In 1995, renowned urban scholar and expert David Rusk wrote Baltimore Unbound, a booklet in which he declared Baltimore to be "beyond a point of no return" (along with 33 other American cities). His assessment was based on the same theory as his book Cities without Suburbs, namely that cities that can't grow and expand through annexation are doomed. Baltimore's last annexation happened in 1918 and ever since it was an inelastic city. So there you go: surrounded by affluent and growing suburbs the city in the center is suffocating, the public housing project of the burbs. Rusk wrote in 1993 in the Baltimore SUN:....
Forty percent of America's cities are programmed to fail. Gary, Camden, East St. Louis are already clinically dead. Bridgeport, Newark, Hartford, Cleveland, Detroit are on life-support systems. New York, Baltimore, Chicago, St. Louis, Philadelphia are sinking. Though seemingly healthy, Boston, Minneapolis, Atlanta are already infected.
Community Architect: Where David Rusk Went Wrong: The Real Challenge for Cities isn't Elasticity
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Nikolaus Philipsen FAIA
Archplan Inc. Philipsen Architects
Baltimore MD
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