CUMU Conference 2019

In 2002, the Mayor and City Council of Baltimore approved plans to create a new $1.8 billion mixed-use, mixed-income community in East Baltimore that required the acquisition by eminent domain of 2,000 properties and relocation of nearly 750 families from the Middle East neighborhood. Massive deindustrialization, the riots of 1968, white and black flight, the scourge of drug addiction, gangs and crime rate double the city’s average gave rise to the extreme intervention of buying properties and relocating hundreds of families. Today, the project is about 40 percent completed with 800 homes and apartments, 685,000 square feet of office and lab space, 40,000 square feet of retail, a central park, neighborhood school, and a hotel.

The large-scale use of relocation and demolition required a new approach to redevelopment. The story of responsible redevelopment is pioneering and unique to EBDI and started with elected and government officials, philanthropy and institutions. From its inception, the framers of EBDI adopted community engagement, equity and economic inclusion guiding principles. This approach combines economic, community and human development strategies in ways that seek to ensure maximum benefit from the revitalization efforts for area residents. Today, the Middle East neighborhoods, now called Eager Park, is Baltimore’s most integrated neighborhood racially, economically and intergenerationally.