The Buzzards are starting to circle around this one. First lets start off with a history of the neighborhood. The Edmondson Avenue area was basically nothing until the bridge over the Gwynns Falls was widened and replaced in 1910. The decades following World War I Baltimore saw a surge in new housing along Edmondson Avenue in the today's neighborhoods of Edmondson Village, Rognel Heights, Uplands, Allendale, Hunting Ridge and Ten Hills. The Great Depression did however slow the development in the late 1920s and early 1930s.
After World War II the development of Edmondson Village was a complete white middle class row house suburb. Further into downtown however the African American neighborhoods were grow tighter and congested by the day because the segregated housing market only allowed them to live in certain places. In the 1950s some unconventional real estate agents all across the country sought to make a buck by using a technique now known as "blockbusting" putting a black family into an all white block and using their fears to spur white flight. The real estate agents then bought the homes from whites at below market rate and then sold them to black buyers at inflated prices. This made Edmondson Village's population switch from completely white to completely black from 1955-1965.
Fast forward to 2007 Edmonson Village still has a lot of original residents who bought their homes in the blockbusting era. They have grown old and are having a tough time with the upkeep of their ever aging row homes. Crime has reared its ugly head in the neighborhood and home ownership is decreasing. Signs are appearing that say "we will buy your house for cash." Problem is many of these "buyers" are companies who go to into the house, do minimal work on them, and rent it out.
Fast forward to 2007 Edmonson Village still has a lot of original residents who bought their homes in the blockbusting era. They have grown old and are having a tough time with the upkeep of their ever aging row homes. Crime has reared its ugly head in the neighborhood and home ownership is decreasing. Signs are appearing that say "we will buy your house for cash." Problem is many of these "buyers" are companies who go to into the house, do minimal work on them, and rent it out.
To make Edmondson Village the stable community it's always been it needs to remain a neighborhood with a healthy housing stock and a high rate of home ownership as does any neighborhood. A good way to do this would be for the city to use programs that it already has like "project 5000" and "healthy neighborhoods." "Project 5000" can sell homes for next to nothing under the condition that the buyer does a full rehab and can either sell it or live in it. "Healthy Neighborhoods" provides resources for existing home owners to better maintain their properties. Since urban decay hasn't set as bad as it has in other parts of the city redevelopment need only be minimal consisting primarily on buildings directly on Edmondson Avenue and the Edmondale Apartment complex.
If steps like these aren't taken Edmondson Village may have a bleak future.*Update the Baltimore City Planning Department has come with a master plan for the Edmondson Village area including Edmondson Village, Rognel Heights, Allendale, and Saint Josephs. It describes basically what I've described in this post. Maybe someone in city hall is reading this blog.
