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“To promote the material and moral welfare of the community” Neighborhood Improvement Associations in Baltimore, Maryland, 1900 – 1945. Geoff Buckley Department of Geography Ohio University. Neighborhood Improvement and Protection Associations.
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“To promote the material and moral welfare of the community”Neighborhood Improvement Associations in Baltimore, Maryland, 1900 – 1945 Geoff Buckley Department of Geography Ohio University
Neighborhood Improvement and Protection Associations • occupied a prominent position in the decision-making hierarchy prior to comprehensive city zoning • adept at attracting amenities to the neighborhood, while discouraging unwanted land uses • approximately 70 ca. 1910 • reinforced patterns of segregation
Mayor J. Barry Mahool (fourth from left) was a proponent of Baltimore’s segregation ordinance.
Mount Washington (ca. 1900) “A Place for Boys. . . . A boy in a good neighborhood, with social equals for his chosen friends, may, as it were, be turned loose in the country, yet when so turned loose, is far more under his parents’ eyes, than in the streets of a great city. They know who he goes with, they know where he goes, they know, approximately, what he is doing, and for him the country is full of healthy interests and excitement. . . . You owe it to your children to bring them up where nature intended they should grow up.”
“After listening to a delegation from the Peabody Heights Improvement Association at the City Hall yesterday afternoon, Mayor Preston announced that he would get behind a bill authorizing the appointment of a city forester, and giving the municipality control over the planting, care and removal of shade trees on streets within the city limits. . . .” - Baltimore Morning Sun, 17 February 1912 Mayor Preston was a proponent of the street tree ordinance.
Peabody Heights April 10, 1922 “The question was raised as to what the zoning regulations may do in regard to segregation. Mr. Norris stated that no valid law can be enacted to effect segragation [sic], but the property owners in any section may by contractual agreement bind themselves not to sell to a negro. The sentiment was expressed that protection was needed against invasion of the neighborhood by so-called “kike” Jews as well as by negroes.”
South Baltimore (ca. 1938) • Much of the effort “to promote sports for children . . . has been accomplished under great handicaps. South Baltimore has felt the need for additional recreational facilities for many years. . . . Each year thousands of children flock to these places and it is to be regretted that many of them have great distances to walk before reaching an area that is safe for play. • This condition is true to even a greater extent with the colored children. South Baltimore offers very meager facilities for the Negro youth. The public school yards are too small to allow participation in the usual activities and are most unattractive.” • With regard to “indoor centers”: “Here again, the Negro youth finds himself without adequate recreation space.”
"The belated introduction of suitable parks might be a very important and valuable element in a sound general program of rehabilitation, intelligently and realistically directed toward salvaging such districts and reconverting them into really satisfactory and attractive residential communities . . . But, in the face of wide-spread uncertainty about the future trends of a district, random and uncoordinated expenditures of a few hundred thousand dollars here and a few more there, intended to benefit a diminishing population, the future distribution of which no one now has a sound basis for estimating, is far too liable to be an extravagant and futile gesture. Certainly it is a very risky venture in which to invest trust funds when a safer one that is entirely appropriate is clearly available." Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr. to Theodore Marburg (letter dated July 12, 1939)
