The past usually comes wrapped in nostalgia, deserved or not. But if the “good old days” weren’t always good, they also aren’t always old. Sometimes the yesterday of fond memory is, quite literally, yesterday.
The four neighborhoods profiled below each have gone through seismic changes in the relatively recent past. For each, we examine a different question:
We look at how Greektown is coping with the explosion of its Spanish-speaking population. We explore Park Heights’ transition from a working-class Jewish enclave to an African-American neighborhood struggling to reverse decades of urban blight. We examine the impact of the unprecedented explosion of high-end residential development on an industrial port like Locust Point. And we chronicle Waverly’s attempts to regroup and rebuild after it was devastated by the departure of its anchor institution, Memorial Stadium.
Each neighborhood is idiosyncratic. Yet together they form a kind of composite portrait of the stresses that face one city — as well as of the strength, determination and resilience of the people who make Baltimore their home.