The news a couple of weeks ago was fairly stark. In the first two months of the year 2007, a study of 18 major markets showed that only two of these markets had seen a decrease in real estate inventories of existing houses for sale. For the first time in weeks, we were hearing the media blather on again about the ‘bubble.’
The two markets who had the enviable decrease? Washington and Baltimore.
The result was not a surprise to those of us who work in this region. We’d seen bad days, especially last fall heading into winter. The phone wasn’t ringing. But, starting in mid-January, things were beginning to pick up, and the first quarter was starting to look pretty good as contracts, settlements, and new buyers were coming in at a nice pace.
The movement of the two cities into one large economic megaplex has been gradual, and many long-time residents of Baltimore, in particular, may really not be aware of it. Roughly 35 miles separate the downtowns of the two cities. Baltimore has traditionally been the larger of the two jurisdictions, but Charm City falls behind when metropolitan areas are included in the count. Washington’s sprawl has been of epic proportions, especially into Virginia — where smart growth has rarely been talked about and never really seen.
Increasingly over the last five years, Baltimore has been evolving into a different type of bedroom community for the Nation’s Capital. An aging, old-line industrial matron, whose empty factories and deteriorating manufacturing infrastructure has given her a gap-toothed smile, Baltimore has been getting face-lifts around her digital harbor, from new high-tech industry to posh waterfront condominium developments. Several cranes dot the downtown skyline, and new clusters of skyscrapers are rising in previously low-rise districts and vastly expanding her visual impact.
Yet state and federal authorities are ignoring the desperate shape of mass transit in the city, and in how the two cities connect with one another. Light rail and subway plans are talked about in generational time spans, and commuter rail lines between the downtowns are heavily used and overcrowded right now. Highway congestion already ranks as some of the worst in the nation, and the resulting ozone and air pollution alerts make summertime heat and humidity even more unpleasant and unhealthy.
We could be looking and the rebirth of a city, and its evolution into a different kind of satellite city then we have seen before. But without adequate transportation infrastructure, both cities may choke on their own exhaust. This is primarily the responsibility of Annapolis to fix, and the time to start was yesterday.
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