Chapter 4: Developing a Community-Centric Model Using a Multi-Sector Partnership Process for Urban Development: A Case Study of the Historic Upton Community Revitalization in West Baltimore

For decades, inner cities across the United Sates have been negatively impacted by several social and economic challenges, which are the direct result of ineffective policies and processes, especially as they relate to urban housing and development. Ironically, many of the same policies and processes designed to alleviate societal challenges, such as poverty, actually created some of the major challenges that inner cities now face (Forrester, 1999). Baltimore, Maryland, is not unique in its demographic make-up or geographical population dispersion from other developed core urban cities in the United States. Today, Baltimore is classified as a hyper-segregated city due to decades of unjust housing polices, inequitable lending practices, and failed public and private initiatives (Brown, 2021). During the mid-20th century, Baltimore served as a model to the country in terms of institutional discriminatory housing practices and the creation of oppressive housing laws (Elfenbein et al., 2011). Historically, attempts to address these challenges have been undertaken at the federal, state, and local levels of government as well as the private sector with little or no success and void of any real sustainability. For example, programs such as Model Cities and Urban Renewal were eventually abandoned and universally considered failed governmental policies and initiatives. Along the same lines, at the state and local levels, the introduction of various grant (block and categorical) initiatives produced marginal success at best.