completethesestreets t1_iwc3srq wrote on November 14, 2022 at 3:26 PM

Reply to comment by saltysomadmin in Making Baltimore look good on the Internet by perceptron-addict

Maybe this is facile but if the city starts addressing simpler quality-of-life stuff and the population starts to grow, even if the number of homicides stays the same, the "homicide rate" will decrease because there's more people here.

I don't think it would be that difficult for the city to start prioritizing things like more dense infill development, more charm city circulator lines, fixing potholes and street lights, hiring some people to clean up more often, etc., and I think that would trigger some growth. Obviously we also want the number of homicides to decrease, but I think that fixing these other issues could go part of the way to addressing violence.

flobbley t1_iwc6rqr wrote on November 14, 2022 at 3:47 PM

Improved public transportation infrastructure and improved public school performance would have immense effects for the city. Every young couple I've known that has moved out of the city wanted to stay for the lifestyle but felt they had to because of schools, and the larger an area people are able to travel in a given amount of time means a larger area people are able to look for jobs, and a better chance of increasing their income.

Xanny t1_iwd66kc wrote on November 14, 2022 at 7:40 PM

Its almost like poverty begets (violent) crime and reducing poverty reduces (violent) crimes.

Really I think the root is the blight. You're right about more circulator lines etc. We should at least get circulator coverage in the 2 mile radius of downtown and let MTA act more as a commuter bus service for further out areas. It also needs better headways, like some cities get bus frequencies down to 4 minutes. We could at least do sub 10.

I think on infill development though the current city building code is crippling. There are like 50 different zoning districts and are allocated on totally arbitrary per-lot boundaries. The biggest thing is to rezone areas within 2 blocks of major transit stops (which would include those high frequency circular stops, imo) to an equivalent of the current TOD-4 zone with no parking minimums. If this actually happened with expanded circulator coverage and the red line it would make a lot of the city a singular zoning code, which would be hugely helpful to attract investors to build here.