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Baltimore magazine is proud to launch a new blog that will focus on the city's biggest assets: it's neighborhoods and the people who live in them. We'll be looking to explore the ins and outs from all over the metro area: If you want to discuss the proposed Keswick Multi-Care Center in Roland Park, the closing of Linden Liquors on North Avenue, or the opening of a youth empowerment center in Hampden, this is the place.
We will count on our dedicated readership to help make this forum an active, current, vibrant destination. Please send me news, updates, story ideas or opinions at sevan@baltimoremagazine.net and I'll follow-up when necessary and create posts to spark discussion.
In her groundbreaking 1961 book, "The Death and Life of Great American Cities," Jane Jacobs argued that lively, diverse neighborhoods form the human core of great cities. At a time when vast urban renewal created artificial public spaces and faster access to the suburbs, Jacobs lamented the loss of strong urban communities, built on generations of families living together, building institutions, solving problems, and looking out for one another. One of the key elements to rebuilding and maintaining strong communities, she argued, was encouraging "eyes on the street." On one level, the phrase means designing neighborhoods so that people can see what's happening on the street—lots of front stoops and sidewalk space, few dark alleys and no steep high-rises. But in another, more important way, "eyes on he street" means fostering communities that are constantly engaged with what's going on around them, where citizens come together to discuss and solve problems and speak out together when any community member is mistreated. We hope, in some small way, this blog will contribute to keeping Baltimore's eyes on the street.
Evan Serpick
Senior Editor
Baltimore Magazine
sevan@baltimoremagazine.net
