By Melanie Hardy
Waverly is one of the coolest, affordable, up-and-coming neighborhoods in North Baltimore. It is home to the year-round 32nd Street Farmers Market, the YMCA, and former home of the infamous Memorial Stadium. For many Baltimoreans and visitors, Memorial Stadium served as the playing field for the Baltimore Colts, Baltimore Ravens (who made their debut in 1996), and Baltimore Orioles. Upon closing in 1997, the economic impact can still be seen and felt in the community, especially from the intersections of Greenmount and 25th Street to Greenmount and 39th.
For starters, Greenmount Avenue is nothing like it once was. In 1940, Greenmount earned recognition from the Baltimore Chamber of Commerce for being one of the most efficiently operated and productive residential shopping districts in the United States. Waverly’s economic prosperity continued until 1997, when Memorial Stadium closed, changing the edifice of Greenmount Avenue. Today, Greenmount, like other parts of the Waverly community, are crime-ridden with reports of home invasions, car thefts, and robberies happening quite frequently.
In 1982, social scientists George L. Kelling and James Q. Wilson created the Broken Windows Theory, explaining why some areas have high rates of crime. This ecological explanation of crime asserts that visible signs of crime in urban areas lead to further crime. They used the analogy “broken windows” to explain that neighborhoods with broken windows would attract more crime because of their unkempt appearance. Simply stating, broken windows that are not repaired increase the likelihood for future vandalism or perhaps even more deviant behaviors.
Although this theory is commonly used in the field of criminology, it can be used to make the argument that more money should be invested into Waverly. This neighborhood already has indicators of the signs of decay described by Kelling and Wilson. I recently took a tour of Waverly to see the community for myself. Using Waverly Elementary Middle School as a reference point, I found an abandoned home two blocks down from the school. The old Waverly Elementary School sits boarded up across the street of the new school. I drove a couple blocks down the street and ended up at Greenmount Avenue - a street filled with abandoned store fronts, graffiti, and vacant homes, and by far the most noticeable display of “broken windows” in the community. Just four streets over from Greenmount and 32nd Street (in Charles Village) is Saint Paul Street, where a commercial strip of stores such as Chipotle, CVS, and Honeygrow can be found.
Greenmount Avenue has the potential to look like the rows of shops that line St. Paul Street. Despite signs of decay, Waverly is a beautiful community that is home to many historic Victorian style homes and cottages. Some of the scenery in the community is breathtaking. Residents of Waverly care deeply about their neighborhood and want all areas of the community to be aesthetically pleasing.
Community investing has been a source of regeneration for many urban neighborhoods in the United States. Community investing is a way to use investments to create resources and opportunities for disadvantaged people who are underserved by traditional financial institutions. Currently, community investing has been a way to bring better economic opportunities to Chicago neighborhoods like Pullman, Bronzeville, and Englewood, thanks to Chicago Neighborhood Initiatives (CNI). CNI is an organization that is dedicated to coordinating resources, economic development, and neighborhood revitalization efforts in Chicago’s low-to-moderate income neighborhoods. If community investing can work in neighborhoods like these, it could be successful in a neighborhood like Waverly.
To reduce current signs of decay, the Waverly community could start their own Community Investment Fund (CIF). A CIF can help to empower the community by allowing community members (of any economic class) to invest in a community fund which in turn invests in revitalization projects for the community. This is already being done in a larger cities like Chicago, so it could work not only in Waverly, but also in other neighborhoods experiencing similar decay throughout Baltimore. The abandoned homes in Waverly deserve to be renovated and occupied. The old Waverly Elementary School deserves to be turned into a community center. The residents of Waverly deserve to have a neighborhood that reflects how much they care about their homes and their community. Waverly deserves to be space with no “broken windows.”
