ABSTRACT
In large part, Baltimore is a city defined by its residential quarters and the different ways housing can express itself. Baltimore's public housing goes back to the Baltimore Housing Authority formed in 1937. The Housing Commissioner condemned the building reportedly to turn it into a bulwark against urban flight by converting its 80 luxury apartments into 270 low-income units for the elderly. As with the maligned public housing high-rises, it isn't really the architecture that is at the root of the problems and ills afflicting so many Baltimore neighborhoods, but an entire set of social problems and bad policies. Soon a small-time investor asked for a set of rehabilitation plans for a rowhouse on Fulton Street right in the inner-city neighborhood of Sandtown. In recent decades, the rowhouses facades themselves have become indicators of Baltimore's condition: The image of the boarded up rowhouse has become the symbol of Baltimore's decay; the removal of formstone has become a sign of gentrification.
