Free land. No property taxes. Abundant, affordable labor. Customers who spend just about every dollar they make. Financing, if you need it. In the perfect location to do business across the country and around the world. Baltimore’s disadvantaged neighborhoods are every entrepreneur’s teenage dream.
Category Archives: Economy
Zoning: What’s the point?
You’ll notice that the featured image for this article about zoning isn’t a map of this or that district plan. It’s people waiting in line for jobs. Whatever jobs they can get.
The Problem With Startups
Hey. Just a quick note about supporting startups as a strategy for creating jobs. This may sound cold, but it’s huge waste of time and money. Here’s why…
Priorities
Is spending $4 million for a new water taxi terminal really the best use of those funds in a city where 25% of the people live in poverty?
The Economics of Dilution vs. Concentration
It is the mission of Baltimore Rising to start a fire. We talk about it all the time. Not the destructive kind. No. Of course not. What we’re talking about is igniting all-inclusive economic growth that will, sooner rather than later, clean up the mess that Baltimore has become over the past 60 years. Those are the 60 years during which the manufacturing sector of the city collapsed and, for one reason or another, one third of our population, mostly from the top down, disappeared. A good many of them abandoned the city for the safer, more prosperous, better educated suburbs.
To TIF or not to TIF?
Screenshot from the Baltimore Development Corporation website. Note the BDC’s slogan. Catchy, but what exactly does it mean?
Let’s talk briefly about TIFs. “To TIF or not to TIF?” isn’t really the question, but it makes for a catchy title. The real question isn’t whether or not, but where.
“Excuse me.”
Yes?
“What’s a TIF?”