More than 4 billion people live in urban areas globally, and this number is expected to jump to 7 billion by 2050.

The livability of cities will increasingly determine the future of humanity and the planet.

As part of a CityLab course with the Carey Business School of Johns Hopkins University (JHU), students such as myself are exploring the challenges and opportunities of urbanization through the lens of livability.

As quality of life is threatened by pandemics, pollution, crime, failing infrastructure, civic discontent, and more, CityLab imagines intentional rebuilding for a livable future that helps transform distressed neighborhoods into flourishing communities.

This Community Profile is an analysis of the livability challenges, tremendous opportunities, and place, people, and ongoing and future projects of a Baltimore neighborhood of personal interest: Reservoir Hill.

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An Introduction to Reservoir Hill:

Reservoir Hill (RH) is a historic neighborhood in central-west Baltimore, directly south of Druid Hill Park (established in 1860, about as old and large as Central Park in NYC), north of Bolton Hill, and east of Penn North.

It has a rich history: literally and figuratively!

Reservoir Hill was a premier neighborhood at the turn of the early 20th century — the place where wealthy Jewish Baltimore resided. It was a who’s who of Jewish Baltimore from the late 1880’s until the 1960’s.

During the 1970s, Reservoir Hill experienced a number of shifts in housing and resident issues: deterioration in housing and loss of many commercial strips in the neighborhood (e.g., the one formerly on Whitelock Street). Persistent issues with drug-trade, crime, and violence over the ensuing decades caused the area to fall further into decline.

Over the past 10 years, however, Reservoir Hill has made tremendous progress in remediation of blight (vacant lots, vacant buildings, creation of community gardens, alley cleanups) and there are several proposed or ongoing investments that hold promise for the future of Reservoir Hill citizens.

This profile will survey these encouraging opportunities for this unique neighborhood in a holistic manner.

In terms of adjacent neighborhoods, Reservoir Hill is bordered to the west by Penn North (a neighborhood more distressed than Reservoir Hill; separated by Druid Hill Avenue; current median sold home price of $57.5K), to the south by Bolton Hill (among the most affluent neighborhoods in the city; separated by West North Avenue; median sold home price of $520K), and to the immediate east by Remington (separated by I-83 highway; median sold home price of $213.5K).

Current median sold home price in Reservoir Hill is $187K, with median listing home price of $291.8K.

See below snapshot from Zillow of available homes in Reservoir Hill:

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Five key strategies for building livable cities can be considered:

1) Healthy Habitat

2) Healthy People

3) Cohesive Communities

4) Engaged Citizens

5) Shared Prosperity

Through this frame of urban livability and sustainability, let’s begin with Healthy Habitat by examining where citizens of Reservoir Hill spend most of their time: in their homes.

The housing stock in Reservoir Hill is a tremendous asset to the neighborhood: it features a wide variety of 19th century architecture, including ornate Victorian mansions overlooking the Druid Hill Park, brownstones, and the smaller brick rowhouses typical of Baltimore.

Although there is much beauty in the housing stock, there is also noticeable pockets of blight:

One challenge for the area for several decades has been the 1970s-era Madison Park North complex on North Avenue, which was referred to disparagingly as Baltimore's "murder mall." It was a low-income, subsidized housing complex, but has been since demolished (began in December 2016), but drug dealing at the intersection of Linden Ave and North Ave (and general area) has still been noted.

There is a liquor store close by, by the name of Linden Liquors, which is also across the street from a new $33M, LEED Gold Dorothy I. Height (formerly John Eager Howard) Elementary School; Reservoir Hill Improvement Council (RHIC) has called for closing the Linden Liquors store, because of concerns of open-air drug use so close to young children.

Also critically important to a community’s habitat is outdoor spaces: to congregate, socially interact, play, and exercise.

Reservoir Hill has had the strong gathering spot of the Whitelock Community Farm (WCF) since 2010.

The farm began in 2010 when Reservoir Hill residents converted a vacant lot into an active urban farm with the help of hundreds of volunteers. The continued support of neighbors and the wider community has spirited the community’s vision to improve access to healthy food

German Park is adjacent to the Whitelock Community Farm and thanks to community support, was recently renovated from a cement-centric park non-conducive to child play, to one better designed with children at mind:

<highlight several beautification efforts: tree planting, community gardens besides Whitelock, introduce Baltimore City Side Yard Program, alley cleanup; possible alley gating to improve safety?">

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Let’s now move to Healthy People, by examining some of the social determinants of health in Reservoir Hill.

<reference 2011 Neighborhood Health Profile of Penn North/Reservoir Hill, by Baltimore City Health Department; need greater investment in early childhood development in area; lack of preschools; relatively high middle and high school absenteeism; below city-average adult educational attainment; above city-average juvenile arrest rate, domestic violence rate, non-fatal shooting rate, and homicide incidence rate; vacant building density of 935.0 per 10,000 housing units [almost one in ten], compared to city average of 567.2 per 10,000 housing units; no grocery stores other than two corner stores, with limited healthy food options; supermarkets are outside RH; Whitelock Community Farm has Saturday market for fresh produce; life expectancy of 68.1 years, versus city-average of 71.8 years>

<For Social Determinants of Health, out of 55 city neighborhoods, Penn North/Reservoir Hill is ranked: 40th for Middle School Absenteeism, 46th for High School Absenteeism, 40th for Homicide Incidence Rate, and 43rd for Vacant Building Density>

<For Health Outcomes, out of 55 city neighborhoods, Penn North/Reservoir Hill is ranked: 42nd in Life Expectancy, 47th in Avertable Deaths, 44th in Years of Potential Life Lost (YPLL), 50th in Heart Disease, 51st in HIV/AIDS, and 53rd (third worst in entire city) in Diabetes>

<show demographics, changes in racial makeup over the decades if possible>

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The third aspect of a sustainable urban village is Cohesive Communities: social capital, human connections, and networking.

<year round youth development programs, job readiness courses for youth and adults by St. Francis Center: https://www.stfranciscenter.org/what_we_do/programs_services/>

<yoga at Whitelock Farm every Saturday; weekly volunteer hours and monthly potluck cookout; Community Conservation Night with service on the farm, free community dinner, speaker panel; annual Harvest Festival (this year cancelled due to COVID)>

<bolton park neighbors, RHIC, New Lens, No Boundaries Coalition, Beth Am synagogue — community groups use the synagogue for meetings, voting, and social events;>

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Engaged Citizens is the fourth dimension of sustainable cities: civic conscience, social responsibility, and public good.

Reservoir Hill has had the benefit of several decades of leadership from the Reservoir Hill Improvement Council, Inc. (RHIC), founded in 1985.

RHIC unites, empowers, and mobilizes residents and organizations to define and take action on issues common to the Reservoir Hill community.

In 2015, a set of organizations and institutions whose collaborative work went back many years in Reservoir Hill began meeting monthly as Community Partners. Their intention was to be better collaborators, both with each other, and the community members they strive to serve.

Those presently meeting as Community Partners are the RHIC, Whitelock Community Farm, New Lens, Child First at the new Dorothy I. Height Elementary School, In For Of Inc. of Beth Am Synagogue, Dovecote Cafe, No Boundaries Coalition, St. Francis Neighborhood Center, the Druid Hill Family Center YMCA, Friends of Reservoir Hill, and the Mount Royal Community Development Corporation:

There are several initiatives to crowd-source ideas for urban revitalization and beautify the area. For example, community artwork for painting the crosswalk at Whitelock Street and Brookefield Avenue was set up on makeplacehappen.com/whitelock.

As an example to draw from, this Reverberations Crosswalk was implemented in June 2019, near the Margaret Brent Elementary School in Harwood, Baltimore:

<if available, show voting behavior in area, as it compares to city averages; how engaged are citizens in RH in the political process?>

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Last but not least, the fifth element of sustainable urban environments is Shared Prosperity: inclusive wealth creation, social impact investing, and economic democracy.

<insert how city is prioritizing “middle of the road” neighborhoods like Reservoir Hill that have enough traction and investments to build off of; city planners think investment in places like RH is strategically savvy>

<insert research on impact-investing and any data on Baltimore at-large; recent growth of RH (new families entering, more whites are coming in); racial and economic diversity of RH can be a strength to leverage moving forward>