Searching for Solutions: What St. Louis can learn from Baltimore

A group of stakeholders - including downtown businesses and community associations – are working with developers and city leaders about the best ways to bring the city back to life.

As development discussions at the waterfront move forward, there's another group of stakeholders in the inner city saying, 'Don’t forget about us.'"

"Businesses can't thrive in the city if the neighborhoods are collapsed. There's increased crime, and people are afraid to come into the city,” said Pastor Andrew Connors who works with Baltimoreans United in Leadership Development (BUILD).

BUILD is a non-profit that has rehabbed homes block by block for two decades, bringing once desolate communities back to life. It caught the attention of Baltimore’s mayor, who now wants to use its model as a plan to tackle the problem city-wide, pledging $300 million in city funds to get things started.

If you drive 2 miles east of the waterfront, you’ll get to southwest Baltimore. Folks there call it "SOWEBO."

"As the population declined, we had more houses than the people to live in them,” Connors said.

READ MORE: Searching for Solutions: Waterfront development, tackling abandoned homes in Baltimore

Similar to St. Louis, Baltimore borders a thriving county. Both function with separate governments and services. Over the years, some have called for a closer look at consolidation to give the region a boost.

"Baltimore is a city that has a very rich character,” radio host Jayne Miller said.

She previously worked as a television journalist in Baltimore for more than three decades. She said too often, the city and county function as a tale of two cities.

"Many cities are part of counties. Baltimore and St. Louis are not. That means the city is cut off from county resources, a county that's financially better off than the city,” Matthew Crenson, retired John Hopkins University professor, added.

“Each has its own police department, services and fire department and school system,” Miller said. 

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Baltimore's population sits at more than 585,000 people. Compare that to Baltimore County, with a population of more than 850,000. 

"The county has a much larger population. It wasn't always that way but once everyone fled, that's where they went … there's no connection between the two other than they are adjacent to one another … this is a very clear kind of ‘us and them’ attitude," Miller said. 

READ MORE: Searching for Solutions: City, county collaboration in Baltimore

Baltimore schools are facing declining enrollment and low test scores. Baltimore Public Schools are taking non-traditional approaches to turn things around.

They say if you want different results, you have to do things differently. At Baltimore's John Ruhrah Elementary/Middle School, teachers and staff are thinking outside of the box, to remove the obstacles that have boxed them in.

“We have a lot of students who are two or more grade levels below,” Principal Mary Ancinec said.

Because there's a big influx of Spanish-speaking students who don't speak English well or at all, last school year Ruhrah started offering what's called dual-language instruction. Pre-K and kindergarten students who opt in, learn how to read and write in Spanish first, no matter their native language.

 "We have Pre-K students who are able to read very, very simple words, just sound them out and read them, which is very different and they’re very successful and you can see it on them and you can see it in our reading data too,” Ancinec said.

RELATED: Searching for Solutions: Baltimore schools think outside the box to increase test scores, enrollment