hurt. But we have three student colleges, Johns Hopkins, UB, and MICA all playing and living here . . . We’ve got this problem I call it “Methadone Avenue,” which over on Maryland Avenue, it’s the largest concentration of methadone clinics in the city. And it’s one block over from Charles Street and one block up from North Avenue. Well, if you don’t address that, how are you planning on doing this? Because you can’t fix really Charles [North] without really addressing the federal funded program and the way [methadone clinics] are really powered on a state level. Only someone like Johns Hopkins can come in and take that on.
While the concentration of methadone clinics above North Avenue was not the main focus of our research (since many are technically outside the A&E District boundaries), the quote above shows how some stakeholders feel that the government has not only failed to do anything about neighborhood decline but has actively promoted decline through support of the so-called “one stop shopping” approach that concentrates social services and drug rehabilitation centers around Station North. The neoliberal new urban regime results in a community looking to a private, well-endowed institution, known for solving global health care crises, to solve major social problems where the government cannot (Patterson & Silverman, 2014a). JHU recruits Baltimore residents to participate in much of its public health research, but we are not aware of any particular JHU study being conducted in the Station North area. Neighborhood stakeholders are looking to the anchor institution for more than a film program and a rehabilitated theater, to larger, more systemic investments in the neighborhood to improve quality of life for residents. Given JHU’s vast resources of talent, connections, and capital, promises of neighborhood investment imply an obligation to improve residential quality of life.
Conclusion
Our examination of Station North indicates that the theory of new urban regimes allows us to best understand the ongoing attempt to revitalize this area of Baltimore. New urban regime theory accounts for the important role of MICA and JHU as anchor institutions, working together with bridging organizations such as the Central Baltimore Partnership to revitalize Station North. MICA has focused its efforts in the spheres of arts and culture, and local residents have largely welcomed MICA’s outreach. JHU, on the contrary, has received a more wary reception in Station North. This is based in part upon the institution’s past practices, including the redevelopment of East Baltimore without community input. However, the massive economic power of JHU suggests that the university has great potential to aid Station North. Patterson and Silverman (2014a) warn that this potential will only be realized if communities “demand greater control over neighborhood development processes” (p. 4).
We described above how Joe McNeely helped shape the Homewood Community Partners Initiative Agenda to be more community oriented. This indicates the power of well-connected individuals to influence strategies of development. The case of Fred Lazarus, former President of MICA, is similar in that his “intentional decision” to involve MICA in Station North increased the college’s institutional profile in Station North and ingratiated itself with residents and other stakeholders. Significantly, both of these individuals have stepped down from their official, institutional roles. It remains to be seen if the institutions formerly headed by Lazarus and McNeely (MICA and the Central Baltimore Partnership, respectively) will continue down the paths onto which these figures steered them. If they do not, it is difficult to imagine how Station North will experience large-scale growth in the current, neoliberal climate. As the local government cedes responsibility for urban renewal to new urban regimes, anchor institutions such as the universities around Station North are currently the best hope for quality of life improvements in the area.
What can we learn from the specific case of Station North in Baltimore? The confluence of revitalization strategies in declining cities, “Eds and Meds,”—or anchor institutions—and the creative arts and entertainment–based economy are combining to revitalize neighborhoods as attractive places to live and visit for tourists, residents, and college students. However, as seen in our interviews, these revitalization strategies may not address the quality of life issues that current or future residents most value, nor are they necessarily done with transparency or neighborhood stakeholder reciprocity, as supported by anchor institution researchers and practitioners (Rodin, 2007; Weber et al., 2005). Furthermore, as the government relinquishes the task of neighborhood redevelopment to private Third-Sector institutions, stakeholders question how the neighborhood will change and for whom (Adams, 2014). Gentrification and studentification are often concerns in university-led neighborhood development, and this case is no different (Smith, 2008). These trends in urban revitalization most likely will continue to be a source of intergroup conflict over control of space and the reimagining of the post-industrial city.
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This study was funded in part by the University of Scranton Faculty Research Grant and Faculty Development Award.