Baltimore is running a unique housing experiment that gives longtime residents vouchers to leave the city’s poorest, most violent neighborhoods for new homes in more affluent suburbs nearby. In this episode, we follow a mom named Alethea through this policy experiment. You’ll hear how Baltimore’s segregationist history planted the problems this program is tr ... Show More
Dec 2018
The incredible shrinking city
For decades, Memphis grew by bringing its suburbs into the city limits. City officials thought this suburb-gobbling policy would be an economic boon-- that it would bring in tax revenue. Instead, the policy was an economic disaster, especially for the majority black neighborhoods ... Show More
31m 50s
Apr 2024
1291 - You Can Buy a Property for $1 in Baltimore—Here’s How by Jeff Vasishta
HBO’s seminal series The Wire put Baltimore’s plight on the map, with crime and urban blight running amok. Now, 16 years after that show ended, it seems little has changed from the city it depicted. The situation has become so desperate that the city is selling off dilapidated bu ... Show More
9m 9s
Sep 2023
Nicole Fabricant, "Fighting to Breathe: Race, Toxicity, and the Rise of Youth Activism in Baltimore" (U California Press, 2022)
Industrial toxic emissions on the South Baltimore Peninsula are among the highest in the nation. Because of the concentration of factories and other chemical industries in their neighborhoods, residents face elevated rates of lung cancer and other respiratory illnesses in additio ... Show More
36m 56s