In the early 2000s, newly-elected Mayor of Baltimore Martin O’Malley announced support for a community revitalization strategy to attract middle- and upper-income homeowners that diverged from prior community development efforts which focused on providing a wide range of services primarily to poor neighborhoods. O’Malley worked with a Philadelphia-based community development financial institution, The Reinvestment Fund (TRF), to target six initial neighborhoods that could potentially support homeownership. Community development actors coalesced around this strategy, exemplified through the Healthy Neighborhoods Initiative (HNI), which fit the broader mid-2000s trend of cities using data-driven mechanisms to direct resources to neighborhoods with market potential. In this dissertation, I conducted a case study to answer who the primary actors were in developing this approach and how this differed from previous community development efforts. While this community development effort looks different from prior approaches, I traced a clear path through Baltimore’s community development history and the changing local and political economic landscape, from the protest politics of the 1960s all the way to middle-class homeownership of the 2000s. My findings suggest that there was a change in the community development approach in the 2000s as community development organizations, foundations and the city, under new political leadership, turned their attention to previously overlooked neighborhoods to which they could attract middle- and upper-income residents as homeowners. The experiences of two Baltimore community development organizations, Patterson Park Community Development Corporation and Belair-Edison Neighborhoods Inc. help illustrate how the approach was carried out on a neighborhood level. While community development organizations historically reacted to downtown development and insular decision-making, some organizations became part of the city’s neighborhood redevelopment effort. I also answer how community development organizations responded to and were transformed by the rise of foreclosures in the 2000s, which threatened gains in homeownership and negatively impacted the city and its community development organizations. However, the city, foundations and community development organizations remain committed to homeownership as a community development strategy.
Subject (authority = RUETD)
Topic
Planning and Public Policy
Subject (authority = ETD-LCSH)
Topic
Community development--Maryland--Baltimore
RelatedItem (type = host)
TitleInfo
Title
Rutgers University Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Identifier (type = RULIB)
ETD
Identifier
ETD_6225
PhysicalDescription
Form (authority = gmd)
electronic resource
InternetMediaType
application/pdf
InternetMediaType
text/xml
Extent
1 online resource (xiii, 211 p. : ill.)
Note (type = degree)
Ph.D.
Note (type = bibliography)
Includes bibliographical references
Note (type = statement of responsibility)
by Kate Davidoff
RelatedItem (type = host)
TitleInfo
Title
Graduate School - New Brunswick Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Identifier (type = local)
rucore19991600001
Location
PhysicalLocation (authority = marcorg); (displayLabel = Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey)
Rutgers University. Graduate School - New Brunswick
AssociatedObject
Type
License
Name
Author Agreement License
Detail
I hereby grant to the Rutgers University Libraries and to my school the non-exclusive right to archive, reproduce and distribute my thesis or dissertation, in whole or in part, and/or my abstract, in whole or in part, in and from an electronic format, subject to the release date subsequently stipulated in this submittal form and approved by my school. I represent and stipulate that the thesis or dissertation and its abstract are my original work, that they do not infringe or violate any rights of others, and that I make these grants as the sole owner of the rights to my thesis or dissertation and its abstract. I represent that I have obtained written permissions, when necessary, from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis or dissertation and will supply copies of such upon request by my school. I acknowledge that RU ETD and my school will not distribute my thesis or dissertation or its abstract if, in their reasonable judgment, they believe all such rights have not been secured. I acknowledge that I retain ownership rights to the copyright of my work. I also retain the right to use all or part of this thesis or dissertation in future works, such as articles or books.