Atrios had a small post regarding the continuing development, despite the ongoing recession, of suburban areas "between Wilmington and Baltimore". For this post’s sake, I am assuming that this means counties in Maryland to the North of Baltimore, i.e. Harford and Cecil counties.

I commented thus and have now added some links to what I am talking about for easy reference:

There are a couple of things going on in regard to Baltimore, that probably affect the continuation of building exurbia in Harford and Cecil county. (making an assumption that that is where you are):

1. Downtown Baltimore is absolutely toxic to the local population and not "cool" as opposed to, say, New York City or Philadelphia. Take a gander on Craigslist’s Rants and Raves section if you want some flavor of what the locals think of downtown Baltimore. While O’Malley tried, while he was Mayor, through slogans and cracking down on crime to change this paradigm, it was doomed to fail as you still have a lot of latent racism in Maryland. (See the link above to Baltimore Craigslist for a taste of this – take a shower first!)

More after the break

2. Aberdeen Proving Ground, which is in Harford County, will be expanded through the BRAC program, where military bases throughout the entire US are being consolidated. There has been a lot of hype through the media that this will lead to extra government investment in the area. I frankly don’t see how an increase of low income military personnel really will be such a net gain as they think, but developers and real estate agents have bought into this.
3. The Baltimore economy has not been THAT effected by the recession, mostly due to our proximity to Washington DC. Just like in the Reagan-Bush years, Maryland benefited greatly from the expansion of the military-industrial complex. Maryland had a later recession than most of the country the last time around when Clinton took a "peace dividend" in ’93 and ’94.
4. Due to the fact that Maryland is not a non-recourse state [i.e., non "jingle-mail state] as well as the fact that, due to its proximity to Washington, the housing market has not collapsed as much as elsewhere. The housing prices here have not dropped as much, as predicted, among others, by Krugman a couple of years back, as Harford County and Cecil County can be described as "Flat Land". While Baltimore City and Baltimore County could be described as "Zoned Zones," due to our proximity to Washington DC, the housing market has not collapsed as much as in California, Florida and Arizona, see here from the Baltimore Sun. While home sales themselves are down significantly,

"…..[t]he average sales price rose only in Baltimore City, by 1.1 percent to $179,716."

it would be appear that the Zoned Zone theory does not apply to Baltimore City for whatever reason.

5. Baltimore City has a lot of arcane zoning laws and a great number of slum lords (The Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation, for example, owns a large portion of the Western side of downtown Baltimore) that does not allow easy redevelopment of a lot of property to avoid blight. In this article from the Maryland Daily Record, the foundation’s President, Shane Stiller, says:

"We definitely want to develop the properties ourselves, said Shale D. Stiller, the foundation’s president. We do not under any circumstances want to sell them."

while the same article says:

"Meanwhile, the superblock [the Westside of Downtown Baltimore that is being developed, albeit at a glacial pace] has been under threat of condemnation for more than five years, and not much progress has touched it since."

This was in 2005. The New York Times article, linked above, is from 2001.

6. There is a lot of grass roots resistance to "Quick Take" or "Eminent Domain" procedures. For an example, see the problems that Patrick Turner, who is redeveloping a large swath of land in Westport, which is South of Baltimore below the harbor is going through. I stand corrected about the last part, I thought I had recalled seeing eminent domain issues going on with this project, but I could not find any.

In summary, while it might seem easy for a developer to just buy up a swath of land in an urban area and redevelop it, issues such as racism, zoning laws, neighborhood resistance and conflicting government policies, such as relocating military bases in suburban areas make things a lot more complicated than they would otherwise seem.

Editorial note: to be clear, while I would certainly like to be as talented as Dean Baker, he and I are not related. Dean posts on this site under "Dean Baker" while I just under "DBaker".