For decades, Baltimore struggled with high crime rates and a declining population. From 1950 to 2020, the city’s population shrank from nearly one million to 585,000.
But things have started looking up — even with Wednesday’s government shutdown potentially affecting funding for the city.
For the first time in a decade, Baltimore’s population grew last year, according to estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau. And through July of this year, the city had the fewest homicides recorded in over 50 years.
All of this prompted Maryland’s governor, Wes Moore, to declare in a recent interview that “the Baltimore renaissance has begun.”
He and other local officials are hoping to seize on the momentum with billion-dollar plans to revitalize the city, which last year was dealt a blow when the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapsed, temporarily blocking access to the port of Baltimore.
The city has been restoring dilapidated neighborhoods and rebuilding homes. It has a $7 billion plan to clean up and transform its downtown within a decade by adding housing, restaurants, retailers and office buildings, as well as green spaces and infrastructure upgrades.
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The post Baltimore’s Billion-Dollar Plans to Reinvent Itself appeared first on New York Times.
