Baltimore Mayor Scott Cuts Vacant Homes to 11,800 With TIF Funds, State Cash

巴尔的摩市长斯科特利用TIF资金与州拨款将空置房减少至11800套 市长布兰登·斯科特将巴尔的摩空置房产的减少归功于一项结合了州资金、非连续TIF融资及数据驱动减少暴力手段的15年战略。 在本期节目中，巴尔的摩市长布兰登·斯科特概述了其政府为应对该市空置房危机而制定的15年综合战略，该举措已将空置房产从16,000套减少至11,800套以下。他解释了巴尔的摩如何利用非连续税收增量融资（TIF）和每年5,000万美元的州资金，针对历史上被称为“黑蝴蝶”的红线划分社区进行精准治理。斯科特还讨论了诸如“群体暴力减少策略”等基于数据的公共安全干预措施如何将凶杀案压降至历史新低，为吸引私人投资奠定了必要的安全底线。此外，他还谈及了基础设施现代化、水费改革、技术驱动的经济增长，以及在《火线》（The Wire）等剧集之外巴尔的摩所具备的文化形象。 巴尔的摩的空置房危机具有深厚的历史根源，包括红线政策、郊区化、去工业化，以及人口从近百万锐减至约60万人。 (3:00) 将现代空置房产地图叠加在1937年的历史红线地图上，呈现出高度吻合的地理格局，即著名的“黑蝴蝶”与“白L”。 (3:00) 巴尔的摩制定了一项跨政府任期的15年综合统一规划——通过与BUILD联盟及商界合作，并确保每年获得5,000万美元的州资金，以期彻底根除空置住房问题。 (6:00) 以1美元出售空置房产并不能解决危机，因为绝大多数房产归私人所有，且买家通常缺乏全面结构翻修所需的10万至15万美元资金。 (6:00) 在市长斯科特执政期间，巴尔的摩的空置房产总数已从16,000套降至略高于11,800套。 (6:00)

Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott argues that overcoming the city's vacant housing crisis requires pairing non-contiguous municipal financing and systematic code enforcement with data-driven reductions in violent crime. Rather than relying on short-term political fixes or land banks, the city is pursuing a 15-year strategy designed to modernize municipal administration, rebuild historically disinvested neighborhoods, and protect legacy residents from displacement. Historical Roots and the Geography of Vacancy Mayor Brandon Scott attributes Baltimore's vacant property crisis to the legacy of racial redlining—noting that the nation's first redlining statute was signed in Baltimore—which established enduring demographic and economic divides locally termed the "Black Butterfly" and the "White L." The crisis was further fueled by post-WWII suburbanization, deindustrialization marked by the exit of major employers like Bethlehem Steel and General Motors, and a population drop from nearly 1,000,000 residents at its peak to roughly 600,000. Speculative absentee buying and unresolved generational inheritances left thousands of row homes abandoned across contiguous blocks. When Scott took office in December 2020, Baltimore had roughly 16,000 vacant properties, unchanged from 2000 levels despite historical declines from 30,000 to 40,000 in prior decades. Under his administration, the city's public "Reframe Baltimore" dashboard tracked a decline to 11,806 vacant properties. Scott rejects advertised "$1 house" initiatives as an unviable solution, noting that most vacants are privately owned and that acquiring a home for nominal costs does not solve the $100,000 to $150,000 capital requirement needed to rehabilitate a neglected building to code. Long-Term Financing and Non-Contiguous TIFs (18:00) To prevent the recurring failure of four-to-eight-year mayoral promises, the city collaborated with BUILD (Baltimoreans United in Leadership with Dignity), private developers, and civic organizations to craft a binding 15-year plan. The initiative gained major momentum from Maryland Governor Wes Moore's administration, which committed $50 million annually in state funding to support Baltimore's vacant housing efforts alongside municipal allocations. To fund site acquisition and preparation, Baltimore pioneered a non-contiguous Tax Increment Financing (TIF) model. While TIFs historically funded contiguous, affluent commercial developments like Harbor East, Baltimore applied the mechanism across scattered parcels holding Vacant Building Notices within seven Strategic Investment Zones. When the administration rolled out an initial $28 million non-contiguous TIF offering, it drew $380 million in developer applications, concentrating public capital into historically redlined neighborhoods monitored through an interactive municipal heat map. Block Enforcement and Anti-Displacement Policy (15:00) Unlike Detroit, which established an independent land bank, Baltimore manages redevelopment through its existing Department of Housing and Community Development. Code enforcement follows a mandatory workflow: inspectors issue citations providing a 30-day remedy period, levy fines up to $1,000, issue Vacant Building Notices, and pursue expedited receivership via a specialized in-rem court docket. Scott cites the 4800 block of Park Heights Avenue to illustrate the extended timeline of urban renewal: initial neighborhood planning began in the 2000s, full demolition concluded around 2011–2012, and new housing construction commenced only after 2020. To protect existing residents from rising real estate values, the city launched the "Buy Back the Block" initiative, which connects renters whose monthly payments exceed mortgage rates with community-minded builders to facilitate homeownership. New developments are also designed to retain neighborhood character, such as constructing senior living facilities that mimic classic row-home facades. Internally, the city modernized operations by transitioning from paper timecards to automated permitting software and integrating AI tools to assist fire and housing inspectors in evaluating structural integrity. Public Safety as an Economic Foundation (30:00) Scott and the podcast hosts emphasize that urban repopulation and commercial investment depend on baseline public safety. Moving away from historic zero-tolerance policing tactics—which once produced 91,000 arrests in a single year across 600,000 residents—Baltimore implemented the Group Violence Reduction Strategy (GVRS). This focused deterrence model directly offers individuals at highest risk of gun violence housing, education, and job training, paired with targeted legal consequences for continued violence. City data indicates that more than 90% of program participants have avoided reoffending or revictimization. Combined with a $50 million investment in community violence intervention programs like Safe Streets, annual homicides fell from consistently exceeding 300 down to 133, while total arrests dropped to 17,000. Scott reports that commercial real estate developers previously treated the city's homicide rate as an absolute barrier to capital entry. Lower crime rates have revived institutional interest, allowing the city to market advantages like its Eds and Meds tech commercialization hubs, lower regional living costs, and a 30-minute rail transit connection to Washington, D.C. While Baltimore has reduced vacant housing inventory by over 4,000 units and driven homicides down to historic modern lows, Scott acknowledges that stabilizing entire neighborhoods remains a block-by-block effort. The city's 15-year framework depends on maintaining long-term state capital commitments, retaining violent crime reductions across future administrations, and preventing tenant displacement as neighborhood real estate markets recover.

巴尔的摩市长布兰登·斯科特（Brandon Scott）指出，该市长达数十年的空置房屋危机并非单一任期能解决的孤立问题，而是历史性种族隔离红线政策与去工业化衰退叠加的结构性格局。巴尔的摩正通过联合社会力量制定15年跨周期战略、开创非连续性税收增量融资（TIF）、将公共安全拐点作为吸引资本的前置条件，并在微观街区改造中推行防流失政策以重塑城市经济基础。 历史根源与一美元购房迷思 根据斯科特的陈述，巴尔的摩空置房分布格局高度重合于1937年的种族歧视性红线地图，形成了被称为非裔聚居且投资匮乏的“黑蝴蝶”（Black Butterfly）与白人财富集中的“白L”（White L）区域。二战后的白人外迁、伯利恒钢铁（Bethlehem Steel）与通用汽车（GM）等支柱制造业外流，致使城市人口从近百万人峰值腰斩至约60万人，加之投机客低价囤地及老人去世后缺乏合法继承维护，导致空置现象在街区之间急剧恶化。在2000年斯科特就读高中时，巴尔的摩约有1.6万套空置房；而到其2020年就任市长时，该基数仍停滞在1.6万套。 斯科特在访谈中澄清了外界关于“1美元购房”能解决问题的流行误区。他指出，绝大多数空置房屋归私人而非市政府所有；即使购房者以1美元的名义价格购得产权，若无力承担10万至15万美元使房屋达到适居标准的刚性修缮成本，房产仍将继续处于废弃状态。 十五年跨周期规划与非连续TIF创新 为打破历届市长在4至8年任期内无法兑现的短期承诺，斯科特政府联合由社区领袖、宗教团体与居民组成的BUILD联盟及商界，确立了一项旨在跨越市长任期的15年综合治理方案。马里兰州州长韦斯·摩尔（Wes Moore）就任后承诺每年为巴尔的摩空置房项目注入5000万美元州级资金（在综合资本结构中亦协同每年1500万美元投入），推动该市空置房数量从1.6万套净减至11,806套。该市还获得了马里兰州议会授权，得以对空置建筑与土地征收惩罚性更高税率。 在资金机制上，巴尔的摩打破传统将税收增量融资（TIF）局限于连续繁华商业区（如Harbor East）的惯例，开创性地在全市范围内针对持有空置建筑通告（VBN）的离散、非连续地块部署TIF融资。尽管推行之初面临可行性质疑，但该市首期试点推出2800万美元TIF融资后，迅速吸引了开发商高达3.8亿美元的申请规模，资金明确流向长期缺乏投资的“黑蝴蝶”街区。 街区级更新与防范士绅化置换 (15:00) 街区重塑面临极长的行政与法律周期。斯科特以帕克海茨（Park Heights）4800号街区为例说明：该社区总体规划在其初中时代即开始讨论，土地征用直至2008至2009年其担任市议员助手时才告完成，拆迁发生于2011至2012年，而首期新建住房直至其2020年就任市长后才正式开工。巴尔的摩依靠现有住房部门执行严密执法流程，包括反复巡检、实施最高1000美元罚款、发放空置通告，并通过对物诉讼（in-rem）法庭加快接管程序。在规划设计上，项目严格延续巴尔的摩标志性的联排排屋（row home）建筑肌理，以维持街区原有视觉平衡。 针对历史社区在复兴过程中可能面临的士绅化与原住民流失风险，斯科特以华盛顿特区从“巧克力城”沦为“拿铁城”为鉴，强调新政的核心在于培育本地财富。市政府推出“买回街区”（Buy Back the Block）计划，专门针对月租金已超出房贷月供的长期租户，协助其向房屋所有者转变，并对接重视社区利益的小型开发商，使经历过城市萧条期的本地长期居民留在原生地分享增值红利。 治安拐点作为资本引入的前提 (30:00) 彭博社主持人在对谈与会后总结中强调，公共安全构成了资本进驻与城市更新的基础前提。斯科特指出，在拉斯维加斯ICSC商业零售峰会等场合，开发商以往明确将年凶杀案降至300起以下等硬性指标列为投资前置条件。过去42年中巴尔的摩有18年凶杀案超过300起；而在摒弃了曾经年抓捕高达9.1万人次的“零容忍”过度执法模式后，该市去年抓捕量降至1.7万人次，凶杀案大幅压降至133起，降幅近60%。 这一治安转折依托于彭博慈善基金部分资助的“群体暴力削减策略”（GVRS）等数据驱动干预机制。该策略锁定最高危暴力涉案个体，在严正警告执法后果的同时，提供住房、职业培训或异地安置，参与者的未再犯罪或免于再度受害率超过90%；同时，市府向社区暴力干预生态注资5000万美元。对谈主持人借用彼得·莫斯科斯（Peter Moskos）的研究指出，历史上的高逮捕量印证了古德哈特定律的扭曲效应，而如今精准执法正将治安红线转变为经济重启的护栏。 行政数字化与后工业经济转型 (45:00) 在基础设施与内部效能层面，斯科特政府着力消除行政官僚壁垒，彻底摒弃手工纸质工时卡与孤立的数据系统，实现许可审批自动化；消防局与住房部门亦务实引入人工智能技术评估空置建筑结构完整度。在区域联动方面，巴尔的摩正强化其沿海走廊区位优势——乘火车29至30分钟即达华盛顿特区，45分钟可达费城，并背靠米德堡与国家安全局（NSA）等联邦防务机构。 面对无法重现的钢铁工业繁荣，巴尔的摩将“教育与医疗”（Eds and Meds）确立为核心驱动力，依托约翰斯·霍普金斯大学与马里兰大学，衍生科技初创企业近年来已吸纳约6亿美元风险投资。结合内港改造、港口物流及与周边县份协同推进的供水治理体制改革，该市试图在保留历史工业港口底色的基础上，转向技术与创新主导的都市增长模式。 巴尔的摩的治理实践表明，解决城市空置顽疾不仅需要创新的金融工具与规划耐力，更依赖于将暴力犯罪压降作为要素流入的先决条件。然而，面对数十年去工业化留下的深层疤痕与极其漫长的街区再开发周期，非连续TIF模式能否经受住更大范围的市场检验、原住民购房计划能否真正抵御潜在的资本挤出效应，仍有待该市在后续政治周期与经济波动中持续验证。

## Background 本期节目由彭博社（Bloomberg）旗下财经播客《Odd Lots》于 2026 年 5 月 4 日在播客及网络平台发布，由主持人 Tracy Alloway 与 Joe Weisenthal 主持。节目依托在西班牙马德里举行的彭博 CityLab 峰会现场，专访了巴尔的摩市长布兰登·斯科特（Brandon Scott），深度探讨其自 2020 年执政以来如何系统性治理市内数以万计的空置房屋危机，并剖析去工业化、种族红线政策与枪支暴力的历史遗留影响。 ## TL;DR 巴尔的摩市长斯科特系统阐述了将全市空置危房从 16,000 套削减至 11,800 余套的综合治理路径，直言所谓“1美元卖房”因修缮资金门槛与私人产权壁垒在现实中根本行不通。市政府打破传统地理连续性限制，创新性推行锚定分散空置建筑的税收增量融资（TIF），并联合州政府专项资金与社区力量推行 15 年跨任期战略，精准灌溉历史上饱受红线政策剥夺的“黑蝴蝶”街区。斯科特着重指出，摒弃盲目滥捕、改用群组暴力缩减策略（GVRS）实现治安与凶杀案断崖式好转，是吸引外部资本回流的关键前提，同时必须配合“买回街区”等产权扶持机制，严防城市复兴滑向驱逐原住民的士绅化陷阱。 ## Atmosphere & style 对谈在马德里峰会的轻松跨国氛围中拉开帷幕，彭博主播敏锐风趣的金融追问与斯科特市长兼具草根温度与技术理性的叙事形成了极佳的张力。从儿时为邻里荒屋除草、七次因肤色遭警察路边搜查铐押的切肤之痛，到直斥流行文化中《火线》单一叙事带来的刻板诅咒，市长的讲述直率真诚且毫无官腔。节目在硬核的公共财政与治安模型剖析中穿插着对城市文化的执着守护，既有清醒克制的务实危机感，又洋溢着后工业城市奋力打破历史泥淖的韧性与生机。 ## Bulletin - `07:30` 巴尔的摩空置房屋治理取得阶段性成效，存量从布兰登·斯科特（Brandon Scott）市长上任时的16,000套压降至11,806套，累计清理了全副存量的四分之一。 - `20:00` 巴尔的摩首创打破连续区域限制的非连续性增税融资（TIF）模式，首轮试点推出2800万美元额度即迎来3.8亿美元超额认购，资本精准流向被称为“黑蝴蝶”的历史抽资社区。 - `30:00` 治安成为巴尔的摩经济复兴的核心前置条件：通过群组暴力缩减策略（GVRS）与精准打击，全市暴力犯罪六年内下降近60%，凶杀案大幅压降至133起，接受转化的核心高危人员未再犯率超90%。 - `07:30` 巴尔的摩摒弃了以往单任期政客的短视方案，联合基层联盟 BUILD、商界、慈善基金及马里兰州政府确立了15年长效战略，获州政府每年专项注资5000万美元。 ## Key takeaways - `00:00` 全美住房危机呈现不同形态，巴尔的摩的核心困境并非物理房源绝对短缺，而是由于历史去工业化与种族抽资留下的逾万套废弃空置房屋（Vacant Housing）。 - `05:00` 空置房屋在地理上与1937年的种族红线（Redlining）地图高度重合，形成了富裕的“白L”（White L）与长期遭受抽资的非裔“黑蝴蝶”（Black Butterfly）这一严重的城市空间断层。 - `07:30` 过去数十年空置危机难以解决的核心在于缺乏超越单届市长任期的长期机制以及持续资本投入；斯科特政府联合社会组织 BUILD 制定了15年联合战略，并获马里兰州每年5000万美元专项支持。 - `10:00` 所谓“1美元购房”在现实中行不通：绝大多数空置房归私人投机客而非政府所有，且将危房翻修至宜居标准通常需10万至15万美元的启动资金门槛。 - `10:00` 去工业化切断了蓝领家庭跃升通道，伯利恒钢铁与通用汽车等工业支柱撤离叠加白人群飞，使巴尔的摩常住人口从近百万缩减至约60万人，加剧了房屋弃置。 - `13:10` 产权收缴需克服繁琐的司法闭环，巴尔的摩设立了7个战略投资区并推行“对物诉讼”（In Rem）专属法庭通道，大幅压缩原先长达两至三年的产权流转周期。 - `16:42` 神剧《火线》（The Wire）对巴尔的摩而言被视为一种文化“诅咒”，外界将其描绘的黑暗犯罪图景等同于全貌，掩盖了城市复杂的现实面貌。 - `20:00` 巴尔的摩在全美首创将税收增量融资（TIF）应用于碎片化、非连续的居民区空置房屋，试点收到的3.8亿美元申请证明了被红线隔离街区对改造资本的巨大渴求。 - `24:30` 微观街区规划兼顾了历史风貌与阶层融合，新建多户型建筑保留砖砌联排屋外观，并通过混合收入社区打破传统隔离型公屋的贫困固化。 - `26:15` 巴尔的摩作为独立市需向马里兰州议会争取专项立法授权以开征惩罚性空置房屋税，市府凭借空房减少25%和暴力犯罪创历史新低的硬数据赢得了州级赋权。 - `27:40` 治安全面逆转成为外来资本进驻的“头号催化剂”，巴尔的摩彻底告别年均300起以上凶杀案的历史高位，压降至133起，扭转了盲目滥捕的畸形警务路线。 - `30:00` 推行精准威慑模型（GVRS）与5000万美元社区干预生态，向极少数高危人员提供就业住房帮扶与亲笔警告，实现了接受转化人员90%以上未再犯罪。 - `38:12` 空置房改造构建了由市级TIF先导发债、州级财政专项直投、私人资本与慈善捐赠共同组成的多层次资本结构，日常运营和部分核心开支由市府自有账目承担。 - `39:28` 吸取华盛顿特区过度高端化沦为“拿铁之城”的教训，巴尔的摩推行“买回属于你的街区”等计划，协助本地租户转变为产权业主，防止社区根脉因士绅化被连根拔起。 - `40:00` 水费争议源于自负盈亏的水利公用事业在通胀下的客观成本压力及跨县区复杂计费，并非阻碍开发商翻修空置房屋的根本原因，目前正推动州级统筹立法重组。 - `43:08` 后工业时代的经济底色正依托港口物流、以约翰斯·霍普金斯大学为核心的医疗与教育生态，以及吸引了约6亿美元风险资本的高科技和轻工业制造来构建长远韧性。 - `45:00` 市政管理全面推进数字化改造，告别纸质工时表与脱节系统，市长将每日暴力犯罪数据与空房净变化作为核心KPI，并务实引入AI识别危房结构安全性。 ## Detailed walkthrough ### `00:00` 马德里 CityLab 与全美各异的住房危机 在西班牙马德里举行的彭博 CityLab（Bloomberg CityLab）峰会现场，播客主持人 Tracy Allaway 与 Joe Weisenthal 幽默地感叹这次出差是一次“极其艰苦的外派任务”。峰会汇聚了来自世界各地的市长，共同探讨当代城市面临的重大挑战与机遇。 住房问题是播客长期关注的核心议题。两位主持人指出，尽管全美各地都在高呼“住房危机”，但各地的危机形态截然不同——即使在北卡罗来纳州芒特艾里（Mount Airy）这样地广人稀的乡村地区，也存在着严重的住房短缺。然而在巴尔的摩，危机的核心表现却是规模庞大的“空置房屋”（vacant housing）。Tracy 提到父亲虽在巴尔的摩/华盛顿瑟古德·马歇尔国际机场（BWI）飞了多年，但自己对巴尔的摩的有限印象主要来自灰狗巴士终点站周围触目惊心的空置房屋；出生于底特律的 Joe 也深有共鸣，联想到底特律过去象征性的“1美元卖房”噱头，并指出空置屋问题表面上提供了名义上的廉价房源，实际上却蕴含着极高门槛的技术难题：如何吸引居民入住、如何让房产恢复价值、以及如何筹资修缮。为了深入拆解这一系统性难题，节目邀请到了巴尔的摩市长布兰登·斯科特（Brandon Scott）。 ```mermaid flowchart TD accTitle: 各地住房危机的差异对比 accDescr: 对比展示乡村短缺型与巴尔的摩空置过剩型的不同特征 subgraph RURAL["乡村/常规区域（如北卡罗来纳州）"] R1["物理房源严重不足"] R2["新房开发供应跟不上需求"] end subgraph BALTIMORE["后工业城市（以巴尔的摩为典型）"] B1["大量名义上的低价/1美元房产"] B2["存量空房年久失修破败不堪"] B3["法律产权、资金缺口与再开发瓶颈"] end RURAL -->|反差| BALTIMORE ``` ### `05:00` 空置危机的历史根源与“黑蝴蝶”断层 当被问及空置房屋问题何时进入其执政视野时，市长布兰登·斯科特直言，这一问题“从我1984年出生的第一天起就在我的雷达上了”。他在巴尔的摩西区的帕克海茨（Park Heights）街区长大，亲身经历了80至90年代毒品泛滥、失败的“毒品战争”以及零容忍警务政策对社区造成的撕裂。他回忆起童年时，父亲总是逼着他和兄弟们去给同街区一栋废弃空屋修剪杂草，父亲告诫他们：“等市政府排期来给业主除草，杂草早都长到一英尺高了。” 更深层的历史病灶在于种族隔离制度。斯科特指出，全美首个“种族红线法规”（racial redlining law）正是在他如今办公的市长桌案上签署的。将1937年的巴尔的摩红线地图与2020年乃至今天的空房分布地图进行重叠，两者的地理边界完全一致，深刻印证了学术界与民间所称的“黑蝴蝶与白L”（The Black Butterfly and the White L）城市空间格局——一条富裕且持续获得投资的白人居住带呈现“L”形，而分布在东西两侧的非裔聚集区则形如展开的“黑蝴蝶”双翼。空置屋绝非偶然产生，而是几十年来针对特定有色人种社区蓄意抽资（purposeful disinvestment）以及去工业化的恶果。 ```mermaid flowchart LR accTitle: 巴尔的摩空间隔离与空置房屋形成机制 accDescr: 展现从1937年种族红线政策到去工业化抽资再到当代黑蝴蝶区域空房集聚的演变逻辑 A["1937年种族红线地图<br/>(Redlining)"] --> B["数十年定向抽资与去工业化<br/>(Disinvestment)"] B --> C["地理隔离结构确立<br/>('白L' 与 '黑蝴蝶')"] C --> D["空房高密度扎堆<br/>(黑蝴蝶东西翼社区)"] ``` - 历史停滞的数据对照：斯科特读高二的2000年12月，巴尔的摩有约16,000套空置房屋（虽比更早前的3万至4万套有所下降）；而当他在2020年12月8日宣誓就职市长时，全市空置房数量依然维持在约16,000套，整整二十年毫无实质改善。 - 空间断层特征：“白L”（White L）自北向南纵穿巴尔的摩市中心并延伸至沿海港区，享受充沛资源；“黑蝴蝶”（Black Butterfly）由东、西两侧非裔社区组成，承担了绝大部分破败与荒废。 ### `07:30` 跳出单任期思维：15年联合战略与打破僵局 谈及前任官员的施政局限，斯科特并未指责前任无能，而是指出了传统政客的通病：政客们总喜欢许诺在自己的单届任期内解决历史顽疾，但“绝无可能在四年甚至八年内彻底消除巴尔的摩的空置房屋”，更何况许多前任甚至连四年都没能做满。他强调，巴尔的摩并不缺乏解决空置问题的专业方案、拆除改造的技术力量，或是将其改造成绿地与新住房的执行能力，以往失败的致命弱点在于：**严重匮乏持续性的资本投入**，以及**缺乏超越单届市长任期的长期统一战略**。 斯科特打破惯例，联合代表全市众多教堂、清真寺及基层街坊领袖的社区联盟组织 BUILD（Baltimoreans United In Leadership Development），以及商业界和慈善组织，共同制定了一个为期15年的全面终结危机战略，确保利益相关方实现深度的共同绑定（buy-in）。随后，新当选的马里兰州州长也加入该联盟，州政府每年向巴尔的摩专项拨款5000万美元。在资本注入与联合战略推进下，巴尔的摩的空房总数从斯科特上任时的16,000套，骤降至受访当天的11,806套。 - 跨任期规划：确立15年长效行动纲领，将责任和机制固化在社区与政府协作中，不再随市长换届而废止。 - 关键资本增量：马里兰州政府每年直接注资5,000万美元支持空房治理与旧区活化。 - 实时透明追踪：市政府设立了名为“Reframe Baltimore”的公开数字化仪表盘，市长与公众每日均可实时监控空置房屋注销、新增与翻修的动态净变化。 ### `10:00` “一美元购房”的误区与巴尔的摩空置房的历史根源 外界常常流传一种简单粗暴的解决思路：“把所有空置房以一美元的价格卖掉，问题不就迎刃而解了吗？”布兰登·斯科特（Brandon Scott）市长对此明确反驳：“根本行不通。”原因主要有两点：首先，巴尔的摩绝大多数空置房屋压根不在市政府名下，而是掌握在那些按兵不动的私人业主手中，政府必须耗费大量精力去追查他们；其次，历史上前任市长确实推行过“一美元购房”政策，但如果买家拿不出将房屋修缮至合规居住标准所需的 10 万到 15 万美元，这些房子最终依然难逃继续空置破败的命运。 谈及这些空房最初究竟因何产生，斯科特指出巴尔的摩是一座由无数社区拼贴而成的城市，甚至可以说“街区本身就像独立的国度”，没有哪两个街区的状况是完全相同的，这也是必须采取“逐街施策”（block by block）的原因。从宏观历史来看，郊区化与“白人群飞”（white flight）是最早的导火索，紧接着是残酷的去工业化进程。曾经支撑巴尔的摩经济命脉的伯利恒钢铁（Bethlehem Steel）与通用汽车（General Motors）相继裁撤关厂。 斯科特在此动情地分享了自己的家族渊源：他的外祖父母当年全家只剩最后的 100 美元，原本正打算放弃并搬回弗吉尼亚农村，恰巧外祖父在通用汽车谋得了一份工作，这才买下了养育他母亲长大的那栋房子；而他的父亲则追随在伯利恒钢铁上班的兄长和堂哥来到巴尔的摩过暑假，进而与母亲相遇。然而，随着这些工业巨头的撤离，大量工人离去。房屋产权人在岁月流逝中离世，留下的房产要么后代不愿接管，要么被投机客低价收购并坐地起价，等着城市回暖或政府高价征收；再叠加上历史上的种族隔离“红线政策”（redlining）以及突然席卷街头的枪支暴力与毒品泛滥，这座曾经拥有近百万人口的城市最终骤降至约 60 万人，最终演变成一场住房危机灾难。 - **人口流失规模**：巴尔的摩从鼎盛时期的近 100 万人口大幅收缩至如今的约 60 万人。 - **修缮资金门槛**：将一栋废弃危房翻修至宜居标准，通常需要 10 万至 15 万美元的启动资金。 - **历史工业支柱**：伯利恒钢铁公司（Bethlehem Steel）与通用汽车（General Motors）的撤离切断了蓝领家庭的阶层跃升通道。 --- ### `13:10` 逐街施策、战略投资区与追缴空置房的漫长法律战 为了避免注入的公共资金沦为私人投机商“推高资产价格套现的免费午餐”，巴尔的摩市设立了 7 个集中了绝大多数空置房的“战略投资区”（Strategic Investment Zones），推行极其细致的街区级规划。与依赖单一大型开发商不同，市政府选择与中小型开发商及本地社区发展组织（CDCs）紧密绑定。当有人建议巴尔的摩效仿底特律成立“土地银行”（Land Bank）时，斯科特率队考察底特律后发现，巴尔的摩市住房局自身现有的法定权力甚至已经涵盖了底特律土地银行的职权范围，关键在于如何跑通繁琐的行政与司法执法闭环。 ```mermaid flowchart TD accTitle: 空置房屋执法与产权收缴流程 accDescr: 展示巴尔的摩市政府从接到投诉到最终通过法院专属审判程序收回空置房屋产权的全过程。 subgraph Phase1["第一阶段：行政检查与限期整改"] A["市民投诉/巡查发现空置破损房屋"] --> B["住房局检查员上门并开具整改传票"] B --> C{"30天法定纠错期"} C -- "期内政府无权干预" --> D["期满未改：追加杂草清理与扣押留置"] end subgraph Phase2["第二阶段：行政处罚与司法流转"] D --> E["罚款升级至最高 1,000 美元"] E --> F["正式签发《空置建筑通知》 (VBN)"] F --> G["启动对物诉讼 (In Rem) 或破产接管程序"] end subgraph Phase3["第三阶段：提速收缴"] G --> H["进入法院专属 In Rem 审理专庭"] H --> I["产权收缴完成 (由原先2-3年大幅压缩)"] end ``` 收缴一处弃置房产的法律流程极其漫长：检查员开具传票后，法律强制规定给予业主 30 天的整改期，期间政府无权采取任何实质动作；期满未纠正后，政府才能上门除草、清理废弃物，将违规罚款提高到最高 1,000 美元，并签发《空置建筑通知》（Vacant Building Notice）；若要通过破产接管或“对物诉讼”（In Rem）强行收回产权，过去往往需要在普通法院排期耗费两到三年。如今，市政府通过与法院建立专属的 In Rem 审理通道（In Rem docket），成千上万次重复推进这一流程，才使流转周期得以显著压缩。 为了说明整合大型街区地块的艰巨性，斯科特列举了自己成长的小区——帕克海茨大道 4800 号街区（4800 block of Park Heights Avenue）的主规划方案。这个全美规模最大的再开发项目之一，早在斯科特上初中时就开始立项讨论；等到他成为市政府工作人员并兼任当地 CDC 董事（2008至2009年）时，政府才完成全部房屋的产权收购；直到2011或2012年左右，危房拆除工作才告完成；而第一批新建住宅最终落成并交付，竟然已经是他当选市长之后。这种动辄跨越数十年的漫长开发周期，印证了零散地块整合背后惊人的时间与资金成本。 --- ### `16:42` 《火线》的文化诅咒与拆除、翻新及新型 TIF 融资策略 即便步履维艰，街区活化的成果已在局部显现。东巴尔的摩的约翰逊广场（Johnson Square）以及曾以衰败闻名的奥利弗街区（Oliver），如今部分改造后的房屋售价已能达到 30 万美元左右。有趣的是，奥利弗街区正是神剧《火线》（The Wire）当年的主要取景地。当主持人打趣地提到这部剧时，斯科特坦率吐露了巴尔的摩本地人对该剧的复杂情感：“对我们来说这主要是一场诅咒，我们一点也不喜欢这部剧。” 斯科特解释道，巴尔的摩人固然认可《火线》杰出的编剧技巧和叙事艺术，但问题在于外界往往将剧中描绘的绝望图景等同于整个城市的全貌。相比之下，纽约人哪怕有展现阴暗面的《纽约重案组》（NYPD Blue），同时也拥有《宋飞正传》（Seinfeld）或《老友记》（Friends）这样多元温暖的城市叙事；而巴尔的摩在流行文化中却长期被《火线》、《街角》（The Corner）和《情理法的春天》（Homicide: Life on the Street）所垄断，“外界看到的永远只有最坏的一面”。 对于收回的空置资产，市政府坚持在招商前就拍板决定其命运，而非交由私人开发商自行选择： - **拆除还是翻修由政府前置裁定**：判定彻底无救的危房，由市政府与马里兰州政府联合出资予以拆除，腾退出的空地可转为街区绿地公园，或作为净地挂牌招标； - **匹配差异化开发主体**：若整条街仅有少量空置房（例如 10 栋中有 3 栋空置）或属于零散点状分布，则通过征集建议书（RFP）专项定向交给中小型开发商或社区发展组织进行针对性翻新； - **突破性运用税收增量融资（TIF）**：巴尔的摩打破了以往仅在东港（Harbor East）或海港角（Harbor Point）等滨水黄金地带使用 TIF 工具的惯例，在全美首开先河，将这种“前期政府发债补足缺口、后期靠新增税收偿还”的机制，创新性地运用于非连续（non-contiguous）、碎片化的居民区空置房屋改造之中。 ### `20:00` 突破传统的非连续性 TIF：精准流向红线街区的投资热力图 巴尔的摩市政府正在彻底颠覆传统的“增税融资”（Tax Increment Financing, 简称 TIF）模式。布兰登·斯科特（Brandon Scott）市长解释道，市政团队打破了以往 TIF 必须划定在一个整块连续地理区域（contiguous area）的教条，转而将全市范围内的“空置建筑通告”（Vacant Building Notice, 简称 VVN）作为锚点，直接针对分散的空置房屋提供精准的 TIF 融资支持。这种创新起初遭到了大量专业人士的强烈质疑，外界纷纷唱衰称“这绝对行不通”、“根本不会有人申请，TIF 的运作逻辑不长这样”。然而市场需求狠狠打了怀疑者的脸：巴尔的摩在第一轮试点中推出了 2800 万美元的 TIF 融资额度，最终收到的申请总额居然高达 3.8 亿美元。 这笔资金绝大部分流向了历史上遭受不公对待的社区。斯科特在市情咨文中公布了一幅详尽的投资数据热力图，巴尔的摩的投资密度在图上以紫色呈现——颜色越深，代表资本注入越多。热力图直观地证明，资金并没有像过去那样滞留在富裕的市中心或滨水区，而是精确涌入了遭受过“红线政策”（Redlining）歧视、被称为“黑色蝴蝶”（Black Butterfly）的长期投资匮乏街区。当被主持人问及为何过去大家执念于 TIF 只能用于连续区域时，斯科特直言不讳地指出，这不仅是因为过去没人敢尝试，背后更潜藏着一种隐性的种族偏见：“有人暗指‘那种街区’根本不配享有 TIF 工具。但事实证明他们完全错了，实打实的数据说明了一切。” ```mermaid flowchart TD accTitle: 分散式空置建筑 TIF 融资机制 accDescr: 展示巴尔的摩如何打破传统地理限制，将 TIF 资金精准投入历史被剥离投资的红线街区。 subgraph Identification["识别与定位"] A["全市空置建筑通告<br/>(VVN 数据系统)"] --> B["锁定红线街区与<br/>黑人蝴蝶投资匮乏区"] end subgraph Allocation["创新 TIF 工具分配"] B --> C["打破连续区域限制<br/>投放 2800 万美元 TIF"] C --> D["引爆市场巨大需求<br/>收到 3.8 亿美元申请"] end subgraph Impact["城市更新成果"] D --> E["定向注入可负担住房"] E --> F["投资热力图显现深紫色<br/>扭转历史性资源倾斜"] end ``` - **首期 TIF 申请倍数**：首轮释放 2800 万美元额度，迎来 3.8 亿美元申请，超额认购超 13 倍。 - **数据透明化**：市情咨文发布紫色投资热力图，以数据可视化直观追踪资本流向。 ### `24:30` 街区级规划与住房形态：保留联排屋风貌与混合收入社区 在被问及如何规划清理出来的空置地块与具体住房类型（如独栋公寓、出租屋还是产权房）时，斯科特强调了“街区级微观规划”（block-level planning）的核心理念。巴尔的摩人对自己社区独特的历史建筑美学拥有极深的情感依恋，尤其是城市标志性的砖砌联排屋（row homes）。因此，即便是在推倒整排废弃危房的公园高地（Park Heights）街区新建高密度老年公寓，市政府也特意要求开发商在建筑外立面上还原历史联排屋的外观风貌。这种设计既满足了老年居民“原地养老”的硬性功能需求，又最大程度地守护了社区居民的认同感与归属感。 规划的演进并未止步于保障性租赁住房。斯科特透露，公园高地紧接着即将动工的下一期工程，将是自他的祖父母那一代人搬进该街区半个多世纪以来，当地首次迎来的新建房屋产权销售机会（homeownership opportunities）。从全局来看，城市建设拒绝单一化走向，无论是全盘高端化还是全盘贫民窟化都被明令禁止。以帕金斯-萨默塞特-老城区（Perkins Somerset Oldtown）改造为例，新模式彻底打破了过去单一隔离型公屋的死水，转向支持工薪阶层、中产与低收入家庭共处的多层次“混合收入社区”（mixed-income communities）。 - **风貌连续性**：多户老年住宅外立面完全模拟巴尔的摩传统联排屋，实现“原地变老”与“风貌保留”兼顾。 - **世代突破**：在公园高地实现数十年来首次新建产权房供给，重启社区财富积累通道。 - **阶层融合**：在旧改项目中坚决推行混合收入模式，确保各收入阶层共享开发红利。 ### `26:15` 空置房屋税与州权博弈：用硬核数据打破对城市的偏见 谈到近期备受关注的空置房屋税（Land/Vacant Property Tax），斯科特澄清道，该政策在巴尔的摩本土其实完全没有遭到民意反弹。真正的阻力来自于州级权力的繁文缛节。巴尔的摩是一个特殊的“独立市”（independent city），行政架构上不隶属于任何县政府——斯科特半开玩笑地说了句“阿门，哈利路亚，省了一层官僚机构”——但在税制调整上，城市必须向上伸手获取马里兰州议会的特别立法授权，才能向空置房屋开征惩罚性的高额税率。 过去州政府往往带着一种傲慢的审视，认为“巴尔的摩市政府管理混乱、不知所谓”。但这一次，斯科特用无可辩驳的治理成绩单扭转了局面：在其任内，巴尔的摩消除了整整四分之一的空置房屋，城市暴力犯罪更降至有记录以来的历史最低点。面对这些硬数据，州立法者终于通过法案交出了征税授权。斯科特团队向州政府算了一笔明白账：空置危房对房产持有者的放任，不仅在吸干巴尔的摩的血，更是直接造成了整个马里兰州税收与资产价值的巨大流失，“不作为的代价同样是从州政府的口袋里掏钱”。 - **行政体制**：巴尔的摩作为独立市，直接受州法律约束，需州议会立法赋权方可针对空置房征收惩罚性高税率。 - **去库存战绩**：本届政府任期内已累计清除全副空置房屋存量的四分之一（25%）。 ### `27:40` 治安逆转是复兴引擎：从“黑人呼吸即有罪”到凶杀案断崖式下降 治安好转被斯科特视为当前巴尔的摩投资吸引力大涨的“头号催化剂”（number one reason）。他感慨道，如果把时间倒拨回 2021 年的 CityLab 峰会，外界见到他时唯一追问的问题是“巴尔的摩打算怎么遏制惨烈的枪支暴力？”；而到了今天，所有人都在好奇探究“你们究竟是怎么把犯罪率降下来的？”。斯科特直言，治安转折不仅在于数字的下跌，更在于城市摒弃了旧有的过度激进执法路径。 谈及过往的警务模式，斯科特讲述了自己极具冲击力的亲身经历：在巴尔的摩长大意味着随时面临“只要是黑人，连呼吸都是原罪”（breathing while Black）的歧视性警察骚扰。他这辈子曾七次被警察无端扣在路边、甚至在雨中戴上手铐，仅仅是因为他的肤色，并被指控犯下了案发时他还在两小时车程之外大学里上课的莫须有罪名。在斯科特 42 年的人生里，有整整 18 年巴尔的摩的年均谋杀案都超过 300 起。过去所谓强硬的“零容忍”政策不仅毫无实效（例如在严打高压的 2004 年，凶杀案依然高达 278 起），反而撕裂了社区。而在过去的六年中，巴尔的摩的整体暴力犯罪断崖式下降了近 60%，凶杀案从常年 300 多起骤降至当下的 133 起。尽管斯科特强调“133 起对我来说依然太多了”，但以明智、精准的社会化治理取代野蛮执法，已经为巴尔的摩的全面复苏扫清了最大的绊脚石。 - **个人遭遇**：市长一生中曾 7 次遭遇无辜路边拘留搜查与铐押，成为畸形警务的亲身见证者。 - **历史凶杀数据**：斯科特 42 年生命历程中有 18 年年均凶杀案超 300 起；2004 年“零容忍”严打期仍有 278 起凶杀案。 - **治安断崖改善**：过去六年全市暴力犯罪下降近 60%，凶杀案压降至 133 起的历史低位。 ### `30:00` 精准威慑与智能治安：打破“盲目滥捕”的旧思维 在谈到公共安全与司法的根本转变时，市长布兰登·斯科特（Brandon Scott）对比了巴尔的摩过去的滥捕时代与如今的精准治理：在过去，一个仅有60万人口的城市，一年之内竟然逮捕了惊人的9.1万人；而去年，全市的凶杀案降至133起，逮捕人数大幅精简至1.7万人。这一悬殊对比证明，治安的关键从来不是机械地追求抓了多少人，而是“抓了谁、为了什么抓”。斯科特提到，自己在2019年担任市议会主席时推动立法，强制要求巴尔的摩市长至少每两年提交一份全面的暴力预防计划。当他在2021年履新市长并提出“年凶杀案降幅达15%”的目标时，外界几乎是一片嘲笑，认为这简直是天方夜谭，更不相信所谓“聪明打击犯罪（smart on crime）”能见成效。 为了兑现目标，巴尔的摩政府彻底摒弃了那种“不论轻重见人就抓、寄希望于犯罪率自然下降”的落后模式，全面推行了群组暴力缩减策略（Group Violence Reduction Strategy, GVRS）。这一精准威慑模型在彭博慈善基金会等社会力量的数据支持下，精准锁定了极少数最有可能成为枪击案受害者或加害者的核心高危人群。斯科特会亲自向这些人寄送通告信，亮明底牌：“我知道你是谁，我知道你在干什么。这是你改变人生的唯一一次机会。如果你需要住房、职业培训、教育，甚至搬迁到新环境，市政府会倾尽全力提供帮助；但如果你执迷不悟继续犯罪，法律的铁锤将毫不留情地砸向你，我们会彻底将你从社区剔除。”令人瞩目的是，在所有接受政府救助计划的人员中，超过90%的人既没有再次成为受害者，也没有重新走上犯罪道路。 ```mermaid flowchart TD accTitle: 巴尔的摩暴力缩减与社区干预生态体系 accDescr: 展示GVRS精准威慑模型、社区干预网络与枪支源头追查的协同运作机制 subgraph CoreTarget ["核心高危人群（精准锁定）"] A["高危群组识别与数据研判"] --> B{"直面高危人员：市长亲笔警告信"} end subgraph CarrotStick ["胡萝卜与大棒政策"] B -->|"接受转化（90%+ 未再犯）"| C["全面帮扶：住房/职业培训/教育/迁徙"] B -->|"拒绝收手"| D["铁腕执法：精准移除与司法重击"] end subgraph CommunityEco ["社区与源头生态"] E["5000万美元社区干预生态"] --> F["Safe Streets / We Are Us 调解前线冲突"] G["枪支源头追责"] --> H["起诉违规枪店、幽灵枪厂商及走私犯"] end ``` 在后端执法之外，巴尔的摩还向社区暴力干预生态注资5000万美元，招募曾经走过弯路、混迹街头的人士作为冲突调解员，通过“安全街道”（Safe Streets）和“我们就是我们”（We Are Us）等基层组织化解随时可能激化的矛盾。斯科特直言，这些处于隐秘地带的街头争端是警察根本无法触及也无法调解的。与此同时，巴尔的摩市从枪支供应链源头重拳出击，不仅赢得了针对非法枪支商店的全美历史最高赔偿和解协议，还成功惩处了幽灵枪制造厂商并严打跨区枪支走私，同时将历史性规模的资金投向青年与教育。播客主持人随即提到了约翰杰刑事司法学院（John Jay College）教授彼得·莫斯科斯（Peter Moskos，曾深入巴尔的摩警局担任巡警并撰写《街头警察》一书），指出盲目追求逮捕配额指标不仅彻底扭曲了执法激励机制，更是犯罪预防的灾难；斯科特对此深表认同，并补充道，自己上任头两年半在公共安全领域艰难破局的全过程，都已被完整记录在 PBS 纪录片《身体政治》（*The Body Politic*）之中。 - **执法模式转型对比**：从昔日60万人口年抓捕9.1万人，转变为去年1.7万人逮捕、凶杀案降至133起的精准治理。 - **GVRS转化成效**：接受帮扶转化的核心涉枪人员中，未再犯与未再次受害率超过90%。 - **源头法律诉讼战果**：针对违规枪械零售店赢得全美历史最大金额诉讼和解，重创幽灵枪（Ghost Gun）制造分销链。 --- ### `33:05` 治安拐点与资本信心：撕下“犯罪之城”的标签 长期的枪支暴力不仅撕裂社区，更直接卡死了外部商业投资的咽喉。当主持人询问安全局势的转好究竟如何转化为外来资本的回流、企业和开发商是否设定了极其具象的“治安门槛”（比如凶杀案跌破100起才进场）时，斯科特给出了务实的分析。他回忆道，在前几年（如2021至2022年）前往拉斯维加斯参加全球零售与购物中心招商大会（ICSC）时，投资者们普遍态度冷淡且直白：“市长先生，我很喜欢巴尔的摩，但除非你们把凶杀和枪击压下去，否则我们绝对不敢投钱。”有的投资者态度强硬，有的则提出具体心理底线（如至少要将年凶杀案降至300起以下）。犯罪率是悬在所有谈判桌上的“房间里的大象”，每个人都在追问：“你们有具体的行动方案吗？方案见效了吗？” 斯科特指出，事实证明只要政府拿出令人信服、逻辑严密的治安改革规划，部分远见型投资者在方案落地之初就会重新入场；而如今暴力数据的显著下降，终于让大批原本迟疑的资本彻底放下了心理防线。然而，尽管治安局势取得了历史性突破，斯科特却时刻提醒团队绝不能有丝毫松懈与自满。他回忆起最近在一次大型公开演讲中，当自己提到“凶杀案已降至133起”时，台下掌声雷动，但他当场打断了鼓掌并正色告诫全场：“请不要鼓掌，我们还远远谈不上成功。133条鲜活生命的逝去依然是133个太多了，绝不到开香槟庆祝的时候。我们只是看到了历史性的转机，而这恰恰证明我们完全可以做得更好。” - **招商引资的心理红线**：外来商业资本长期将“凶杀案降至300起以下”或“具备可执行的暴力预防方案”视作投资硬性门槛。 - **市长对治安政绩的态度**：坚决制止对“133起凶杀案”的欢呼，将其定性为“尚未完成的任务”而非庆功节点。 --- ### `38:12` 空置房改造的多元资本结构：TIF、州级投资与慈善协同 回到《Odd Lots》关注的金融核心维度，主持人将话题聚焦于巴尔的摩空置房改造战略的底层资本结构：在庞大的整治工程中，各项融资工具如何配比？这笔账究竟落在谁的资产负债表上？市政府又在前置环节垫付了哪些资本？斯科特逐层拆解了这场多方参与的资金拼图。在巴尔的摩的空置房屋清理机制中，市政府主要负责通过税收增量融资（Tax Increment Financing, TIF）来前置垫资，为基础设施改良与大片区改造提供先导信用与资金支撑。 除了地方财政的 TIF 工具外，马里兰州政府每年都会注入数以千万计的专项州级资本；与这两级政府公共投资同台并进的，还有规模可观的私人开发资本以及大量慈善捐赠基金。这些资本合流为一套协同运转的空置房消除战略基金。在运营层面，虽然州政府在特定配套职能上予以支撑，但诸如巴尔的摩市住房与社区发展局（DHCD）的日常行政成本、执法追讨以及资本预算中的许多直接投入，依然直接落在巴尔的摩市政府的自有账目和资产负债表上。 - **多层次资本拼图**： - **市级政府**：主导发行 TIF（税收增量融资）提供前置信用，承担市政住房部门的日常运营支出及部分核心资本开支。 - **马里兰州级财政**：提供年度专项百万级资金直投，与市级规划统筹衔接。 - **社会资本与慈善捐赠**：引导私人开发商资金与慈善基金会专项赠款全面入局。 --- ### `39:28` 防范士绅化与文化流失：避免巴尔的摩成为“拿铁之城” 大规模拆迁改造与高品质住房的建设，不可避免地引发了社区原住民对士绅化（Gentrification）的深深焦虑。居民们担心，大拆大建后新建的高档住宅只会成为高收入阶层的专属领地，进而把本地工薪阶层排挤出门。主持人就此追问斯科特：在追求住房供给绝对增量与确保平价保障房（Affordable Housing）之间，政策杠杆究竟如何拿捏？斯科特坦言，守住社区根脉与文化底色是他执政体系中最核心的底线之一。 为了说明这种排斥效应的代价，斯科特以近在咫尺的华盛顿特区（华盛顿哥伦比亚特区，D.C.）作为反面教材。他的兄弟长期生活在特区，但他深知如果去和那些老一辈的特区黑人原住民交谈，大家心里都满是失落与刺痛——曾经以黑人文化和人口占主导、骄傲自称“巧克力之城”（Chocolate City）的华盛顿，在经历无节制的外部资本涌入与高档化浪潮后，原住民几乎被连根拔起，昔日的城市文化被大量外来新贵冲刷殆尽，甚至被老居民自嘲地称为“拿铁之城”（Latte City）。斯科特强调，巴尔的摩必须以 D.C. 的惨痛教训为戒，在启动大规模城市更新和吸引外部资本的同时，必须通过制度设计筑牢平价住宅防线，确保巴尔的摩的历史文化、社群记忆以及几十年扎根于此的本土市民不被资本狂潮所放逐。 ### `40:00` 避免士绅化驱逐与水费争议的技术真相 巴尔的摩在清理空置房的同时，必须面对投资带来的士绅化（Gentrification）与居民被排挤的隐忧。市长布兰登·斯科特（Brandon Scott）强调，虽然巴尔的摩欢迎各地的人才迁入，但政府非常明确且坚定地确保那些长久坚守在巴尔的摩、历经艰难岁月的本地居民能切实分享城市复兴的红利。为此，巴尔的摩推出了“买回属于你的街区”（Buy Back the Block）等计划，重点扶持那些目前租金支出甚至高于房贷支出的租户，帮助他们转变为真正的房屋所有者。这也是纽约等大城市常见的困境。为了实现这一目标，市政府选择与中小型本土开发商合作，因地制宜地把项目与本地居民对接。 针对网络论坛（如 Reddit 的巴尔的摩板块）上关于“高昂水费阻碍空置房改建与买家入场”的讨论，斯科特予以了正面反驳。他直言没有任何开发商曾因水费问题而拒绝来巴尔的摩翻修房屋。水费上涨是一个全美普遍现象，但在过去一年之前，巴尔的摩的水费增幅实际上是其有生之年见过的最低水平。市民常抱怨周边县区水费更便宜且无额外杂费，斯科特解释称这是认知误区：周边县区只是将这笔费用隐藏在其他杂费账单中，而且巴尔的摩市水务局实际上同时承担着周边县区的供水重任。水费账单之所以复杂，还因为计费周期不同（市区按月计费，县区按四个月计费）。更为关键的技术事实是，水务公用事业具有独立核算属性，财产税等纳税人一般性税收依法不能补贴给水务系统，其维护成本完全来自水费收入本身；在当今设备和原材料价格飞涨的背景下，公用事业成本上升是不可避免的。目前市政府正与周边县区合作推动州级法案，旨在彻底理顺水务系统并简化居民账单结构。 ```mermaid flowchart TD accTitle: 巴尔的摩水务与空置房更新闭环 accDescr: 展示巴尔的摩水务系统的独立核算逻辑与买回街区计划的运作流程 subgraph Housing["住房保留与去空置化"] A["本地租房群体"] -->|"Buy Back the Block"| B["转为房屋产权所有人"] C["中小型开发商"] -->|"承接分散空置物业"| B end subgraph WaterUtility["水务系统运营现状"] D["水费收入"] -->|"独立核算（无税收补贴）"| E["水务管网设备与维护"] F["材料与设备通胀"] -->|"推动成本上升"| E G["跨区域供水（涵盖周边县区）"] -->|"州立法合作重构结构"| D end ``` - **“买回属于你的街区”计划（Buy Back the Block）**：重点解决租户房租支出高于抵押贷款月供的痛点，通过配对扶持将租户转变为业主。 - **水务系统财务机制**：水务系统属于自负盈亏的公共事业（Enterprise Fund），法律规定不可使用普通财产税（Property Taxes）补贴，必须依靠自身费率维持运转。 - **区域水务协作**：巴尔的摩市水务系统同时向周边五个县的居民供水，目前正与各县行政长官推动州议会立法，重组未来的水利公用体系。 --- ### `43:08` 后工业化时代的巴尔的摩经济底色与科技增长极 在马德里举办的彭博城市实验室（Bloomberg CityLab）大会上，去工业化（Deindustrialization）成为全球市长共同面对的焦虑议题。针对钢铁等传统重工业难以在巴尔的摩复苏的现实，斯科特梳理了巴尔的摩面向未来的产业支撑。他指出，巴尔的摩始终是一座港口城市，不久前弗朗西斯·斯科特·基大桥（Francis Scott Key Bridge）倒塌事故让全世界意识到巴尔的摩港对全球供应链的不可替代性。谈及基桥的重建进度，斯科特坦言残骸拆除工作推进极为迅速，面对外界质疑重建太慢的论调，他直言：“大家要明白，这是一座特大型桥梁工程，绝不可能在一夜之间凭空建起。” 在后工业转型中，巴尔的摩将自身定位为兼具“教育与医疗”（Eds and Meds）、文化艺术、旅游体育的多元都市，而高科技行业更是最强劲的增长引擎： - **高校创新引擎**：约翰斯·霍普金斯大学（Johns Hopkins University）与马里兰大学（University of Maryland）等顶尖机构孕育了大量衍生科技企业。 - **风险资本涌入**：过去几年中，已有约 6 亿美元的资本投入本地科技与创新企业。 - **多元产业支撑**：除高科技外，内港（Inner Harbor）的大规模改造工程、长盛不衰的港口物流与医疗系统，加上轻工业制造（Light Manufacturing），构成了城市长远的发展韧性。 --- ### `45:00` 地缘竞争力、政府数字化改造与关键绩效指标（KPI） 谈及在全美争抢高科技与人工智能（AI）企业中的独特优势，斯科特列举了巴尔的摩无法被复制的“物理地缘优势”： 1. **通勤时间与生活成本**：巴尔的摩距离华盛顿特区仅 29 分钟火车车程，距费城 45 分钟，距纽约仅 2.5 小时，却无需承受华盛顿特区那样昂贵的生活成本； 2. **国防安全与国家级机构**：紧邻米德堡（Fort Meade）和国家安全局（NSA），在国防军工科技领域得天独厚，周边还享有弗吉尼亚州庞大数据中心集群的算力辐射； 3. **科研密度**：全美极少有城市能在同一个地理空间内同时坐拥霍普金斯大学和马里兰大学两大科研巨头。 在探讨住房危机背后繁琐的行政审批难题时，斯科特揭露了上任初期巴尔的摩市政极其落后的运转现状：“我上任时，市政府居然还在用纯纸质手写工时表（Timesheets）。”各个部门的许可与审批系统互不联网、各自为政。政府推进了全面的数字化改造，例如解决过去“申请人递交修改材料后系统未自动提醒、导致双方无休止互相等待”的技术缺陷，同时加大专业人才配置，使多项建筑改造审批的时间大幅压缩。 当被问及衡量地方政府效率的个人核心 KPI 时，斯科特毫不犹豫地表示，自己每天清晨醒来查阅的第一项核心数据始终是**暴力犯罪数字**（如今年设定的暴力犯罪下降 15% 的硬性指标），其次便是**空置房屋的最新存量变化**。作为一名坚信数据驱动的管理者，他全面依托公开的数字化仪表盘（Dashboard）对公共安全与住房项目进行日常精细化追踪。 在谈到当前火热的人工智能（AI）在市政中的实际落地时，斯科特幽默地调侃道：“从来没有供应商向我们画大饼承诺能创造魔法，那绝不可能发生。”实际上，巴尔的摩消防局和住房部门已经开始务实地部署 AI 模型，例如辅助识别建筑结构安全性，判定空置房是适合加固维修改造还是需要进入拆除清算程序。最后，斯科特谈到了参加彭博哈佛城市领导力计划（Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership Initiative）第五期的经历，市长们建立了一个日常无话不谈的群聊网络，彼此分享数字化改革与市政治理的实践经验。 ### `50:00` 市长间的“窃取”艺术与巴尔的摩夏日游玩攻略 布兰登·斯科特（Brandon Scott）市长谈到全美各城市市长之间的紧密联络。作为非裔美国人市长协会（African American Mayors Association）的主席，他每天都通过多个群聊与其他城市的市长交流分享。他幽默地指出，要想成为一名出色的市长，首先必须成为一名“优秀的盗贼”——必须学会从全美各地的市长同行那里“窃取”优秀点子并加以改进，因为如果不向同行学习，就根本找不到更好的学习对象。 随后，主持人特蕾西·阿洛韦（Tracy Alloway）出于个人兴趣提出了最后一个问题：如果想在灰狗巴士站（Greyhound bus station）和旁边赌场之外好好探索一下巴尔的摩，应该去哪里？斯科特市长随即开启了一段量身定制的向导推荐。在确认特蕾西打算在夏季顺道探望住在安纳波利斯（Annapolis）的父亲，且喜好文化艺术、公园、园艺、动物和美食，唯独对体育不感兴趣后，市长给出了极具吸引力的巴尔的摩夏日行程： - **美食必选**：来到巴尔的摩绝不能错过螃蟹，而在整只螃蟹与蟹肉饼（Crab Cakes）之间，市长极力推荐去 Koco's Pub 尝尝“全世界最棒的蟹肉饼”，并放言“只要吃过那里的蟹肉饼，你就再也不会想吃其他家的了”。 - **艺术文化**：推荐前往对公众免费开放的沃尔特斯艺术博物馆（The Walters Art Museum），参观道瑞恩·弗莱彻（Douriean Fletcher）的特展——展出《黑豹》（Black Panther）与《黑豹2：瓦坎达万岁》（Wakanda Forever）中的精美珠宝与服装，因为这位艺术家的珠宝创作灵感正源于该馆的部分藏品。 - **夏季节庆**：如果赶在阵亡将领纪念日（Memorial Day）周末前往，还可以参加巴尔的摩的免费艺术节（Artscape Festival）。现场汇聚了大量艺术商贩（包括 Scout Art Fair），更有琳琅满目的美食以及包括 The Roots 乐队在内的免费现场音乐表演。 特蕾西随即笑着表示自己完全被“蟹肉饼和戏服”打动，一定会安排这趟行程。 --- ### `52:15` 主持人复盘：犯罪治理、经济学的局限与《火线》背后的现实 采访结束后，特蕾西与乔·威森塔尔（Joe Weisenthal）对本次在马德里的跨国对话进行了深度复盘。他们感叹人生充满意想不到的奇遇，竟能在西班牙录制关于巴尔的摩市长的深度专访。乔特别指出，外界通过神剧《火线》（The Wire）对巴尔的摩建立的单一文化刻板印象，与纽约在影视中丰富多元的面貌相比，对巴尔的摩来说极其不公平。 乔进一步展开分析：犯罪问题必须是城市治理的第一要务，而经济学这门学科本身在面对这一问题时往往“手足无措”。无论一座城市的规划分区（Zoning）、税收优惠以及资本结构设计得多么完善，如果普通民众害怕高犯罪率而根本不敢在附近生活，那么纸面上的方案或资金投入就毫无意义，安全问题构成了所有经济政策的硬性上限。特蕾西也深表赞同，提到很多企业和开发商在做投资决策时脑海中都有清晰的量化底线——比如只有当凶杀案发生率降到某个具体数值之下时，他们才会考虑进场。 ```mermaid flowchart TD accTitle: 治安与城市经济发展的逻辑关系 accDescr: 展示为何治安治理是城市规划和经济发展的前置必要条件 subgraph Governance["前置条件：安全底线"] A["有效精准执法"] --> B["凶杀率与犯罪率实质下降"] B --> C["打破恶性循环与指标异化"] end subgraph Economy["经济激活：规划与资本"] D["优质分区规划 (Zoning)"] E["税收结构与资本投入"] C --> F["企业/居民恢复进驻意愿"] D --> F E --> F end F --> G["社区更新与经济真正复苏"] ``` 乔还特别推荐了学者彼得·莫斯科斯（Peter Moskos）的一本书（编者注：《警服下的哥大学者》，记述了其在巴尔的摩警局一线担任巡警一年的经历）。乔提到了社会科学领域著名的古德哈特定律（Goodhart's Law）：一旦一个指标变成了考核目标，它就不再是一个好指标。早年警界或许认为抓捕人数与降低犯罪率存在某种联系，但一旦将“逮捕数量”本身当成考核硬指标，整个警务逻辑就彻底崩溃了。而斯科特市长治下巴尔的摩在大幅减少无端逮捕的同时实现了凶杀率的大幅下降，这种摆脱盲目抓捕指标的转变令人震撼。 节目最后，两位主持人由衷感慨这期访谈彻底颠覆了他们对巴尔的摩的固有印象，甚至敲定下次去巴尔的摩一定要停留一两天，专程去尝尝市长力荐的蟹肉饼，并提醒听众订阅《Odd Lots》日报、加入 Discord 社区参与讨论。 ## Notable quotes > `05:00` 从我1984年出生的第一天起就在我的雷达上了。 — Brandon Scott > `05:00` 等市政府排期来给业主除草，杂草早都长到一英尺高了。 — Brandon Scott 的父亲 > `07:30` 绝无可能在四年甚至八年内彻底消除巴尔的摩的空置房屋。 — Brandon Scott > `16:42` 对我们来说这主要是一场诅咒，我们一点也不喜欢这部剧。 — Brandon Scott > `20:00` 有人暗指‘那种街区’根本不配享有 TIF 工具。但事实证明他们完全错了，实打实的数据说明了一切。 — Brandon Scott > `30:00` 我知道你是谁，我知道你在干什么。这是你改变人生的唯一一次机会。如果你需要住房、职业培训、教育，甚至搬迁到新环境，市政府会倾尽全力提供帮助；但如果你执迷不悟继续犯罪，法律的铁锤将毫不留情地砸向你，我们会彻底将你从社区剔除。 — Brandon Scott > `33:05` 市长先生，我很喜欢巴尔的摩，但除非你们把凶杀和枪击压下去，否则我们绝对不敢投钱。 — 商业投资者 > `33:05` 请不要鼓掌，我们还远远谈不上成功。133条鲜活生命的逝去依然是133个太多了，绝不到开香槟庆祝的时候。我们只是看到了历史性的转机，而这恰恰证明我们完全可以做得更好。 — Brandon Scott > `43:08` 大家要明白，这是一座特大型桥梁工程，绝不可能在一夜之间凭空建起。 — Brandon Scott > `45:00` 我上任时，市政府居然还在用纯纸质手写工时表。 — Brandon Scott > `45:00` 从来没有供应商向我们画大饼承诺能创造魔法，那绝不可能发生。 — Brandon Scott > `50:00` 优秀的盗贼——必须学会从全美各地的市长同行那里‘窃取’优秀点子并加以改进，因为如果不向同行学习，就根本找不到更好的学习对象。 — Brandon Scott ## Mentioned Brandon Scott (布兰登·斯科特), Tracy Alloway (特蕾西·阿洛韦), Joe Weisenthal (乔·威森塔尔), Bloomberg CityLab (彭博城市实验室), BUILD (Baltimoreans United In Leadership Development), Reframe Baltimore, Bethlehem Steel (伯利恒钢铁公司), General Motors (通用汽车), The Wire (火线), The Corner (街角), Homicide: Life on the Street (情理法的春天), NYPD Blue (纽约重案组), Seinfeld (宋飞正传), Friends (老友记), Group Violence Reduction Strategy (GVRS), Safe Streets, We Are Us, Peter Moskos (彼得·莫斯科斯), The Body Politic (身体政治), Johns Hopkins University (约翰斯·霍普金斯大学), University of Maryland (马里兰大学), Francis Scott Key Bridge (弗朗西斯·斯科特·基大桥), NSA (国家安全局), Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership Initiative, African American Mayors Association, The Walters Art Museum (沃尔特斯艺术博物馆), Douriean Fletcher (道瑞恩·弗莱彻), Black Panther (黑豹), The Roots, Koco's Pub ## Video description <p>Since Mayor Brandon Scott took office in 2020, he's fixated on a very visible problem in Baltimore: the tens of thousands of vacant homes that dot the city. It's hard to build new houses when there are so many that sit empty and unused. And the process of tracking down owners, convincing them to sell their vacant properties, and then converting those homes into usable housing supply is a tall task. In the last few years, the number of vacant homes in Baltimore has dropped from 16,000 to just over 11,800. On this episode &mdash; recorded in Madrid while we attended the Bloomberg CityLab conference &mdash; we speak to Mayor Scott about deindustrialization, redlining, and gun violence's historical effects on the current housing crisis, how his government identifies, block-by-block, redevelopment opportunities and matches projects with publicly-minded developers, and why Baltimore natives aren't huge fans of <em>The Wire</em>.</p> <p><br><a href="http://bloomberg.com/subscriptions/oddlots" data-link-cookie="1" data-destination="http://bloomberg.com/subscriptions/oddlots">Subscribe to the Odd Lots Newsletter</a><br>Join the conversation: <a href="https://discord.gg/oddlots" data-destination="https://discord.gg/oddlots">discord.gg/oddlots</a></p><p>See <a href="https://omnystudio.com/listener">omnystudio.com/listener</a> for privacy information.</p> [Source](https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/tracking.swap.fm/track/UVBrz8bN8aM2Xe47PEPu/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/8a94442e-5a74-4fa2-8b8d-ae27003a8d6b/653bb844-d3b0-425e-9e28-b43e00ee5196/audio.mp3?in_playlist=982f5071-765c-403d-969d-ae27003a8d83)

[5:00] Brandon Scott: 从我1984年出生的第一天起就在我的雷达上了。 [5:00] Brandon Scott 的父亲: 等市政府排期来给业主除草，杂草早都长到一英尺高了。 [7:30] Brandon Scott: 绝无可能在四年甚至八年内彻底消除巴尔的摩的空置房屋。 [16:42] Brandon Scott: 对我们来说这主要是一场诅咒，我们一点也不喜欢这部剧。 [20:00] Brandon Scott: 有人暗指‘那种街区’根本不配享有 TIF 工具。但事实证明他们完全错了，实打实的数据说明了一切。 [30:00] Brandon Scott: 我知道你是谁，我知道你在干什么。这是你改变人生的唯一一次机会。如果你需要住房、职业培训、教育，甚至搬迁到新环境，市政府会倾尽全力提供帮助；但如果你执迷不悟继续犯罪，法律的铁锤将毫不留情地砸向你，我们会彻底将你从社区剔除。 [33:05] 商业投资者: 市长先生，我很喜欢巴尔的摩，但除非你们把凶杀和枪击压下去，否则我们绝对不敢投钱。 [33:05] Brandon Scott: 请不要鼓掌，我们还远远谈不上成功。133条鲜活生命的逝去依然是133个太多了，绝不到开香槟庆祝的时候。我们只是看到了历史性的转机，而这恰恰证明我们完全可以做得更好。 [43:08] Brandon Scott: 大家要明白，这是一座特大型桥梁工程，绝不可能在一夜之间凭空建起。 [45:00] Brandon Scott: 我上任时，市政府居然还在用纯纸质手写工时表。 [45:00] Brandon Scott: 从来没有供应商向我们画大饼承诺能创造魔法，那绝不可能发生。 [50:00] Brandon Scott: 优秀的盗贼——必须学会从全美各地的市长同行那里‘窃取’优秀点子并加以改进，因为如果不向同行学习，就根本找不到更好的学习对象。

[3:00] Mayor Brandon Scott: I had the fortune or misfortune of growing up in the 80s, 90s and 2000... But I also live in the city that is the birthplace of racial redlining. It was signed at the very desk that I sit in—the first redlining law was signed in Baltimore City. [47:29] Mayor Brandon Scott: In order to be a great mayor, you have to be a great thief—you have to steal from mayors across the country and steal ideas and make them better. [50:00] Mayor Brandon Scott: If you're going to get crab cakes, you have to go and get the best crab cake in the world from Koco's Pub. You'll never eat another crab cake after having that one.

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Health care doesn always work great If you ever waited on a refill or couldn schedule an appointment you get it That the kind of stuff Optum is changing They using data and technology to integrate patient care pharmacy and everything else So health care is connected not complicated What that look like Cheaper prescriptions that are easier to get and care that looks at the whole person how you need it Optum is helping make healthcare work as one for everyone. Learn more at business.optum.com. Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio, news. Hello and welcome to another episode of the All Thoughts Podcast. I'm Tracy Allaway. And I'm Joe Weisenthal. So Joe, we are here in Madrid as part of Bloomberg City Lab. Tough, tough assignment for us. A real hardship posting. Yeah, a real hardship posting, but willing to do it. Yeah. So there are mayors from all over the world here, all talking about the challenges and opportunities facing cities. and we're about to speak to one of them in particular and it's actually a really interesting test case of I think a lot of themes that kind of touch on the the odd lots oeuvre let's say. Well one of the things that comes up all the time obviously on odd lots over the years is housing right and one of the things that we discovered I would say is okay every it easy to say housing is a stress everywhere Housing is a challenge There a housing crisis and so forth And it's kind of true. But as we've discovered, there's a different fingerprint of it everywhere, right? That's right. That's right. So, you know, we were in, you know, Mount Airy, North Carolina, and it's very sparse and rural. Even there, there's a housing shortage, et cetera. Everywhere, there are these common themes, but every location has its own distinct challenges. Right. So the city we're going to be talking about today is Baltimore. And in Baltimore, one of the issues with housing is this vacant housing problem. And I got to say, I actually feel really bad about this. My dad was a pilot, as you know, and he flew out of BWI for many, many years, but he lives in Annapolis. So I never actually spent that much time in Baltimore except to get the Greyhound bus and go to the Baltimore bus terminal. And I would not want to judge any city based on the Greyhound terminal, but I definitely saw a lot of vacant houses around the area. I haven't spent a ton of time in Baltimore either. I was born in Detroit. I have a lot of family there. Also a city that sort of famously for a long time had a lot of vacant houses There were times when you see these websites advertising houses for a dollar et cetera There like there clearly so much potential in a place with such you know at least nominally affordable homes So like, how do you actually get people to move in? How do you make them valuable? How do you fix them up? So many, I guess, interesting technical questions, I would say, to solving these problems. Exactly. So we do, in fact, have the perfect guest. We're going to be speaking with Mayor Brandon Scott, who is, of course, the mayor of Baltimore. So, Mayor Scott, thank you so much for coming on All Thoughts. Thank you all for having me. Great to be here. In Madrid, no less. In Madrid, I know. Tough assignment for all of us. Second best city in the world, I take it? Second greatest outside of Baltimore. That's right. So when you became mayor of Baltimore, I'm really curious, how did the vacant housing problem actually show up on your radar, and why did it become a priority for you? Well, for me, it showed up on my radar the day I was born, right? So I was born and raised in Baltimore. I was born in 1984. So I had the fortune or misfortune of growing up in the 80s, 90s and 2000. When you think about all of the crazy things that happened in the United States at that time. Of course, we're talking about drugs showing up into neighborhoods, the war on drugs, failed war on drugs and zero tolerance policing. But I also live in the city that is the birthplace of racial redlining. It was signed. [5:00] At the very desk that I sit in, the first realigning law was signed in Baltimore City. I grew up on a block with a vacant house that my dad made me and my brothers cut the grass at every single time. Because he said by the time the city gets around to cutting it for the owner, it's going to be a foot high. Right. So for me, this wasn't something that I discovered when I became the mayor of Baltimore. It had been very prominent in my neighborhood that I grew up in, in Park Heights and all over the city of Baltimore for a long time. But I knew it had to be a priority because you cannot and we will not be the best version of Baltimore if we are not a whole version of Baltimore. And when you think about it like this, when I was a junior in high school in the year 2000, December 2000, Baltimore had 16,000 vacant properties. Wow. And that's a lot less than the 30 or 40,000 it had years prior to that. But when I became mayor on December 8th of 2020, Baltimore had 16,000 vacant properties. The number essentially had not moved. So we knew that we needed a different strategy to dealing with this longstanding challenge. That is, you can directly, I showed this at CityLab. I a map and a data guy right When you look at the 1937 racial redlining map in Baltimore and then you look at the vacancy map in 2020 or even the vacancy map today it the same neighborhoods literally the same neighborhoods. In Baltimore, they call it the black butterfly and the white L. So you got this white L that goes down the city and out, and then you have these two heartbeats, so to speak, of the black butterfly, the wings. And you can see that the vacants in Baltimore are a direct correlation to that, a direct correlation to purposeful disinvestment into those neighborhoods and all the other things, de-instructuralization, all of those things that happen. How would you describe, okay, everyone can recognize that having lots of vacant housing is a very serious problem for a city. You recognize it from, as you said, the moment you were born growing up. Prior to your administration, what was the sort of status quo thinking about it? What was the way that prior administrations had thought about the challenge or the problem? Well, listen, I have to say that my predecessors with the tools and knowledge and understanding that they had, they didn't do a bad job, right? The only thing that I'd say that they did that I do differently and thinking about it differently is that for and this is just this is mayors this is politicians right Folks like to tell folks that I going to handle this issue in my time in office There no way in holy hell that any mayor was going to eliminate a vacant housing in Baltimore in four years let alone eight And a lot, some of them, many of them before me got a lot less than even four years, right? So when you think about that, the approach for us, it has never been about the approach. Baltimore, between our city government, partnership with the state government, with our private community, with the folks in philanthropic and CDCs and developers, they've always had the strategy. They always had the know-how and the do-how of taking vacants and even demolishing them, turning them to park space, getting them renovated, building a lot of housing, all of those things. It's been about the capital. That's what they did not have. They didn't have the capital and they did not have a unified strategy that was about something greater than one mayoral term. And I think that where we have struck goals so to speak is that we came out and I stood with the community and build which is a community organization that has relationships with churches and communities and mosque and everything all over the city of Baltimore and represents a lot of residents and neighborhood leaders in our business community and the greater Baltimore community and myself stood up and said we are coming up with this strategy that we, as in Baltimore, as a community, not just city government, not just private, not just philanthropic, not just the residents, we are going to end this crisis for good over the next 15 years. And this strategy is our strategy so that everyone is bought in. That's the difference. And now that we're all working together, and then we got a blessing a few months later. We got a governor elected, and now the governor of Maryland is also a member of that, right? The state of government has given us $50 million a year. So now we've been able to, just think about that. I told you it was $16,000 for 20 years, right? So it went from $16,000 when I took office, now down to $11,806 as of early this morning. Do you get a daily report on it? I have a dashboard. It's a website. You can go look. It's Reframe Baltimore. We'll tell you how many. And the number sometimes fluctuates because we take some off, some go up, but it's that collective way that we've done it because it's a very, very tough issue for even people to understand. You mentioned like dollar houses. People are like, well, if you're [10:00] Sell all the vacants for a dollar, they'll go away. No. Because one, the overwhelming majority of the vacants in the city of Baltimore are not owned by the city of Baltimore. They're owned by private folks who are sitting on the move, folks that we have to track down. And many, I hate to say this, a good bit of them were ones that back in the day, one of my predecessors sold for a dollar. But if I sell you a house for a dollar and you don't have the $100,000, $150,000 needed to actually get it up to living standards, it's still going to remain vacant. Well, so on this note, I want to back up for a second and ask what is potentially a very basic question, but how do the houses actually become vacant? Like what is the typical process by which a house becomes vacant? We've heard the population decline story in Baltimore, but like it's hard for me to believe people just leave and don't do anything with their houses. So it's a couple of things. One, the thing I can tell you about Baltimore that is probably so much different than any other city is that we're a city of neighborhoods, right? And I literally tell people this, that those neighborhoods can literally be a city of countries. Not two blocks are the same Everything is different That why our strategy is block by block But just to give you the historical context we know that we got a lot of vacants when suburbs were built, right? Like we had suburbs being built, white flight, all of those things happened. That happened in cities around the country. So we had that. Then we had deindustrialization. We had Bethlehem, Steele, and General Motors. General Motors is actually the reason why I am here, because my mom's parents moved to Baltimore. My granddad, when they were down to their last $100, was thinking about moving back to rural Virginia, got a job at General Motors, and boom, they bought the house where my mom grew up in and my dad, who was following my uncles, his older brothers and older cousins to Baltimore, visiting in the summertime. My uncles were working at Bethlehem still. Him and my mom met, and the rest is history. But those went away. Those jobs went away, right? And then some people did leave. And then when you add on to that, that a lot of folks that left, left those houses and they left their houses and people died, right? Older folks died. They left from the people who didn't care for them. You had a lot of folks come in and buy up property that were vacant when people did move out and just sitting on them They just waiting for prices to recover Waiting or waiting for the city or someone to come along and give them more than what they paid for right But then we have a lot of folks who pass away and their kids are gone and they don want the property. It runs the gamut. There is not one sole reason why you have so many. But when you think about we were a city of basically a million people and now we're a city of 600,000, right? You think about the amount of people that left the city of Baltimore for a multitude of reasons. And then when you add on to that redlining, deindustrialization, crime and violence and drugs that just showed up out of nowhere all of a sudden, you add all of those things together, you have really a recipe for disaster, so to speak. You said something that it must be a tricky issue because, okay, let's say, and I want to talk more about this, but you get this infusion of capital or you get this coordination of capital and suddenly the governor is willing to work with you and allocate money from the budget. But presumably, yeah, I imagine you don't want private capital, but you don't want entities who are just going to take the public money to see their properties inflate. So how do you think about coordinating that so that you get that private capital you get the investment capital but it not just essentially a free lunch of okay we going to do whatever you want Right Yeah Yeah So that where the How do you get that skin in the game? That's where the block by block comes in, really. So we do block level planning for these, but it's also about strategic. We have strategic investment zones, seven of them where most of the vacants are. And what we're telling folks is that we have a plan for each block. And we don't just do big developers. We work with small developers. We work with community development corporations. And the great thing about the city of Baltimore versus Detroit, where folks are like, oh, you guys should create a land bank like Detroit. Well, we visited Detroit and they're like, well, you guys don't need to do that because your housing department has the authorities that our land bank has now. We didn't have that within the city of government. And now what we've been able to do, because also it's not that easy to get get to the point of getting a vacant back to renovation. So I'll step back and walk you guys how how how this work. You own a house is vacant. And then we our housing department, our inspectors come out. Someone complains, there's a vacant house to me. The owner's not taking care of it. We give them a citation. They have 30 days to remedy that citation. We literally legally can't do anything for that time. [15:00] Then we come back again and we have to do it. Now, after that one, then we maybe cut the grass, lean it, et cetera. We have raised the fines up. We can fine them up to a thousand dollars. Then they get a vacant building notice. Right. And if we want to take that property through receivership and all these other things in room, we have to go to court. They know how long that takes. That could take, you know, it used to take two to three years. Right. Now we've worked with the court, we have a special in-rim docket, right? And we're getting that time down a lot faster, but we're doing that thousands of times, right? Over and over again. And when you're talking about that takes the time to assemble blocks, right? Now think about this block, 4,800 block of Park Heights Avenue, right? So the Park Heights master plan, it's a neighborhood I grew up in, is one of the largest redevelopment issues in the country. Think about it like this. They started talking about the plan when I was in middle school, right? The city finally was able to have all of the properties acquired when I was a staffer in city government and on the board of their CDC in 2008 and 2009. We finally had them all demolished around 11 or 12 The first new housing units didn get built until I was mayor right When you talk about those large amounts of vacant properties, it just takes a long time. Single ones, you can replenish them a little quicker. And it takes a lot of block by block level planning, identifying a developer, making sure the developer fits with the neighborhood, making sure that we have the partnership with the state because they also have their sway and control over the money that they're pumping into. Everyone has to be aligned and making sure that we are not just giving it to people who just want to make a buck, but they understand that, yes, we want them to make money. We believe in capitalism, but they have to understand how this is going to work to improve those neighborhoods. And we've seen so many neighborhoods take great, great, great change, like Johnson Square in East Baltimore, Oliver and East Baltimore, where they used to film The Wire. And now they're selling houses over there like $300,000. I was wondering how long until we reference The Wire. You know it was going to happen eventually. Yeah, it had to happen. I'm blessing it a curse, I imagine. Mainly a curse for us, but yes, mainly a curse for us. We don't like this show at all. Oh, really? Wait Can we just change the entire subject of this interview and have you go off on The Wire for a while I guess for us we understand it and we appreciate it for the storytelling But people don't look at NYPD Blue and think like, oh, this is all New Yorkers. Right, I see what you're saying. That's what I'm saying. And for us, we've only had those shows. So we had The Wire. We had The Corner. We had Homicide Life on the Street. Now when they maybe do a complete Baltimore story on a show, HBO, hint, hint. Because in New York we have Seinfeld and Fringe and all these other versions. Yeah, we only have the bag. And people are just like, oh, yeah, I saw the show. This is what the whole city is. All right, fair enough. I was going to ask, how do you decide what to do with the vacant houses that you end up taking back and taking control of? So you can work with private developers, as you mentioned. I guess they can choose to renovate them. They can choose to demolish them. How do those conversations actually go? So no, that decision about demolish or renovate is made by us beforehand. Okay. If the houses are going to be demolished, we do that. We do that in partnership with the state. The renovation when we award an RFP to someone we awarding it for housing like to renovate to do that So we do that but that again goes back to the block level planning right And making sure that we like okay in this neighborhood we need this, right? This block is, these houses are too far gone. We're just going to knock that down, make it park space or RFP the land, right? This block, this small developer can handle, this block only has three vacants and it's a block of 10. They can handle just doing these particular one or we have scattered sites. So we do that identification through our block by block strategies, through our neighborhood strategic investment areas, identifying those things before we get over to the developers or the CDC or individuals, because we're also one of the most innovative things that we're doing. Folks typically use TIF tax increment financing for like new developments, right? For us, think about like Harbor East or Harbor Point, all the fancy areas. Well, we're actually doing it on TIFF and this is the first time. You got to, what is, this is where I cut in and explain how TIFF works. Tech instrument financing where essentially like you would put all this money up front and you would get it back on the back end, which is they used to incentivize development all around the country. This is the first time that that tool is being used for something that's not a non-continuous. [20:00] area. So what we're doing is we're using the VVN, the vacant building notice, all across the city and identifying like we're going to put a TIF on that. So we offered out and people were going crazy like, it's not going to work. No one's going to apply for this. You have to have it in one area. That's the way the TIF works. Well, we put out in our first round $28 million worth of TIF financing. We got $380 million worth of applications. So the demand is there. And this is affordable housing TIF in neighborhoods. And you can see, if you look at our map, right, you can see that it's going right in those red line neighborhoods, right in those disinvested neighborhoods. And in fact, as a part of my state of the city, we unveiled a investments map, data map, where you can see since I've been in office where the investment has gone, right? And we did a heat map. Baltimore's purple. So the darker, the more purple, the more investment. And And you can see that we are strategically investing in the neighborhoods that have been disinvested in, in the butterfly or the red line neighborhoods. And that's how we're going to build upon what we're doing. Wait, why do people think that TIF only works for contiguous areas? I guess because no one tried it before I had no idea But it probably also a little bit of hidden racism in people that were saying that they were also saying like you can do tiff in the area that that is this kind of area right but yeah they were wrong we knew they were wrong the numbers speak for themselves Whether you're planning a big tech event, launching a new campaign, or just stocking up on team gear, finding the right promotional products makes all the difference. 4imprint offers thousands of options, from on-trend apparel and premium drinkware to tech, totes, and giveaways, so you can find the right fit for any audience, purpose, or budget. You can customize it all, your logo, your message, your look, and many items come with no setup charge to help you save. And if you're really watching the bottom line, you'll find standout choices at every price point so you can make a real impact while staying on budget. Plus, you'll get expert help, fast turnaround times, and their 360-degree guarantee. So you can be 4imprint certain your order will arrive on time and look exactly right. Whatever your goal 4imprint makes it easy to find your perfect promo match Explore the possibilities today at 4imprint 4imprint 4certain Support for the show comes from public If you're actively involved in your portfolio, you probably catch yourself repeating the same actions. Buying the dip, manually sweeping idle cash, putting on a hedge. On public, you can now create AI agents that handle all these tasks on your behalf. Just describe what you want to do in plain English. Like if the VIX hits 25, buy a put option on the S&P 500. Or if my cash balance goes above $20,000, move the excess into my direct index. You approve the workflow and your agent handles the rest. Monitoring the market, watching for your conditions, and executing your strategies exactly as defined. An investing platform driven by your intent, not just your clicks. You can also get full read and write access to your account via the public API. Go to public.com slash market and fund your account in five minutes or less. That's public.com slash market. Paid for by Public Investing. Brokered services by Open to the Public Investing, Inc., Member FINRA and SIPC Advisory services by Public Advisors LLC SEC Registered Advisor Complete disclosures available at public slash disclosures Let talk about healthcare for a second It doesn always work the way people expect it to If you ever waited on a prescription refill or had a hard time getting the care you needed you know the feeling. The system should just work better for everyone. That's exactly what the people at Optum are trying to do every day. They're a health care company linking patient care and pharmacy services and using data and technology to drive the whole system so care is connected, not complicated. for patients and providers. Things like making it easier to get care that looks at the whole person, from primary care doctors to mental health support and even in-home care, and then using technology to make sure they all work together. Technology designed to help doctors spend less time on busy work and more time with their patients. And those prescriptions? Optum is working to bring costs down, save patients money, and make it easier to get refills. Little by little, Optum is helping make healthcare work as one for everyone. Head to business.optum.com to see how. How much do you think about the specific types of housing? Let's say you raise a tract of land or whatever, and you're thinking, okay, reimagining what this space can be. How much are you planning the specific type of housing that you want in an area, whether it's Baltimore? [25:00] Family rental, condos, freestanding, solo home. How do you think about envisioning what the neighborhood should or could be? Again, I'm going to go back to the neighborhood block level planning. So this is Baltimore, right? So those neighborhoods love their neighborhood aesthetic and they want to keep them as much as possible, right? So even, for example, in that block of Park Highs that I talked about where we knocked down, which we have row homes, connected row homes for the most part in Baltimore. We have single family, too. I live in one. But connected real homes, even though we built a multi-unit senior apartment building for senior living there, it actually looks on the outside like the real homes that were there before. So we have to make sure that we're meeting the aesthetic of the neighborhood and what the neighborhood actually needs. So that neighborhood needed that, right? It needed places for older adults to actually want to remain in the community to do that. The next phase that we're doing there that we'll break ground on before the year's out, hopefully, is the first home ownership opportunities built there since my grandmother and grandfather moved to the neighborhood. Right So that the way that we doing it And it just depends on where you are because we want to mix it For example we had a housing project Perkins Somerset in Old Town Now we have the new one where we have the mixture right We have mixed income We have to make sure that we're providing a multitude of opportunities because it can't just be all high end. It can't just be all affordable. We need working class, all of those things. So one of the other things you're doing is taxing vacant land. And we've done, you know, we are vacant houses, I should say. We've done episodes on odd lots about a land tax. Walk us through like the pushback that you got to that plan. Why do people seem opposed to taxing empty buildings or empty land? Well, we actually didn't get any public pushback, right? The reality was, is that the way Maryland is set up, we had to get the state to say, yes, you can tax them at a higher rate. Now, it took a little while for them to do that. But now we got the blessing we got the bill passed and now we're able to do that at the local level and i think that it's just that there's been this theme right so we're independency there's no county government for us amen hallelujah uh it's just us and state in the federal government but it's been this sentiment that like the city doesn't know what it's doing etc etc but you can't really argue with the data right whether it you know we reduced basically eliminated one in four vacant houses in my time in office right We reduced violence in the city to the lowest levels on recorded record. You can't really argue with the numbers. So now folks are more ready to give us more of that authority to deal with the issues because it's also a drain on them, right? And that's the, what we're saying to them is that this takes money out of the state's pocket, right? The inability for us to do stuff with these owners hurts the state of Maryland just as much as it hurts the city of Baltimore. I was just about to ask you, you mentioned the big drop in violence. How much is that a key pillar of any sort of development success? Because ultimately I imagine you can have the right tax incentives and the right codes and the right planning, but people don't want to live around a lot of crime. How much has that decline been a sort of, I guess, a tailwind to the entire project? I think that it is the number one reason why Baltimore is so hot right now, because after all those years, I'll just say it like this. If this were 2021 and we're at CityLab, the only thing people want to talk to me about is how am I going to reduce gun violence in Baltimore? Now the only thing people want to talk to me about how did I reduce gun violence in Baltimore And I think it not just that we did it it how we did it Because listen we talking about a place that when I was growing up we had breathing while black policing right Seven times in my lifetime, I was sat down on the curb and put in handcuffs, including in the rain, simply because I was outside and looked the way I look. Accused of committing crimes that I couldn't have possibly committed because I was two hours away at college when it happened. So when you think about that and think about that, I'm 42 now, but 18 out of the 42 years that I've been alive, Baltimore had over 300 murders. And we went from in the last six years, right, violence has dropped over almost 60 percent in the city of Baltimore, going from 300 plus to now 133, which is still 133 too many for me. But the fact that we've been able to do that and that we've done it in a smart way is important for us. Yeah. So if it's not the sort of hyper aggressive police work, the type you described, what has it been? How would you describe it? Well, let me just start to say that doesn't work. Yeah. So if you think about those years of zero tolerance, so I'll give you a year, for example, 2004, the city had 278 homicides, right? There. [30:00] I said 91,000 people in a city of 600,000. Oh my gosh. Last year we had 133. We arrested 17,000 people. Significantly less homicides with significantly less arrests because it's never been about how many people you arrest. It's always been about who and for what. And the way that we've done it is we, by law, a law that I passed as the city council president in 2019, the mayor of Baltimore has to present a comprehensive violence prevention plan at least every two years. And that is what we did in 2021. I unveiled our first comprehensive violence prevention plan. I said that we reduce homicides in the city by 15% from one year to the next. And people literally laughed because they laughed because one, they thought that was ridiculous. And two, they said, it's not going to work the way you say, because we're going to be smart on crime, right? Being smart on crime is how you really get tough on it. We're going to throw away the idea that you just go out and arrest everybody for everything and the ground will go down because it didn't. But what we've been able to do is, one, we use our focus deterrence model, what we call GVRS, the group violence reduction strategy which we actually use data which is something also funded partially by the good folks at Bloomberg to identify who are the most likely to be the victim or perpetrator of gun violence And we actually go to them many of them and say they get a letter directly from me that says I know who you are I know what you do. This is your one chance to change your life. We will help you in any way that we can. If you need housing, job training, education, if you want to be relocated, we'll do that. But if you don't stop doing what you're doing, I am going to bring the hammer down on you and we're going to remove you. Out of the folks who have taken us up on that, over 90 percent of them have not been revictivized or recidivated. When you think about that, and then at the same time, we put $50 million into our community violence intervention ecosystem where we pay people who used to be involved in their life to prevent conflict, to go out there through safe streets. and We Are Us and these other organizations to do that great work because they're things that our police officers could never get in between because no one's going to tell them that, right? But at the same time, we also focus on the flow of guns. We're going after gun stores. We won the largest settlement against a gun store in this country's history. We won a settlement against the ghost gun company We going after gun traffickers We doing all of that and investing into youth and education and historic ways That the way that we been able to do it There a professor at John Jay College Peter Moscos who do you know who that is I know who he is. Yeah, he wrote this. He spent a few years within the Baltimore Police Department, and he wrote a great book about basically the terrible incentives that happen when you start incentivizing just a pure number of arrests. and why that completely fails as a crime prevention. I can't remember the name of the book right now, but it's really enlightening. And he makes it very clear why if the incentive is to just maximize the number of arrests or whatever, that will never work in terms of a crime. Who would have thought that incentives matter? Crazy, crazy stuff. And you can see, look, this building that is actually documented on a PBS documentary called The Body Politics. So my entire first two and a half years in office building that is something people can see. Can I ask, how does safety play into actually attracting capital back into the city? Because I get that if you're a business or a developer and you're thinking of putting money into Baltimore, you want to see the crime rate go down. But do people get really specific about it? Do they have targets like okay once homicides are under 100 per year we go in So yes and no I will tell you that for example if we at the Indiana Shopping Center conference in Vegas every May a few years ago let say 21 and 22 folks will be saying to Mr Mayor I love Baltimore But until you guys, you know, reduce homicides and shootings, we can't invest there. But then you get folks that would say like until you guys get under 300 homicides, right? It's they don't depends on the person. But you know, it was the big elephant in the room. Do you guys have a plan? What's your plan? Is the plan working? How are you going to do it? A lot of folks would, some folks would still invest if you show them the plan, even before we actually were able to implement the plan. But it was the big elephant in the room and we've been able to really show people that we have it and now folks are like, oh, you guys are right. We're ready to come right and now we have to continue that and I tell the team all the time folks whenever we're at a big event like the other day I was speaking and people started clapping when we when I mentioned the 133 number. I said don't clap. We haven't done anything yet. That's 133 too many and I don't want my team to feel like it's time to celebrate. I said this is not celebratory. We're acknowledging this historic progress because now that we know that we can do better, the best is out there. [35:00] There for us to go in a team. Whether you're planning a big tech event, launching a new campaign, or just stocking up on team gear, finding the right promotional products makes all the difference. 4imprint offers thousands of options. from on-trend apparel and premium drinkware to tech, totes, and giveaways, so you can find the right fit for any audience, purpose, or budget. You can customize it all, your logo, your message, your look, and many items come with no setup charge to help you save. And if you're really watching the bottom line, you'll find standout choices at every price point so you can make a real impact while staying on budget. Plus, you'll get expert help, fast turnaround times, and their 360-degree guarantee, so you can be 4imprint certain your order will arrive on time and look exactly right. Whatever your goal, 4imprint makes it easy to find your perfect promo match. Explore the possibilities today at 4imprint.com. 4imprint 4certain Support for this show comes from public If you actively involved in your portfolio you probably catch yourself repeating the same actions Buying the dip manually sweeping idle cash putting on a hedge On public, you can now create AI agents that handle all these tasks on your behalf. Just describe what you want to do in plain English. Like, if the VIX hits 25, buy a put option on the S&P 500. Or, if my cash balance goes above $20,000, move the excess into my direct index. You approve the workflow and your agent handles the risk. Monitoring the market, watching for your conditions, and executing your strategies exactly as defined. An investing platform driven by your intent, not just your clicks. You can also get full read and write access to your account via the public API. Go to public.com slash market and fund your account in five minutes or less. That's public.com slash market. Paid for by Public Investing. Brokered services by Open to the Public Investing, Inc., member FINRA and SIPC. Advisory services by Public Advisors, LLC, SEC Registered Advisor. Complete disclosures available at public.com slash disclosures. Let's talk about healthcare for a second. It doesn't always work the way people expect it to. If you ever waited on a prescription refill or had a hard time getting the care you needed you know the feeling The system should just work better for everyone That exactly what the people at Optum are trying to do every day They're a health care company linking patient care and pharmacy services and using data and technology to drive the whole system. So care is connected, not complicated for patients and providers. Things like making it easier to get care that looks at the whole person, from primary care doctors to mental health support and even in-home care, and then using technology to make sure they all work together. Technology designed to help doctors spend less time on busy work and more time with their patients. And those prescriptions? Optum is working to bring costs down, save patients money, and make it easier to get refills. Little by little, Optum is helping make healthcare work as one for everyone. Head to business.optum.com to see how. Let's talk about, you know, because this is Odd Lots Finance Podcast. Let's talk a little bit more about the capital structure and how that works. You mentioned, okay, like money from the state, but what are some of these financing vehicles? How are they structured? Whose balance sheets do they sit on? What is the city fronting? How does that fit together? The city is fronting the TIF money obviously The city money is the TIF money for us The state is fronting their million investment each and every year And then we have the private investment and we have philanthropic investment into the vacant strategy So it really everybody coalescing together And then obviously the operational portions of it is on the city as well for the most part The state has some of the operational portions of when you think about the housing department, all of those things on the city's books. And even some of the capital investment in our own capital budget is also on the city's books as well. Do you get pushback from people in the community who worry that, okay, it's great. Housing is going to be built. It's going to be higher quality, et cetera. But, oh, it's only going to go to wealthy people. And how do you think about balancing the need for sheer volume versus guaranteeing that some of it is affordable or cheaper, below market rate, whatever it is? That's a very important thing to me, right? I love the city of D.C. My brother lives there. But I know that if you talk to specifically to old time black Washingtonians, they will say that we're no longer chocolate city. We're a latte city, right? Like they feel like they've lost a bit of their culture with a lot of folks coming in from all over. and feel like some of the original Washingtonians have just been [40:00] pushed out, right? And we're very intentional about understanding that we do want people to come from all over. But we also, and we have this very unique opportunity with all the vacants to make sure that the folks that have stayed in Baltimore and lived through all this can benefit from it as well. And we do that through things like my buy back the block program, where we're taking people who are renters, in fact, paying more in rent than they would in mortgage and making them homeowners. Very familiar New York City problem as well. Yeah. And it's also why we work with different kind of developers, right? Smaller developers who are taking these other things and we can partner them with folks to get these people there. We have to be thinking about all of that because people are going to say that anytime you make that investment. So I have a very technical question going back to the vacant homes issue. But one of the things I saw on the Baltimore subreddit was someone was saying like, we would get more buyers of vacant homes or more action on vacant homes if the water bills were not such an issue. Yeah. So what's the deal with the water bills? So I think that what I would say is that I would thought it was going to be a real technical question. So I think that a few things, right? Yes water rates have increased They increasing everywhere But I would say that our increases up until last year were the lowest that we had pretty much in my lifetime But no developer has said to me that, oh, I'm not going to come and renovate houses in Baltimore because of the water bill. We know that costs are rising across the board and we're going through a process now even. And where this conversation really normally leads to is like, oh, well, the county pays less for their water than we do, and they don't have to pay all these fees. And then you have to spend this long explanation saying, well, they actually do pay those fees, except for the county just hides the fees and other bills that they don't see. And we're working with five county partners through a bill that me and the county executive put into state about how the water system is going to look moving forward because the city does the water for the surrounding county as well. we pay every month they pay every four months all of these kind of things convolute the issue but water rates and listen the thing about water utilities is that taxpayer dollars for those for like property taxes and other money doesn't go into that water utility systems only come from the systems themselves and when you think about the world and the craziness that we're living in today and the cost of the equipment and the materials that needed to make sure that water that going up so there no other way essentially to deal with it But I think that for us it really about setting the structure in a more simplified understandable way for the residents and making sure that our partners around are playing a more critical role when it comes to the resources. And that's what we're going to do. So we're here at the City Lab Conference. And I'm sure every different city all around the world, for the most part, different issues, different challenges that they're facing. But a common theme in much of the world is what you said at the beginning, deindustrialization. And this is all across the United States, all across Europe, et cetera, a major source of anxiety at the city, state, national level, you name it. How do you think of – I don't know. Maybe this is just a very conceptual question, but, okay, presuming that there's not going to be a big revival of steel mills in the vicinity of Baltimore anytime soon, how do you think about the businesses of the future and what the new industries that could thrive in a city like Baltimore and any other cities that have suffered the same? No, just in Baltimore. I think for us, listen, we're blessed. We still have some industry We always going to be a port city The world found that out a few years ago when the key bridge collapsed and found out how important the Port of Baltimore is to the world I thought we were going to talk about the wired again. The key bridge. How's that going? It's going. It's going. It's going. The bridge has been demolished and is moving pretty fast for an infrastructure project of that size. People are like, oh, the bridge is not being rebuilt. I'm like, this is a bridge, you guys. This doesn't happen that quickly. But we're still a port city. We're obviously a big hub for tourism and culture and sports. We're also an Ed's and Med City, right? We have Hopkins and University of Maryland. We're a big arts and culture city, and we're a growing tech city, which is where we think the growth is for us. We had like 600 million in capital investment into those kind of firms over the last few years. And we want to continue to see that grow because they're growing out of Hopkins. They're growing out of UND. And we want to make sure that they stay in the city because the port's always going to be there, right? The hospitals are always going to be there. Tourism is always going to be there. And we're revitalizing now through the process of revitalizing the Inner Harbor as well. But we think that and light manufacturing will continue to be a growth area for us. Well, say more about the competitive advantage for Baltimore when it comes to attracting tech businesses and AI. [45:00] in particular? Because it feels like at the moment, every city in the US certainly is kind of trying to do the same thing, right? Yeah, I think for us, one, you get to be that close to a 29 minute train ride away from DC and you don't have to pay DC prices, right? We're just going to keep it. And when you think about, especially for defense and other tech companies, Fort Meade is there. All of these things are, NSA, all these things are really close to the city of Baltimore And you're in a perfect spot. You can get to D.C. on train in 30 minutes. You can get to Philly by train in 45. You can get to New York in two hours and 30 minutes. And you're in this and where the location of Baltimore physically is an advantage over basically, in my opinion, any other city in the country. But when you add on the infrastructure of the university, like you're just not going to get a Johns Hopkins and the University of Maryland in the same place, in the same city, anywhere else. You're just not going to get that kind of and the opportunities that Baltimore provides to folks. I guess you're really close to the data centers in Virginia as well, technically. Technically, yeah, we're close to them. You know again like I said in the beginning there a different version of the housing crisis the housing problem everywhere In New York a lot of the discourse is just about zoning rules or people finding it takes too long to get a permit etc What is the Baltimore version of that story? That's it. Listen, everywhere you go, you're going to hear the same thing. Whether it's me and Mayor Mondame talking about it or Mayor Van Johnson from Savannah, we all talk about making sure that our systems are working better. We're going through that now. Now, when I took office, they were still doing time sheets by hand in city government. Wow. Right? So think about that, right? Now that we can modernize those systems and we're modernizing our permit systems, different agencies had systems that didn't talk to each other. Are there times in terms of, okay, someone submits an application or someone submits an application to make a change to a building or something like that? Are there times that you track and you could say, okay, this has substantively gotten shorter or faster? Some things have gotten shorter, and now we got to a point where a lot of our stuff is waiting for the applicant, right? Okay. But it was about simple stuff, right? Well, there wasn't – the applicant put something in. We put it back. The system didn't automatically notify the applicant. Now they were made it waiting on them right Those kind of simple things when you talking about operating a city government are important to have from a systemic point of infrastructure point of view making sure that those things are there making sure that you have the staffing necessary to go through all of the things that are necessary. And that's where we've been really focusing, building that infrastructure up, both from the data side and the technical side, but from the human capital as well, because you need both of them. Do you have a favorite KPI when it comes to local government efficiency, like a number that you watch to try to judge the progress you're making? Well, see, for me, I hate to say this, but that one is always going to be the violence number for me. That's the one. Where are we? Every day when I wake up, that's the first thing. Well, now it's in the afternoon while I'm here. But every day when I wake up at home, it's the first thing that I look at. And then it's also the vacancy number, right? Where are we today? How many? Has it gone up? Has it gone down? We want to make sure that we're hitting our goals, right? Like, are we at our 15% goal for violence this year, right? Like, that's what I want to see continuously to do that. But I have a lot of things that I follow. I'm a dashboard data person. So I have dashboards. We have a housing dashboard, public safety dashboard. We track a lot of things on dashboards I hate to even ask this question because it so trite and so cliche to ask but I just going to ask it anyway AI in terms of its actual application within city government are there things yet at this point what is it late April 2026 where you could say, we are employing AI in some way that is making something better, or is it an experimental stage? do you have a lot of vendors promising magic if you adopt their solution no that would never happen no one no one promises that they're what is the role of contemporary artificial intelligence models within city government so for us it could you know we're our fire department's using the house department's using it like even with vacants to help identify the structures and whether like if we need to look at conconciliation and those kind of things and there'll be other other things that we can push to use it but we just have to be smart about it how many conversations here have i had oh a lot of people are just mayors trading tips of the story oh that's that's that's the beauty of it right that we're all listen we i'm a part of the best bloomberg harvard class that's the fifth class so don't let any of the other mayors tell you they're not from my class they're not part of the best but like we all talk to each other pretty much every day right like there's a whole bunch of mayors their group chat there's a lot of mayors [50:00] group chats with an S. So we talk to mayors every day. I'm the president of the African American Mayors Association. We talk to each other every day. We're always sharing things. If you're a mayor, one of the best things that you have to be, in order to be a great mayor, you have to be a great thief. You have to steal from mayors across the country and steal ideas and make them better. Because if you're not learning from your counterparts, who are you learning from? I have just one more question, and it's entirely out of personal interest. But if I want to explore Baltimore outside of the Greyhound bus station and the casino that's next to it, where should I go? Well, it depends. What time – now I have to ask a question. What time of year are you coming? Let's say summer. That's when I'm next going to visit my dad in Annapolis. And what are your interests? Oh, culture, arts, parks, gardening, animals, yes. All right, great. Food. If you're food and you're not a sports person. No. All right, great. I didn't want to say everything except sports. That's fine. I need to know. Those are the kind of things I need to know. So if you're coming in the summertime, you love food. So you're coming to Baltimore, so you can't come to Baltimore and not eat crabs. So would you prefer crabs or crab cakes Oh that a really hard question Look at that Yeah I feel it Crab cakes probably All right So if you going to get crab cakes you have to go and get the best crab cake in the world from Coco Pub You'll never eat another crab cake after having that one. Oh, that sounds good. Start you there. But since you're into art and culture, you should then, right now, up and through August, we actually have at the Walters Art Gallery, which is free to the public, We actually have a Dorian Fletcher exhibit that is an exhibit that has the jewelry and the costumes from Black Panther or Wakanda Forever. Oh, that's so cool. It's in display in Baltimore at the museum because we found out that some of the art at our museum inspired her to do her jewelry art. So that's a great way to spend your time there. But if you happen to come Memorial Day weekend, you can do that and enjoy the Artscape Festival, our free arts festival that is Memorial Day weekend that has art vendors selling art, including at our Scout Art Fair, which is really great. You have musicians there. The roots will be there this summer. You have food galore, everything galore. And it there The art you have to pay for but everything else is there Food you have to pay for but the music is free You sold me crab cakes and costumes I am there Mayor Brandon Scott thank you so much for coming on All Thoughts Thank you for having me Thank you That was fantastic Thank you so much. So, Joe, that was obviously very interesting. I never expected to interview the mayor of Baltimore in Madrid. But, you know, one of those nice occasions that happens. Life is interesting. No, I thought there was a really interesting episode. I mean, we could have gone for like an hour just asking him to go off on the wire, obviously. But I get that. I hadn't really thought about that. This is the cultural depiction of a city in a way that does not. The richness of the depictions of New York City, totally different, totally, totally unfair. I also thought it was like interesting, this thought. And I sort of had it before, but it really makes sense. like crime has to be the number one thing. And sometimes I think that there are certain questions that economics itself as a discipline is sort of ill-equipped to do it. And look, you can have all the sort of right zoning and tax structures and capital structures in the world But if people don want to live in the vicinity of high crime rates it going to mean nothing but that is going to be sort of a limit to what you can do on paper or with money or anything like that Yeah And I thought it was really interesting to hear how I guess, developers slash businesses are actually thinking about it because like, yes, it's at the forefront of everyone's mind, but it's kind of interesting to hear maybe a specific business will be like, we're interested once the homicide rate is below this particular number, I guess you have to have like a numerical target in your mind as well. Yeah, that makes sense. Everyone should read the Peter Mosko's book. It's about he spent a year within the Baltimore Police Department. It's a really good, you know, it's this cliche that we talk about in many fields, which is that, you know, once something becomes a measure, once you start targeting a measure, it stops being useful. Right. So maybe in theory, at one point, there might have been some relationship between the number of arrests that you make and the size of the crime rate. Suddenly then you're like, OK, let's prioritize making arrests. And then once the measure becomes a target in its own right, it completely falls apart. And it's sort of intuitive, but he really like walks through exactly how and why that fails from a policing perspective. It's really one of the more interesting books that I've read. Yeah, that was like a stunning figure. [55:00] The idea that the number of arrests has gone down so much, along with the homicide rate. I had no idea how many arrests there actually were before. That was crazy. I think we should go to Baltimore, Sam. No, seriously. It sounded like... He made a very good case. When he pitched to you at the end, started thinking about the crab, the food, the music, the art, I was like, yeah, we should... I mean, I guess you're going to be there regardless. But now I want to take another Baltimore trip. I'll be at the bus station and then moving onwards. But I think this time I am going to try to stay for a day or two. Yeah, spend a little time there. Have some crab cakes. All right. Shall we leave it there? Let's leave it there. This has been another episode of the Odd Lots podcast. I'm Tracy Alloway. You can follow me at Tracy Alloway. And I'm Joe Weisenthal. You can follow me at The Stalwart. Follow our producers, Kerman Rodriguez at Kerman Armand, Dashiell Bennett at Dashbot, Kale Brooks at Kale Brooks, and Kevin Lozano at Kevin Lloyd Lozano. And for more Odd Lots content, go to Bloomberg.com slash Odd Lots. We have a daily newsletter on all of our episodes. 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