Fighting the Blight: Nneka N'namdi on reclaiming city neighborhoods

Today on Midday, a few different takes on the subject of housing. A little later, WYPR’s Aaron Henkin, the host of WYPR's new podcast The Maryland Curiosity Bureau, will join me to talk about his reporting on the Baltimore dollar house program.Then, our theater critic, J Wynn Rousuck, will review a production of Rent, the Tony Award and Pulitzer prize-winning musical that opened on Broadway 25 years ago. But we begin with Nneka N’namdi, an activist who is working to eliminate blighted housing in our city. The Dollar House program in the 1970s was seen as a big step forward. The Vacants to Value initiative in the administration of Mayor Stephanie Rawlings Blake made some progress, but the number of vacant properties, about 16,000, hasn’t changed significantly over the last decade. Nneka N’namdi describes herself as a “technoartivist,” who is applying her tech and creative skills to the cause of restoring neighborhoods that are ravaged by blight. She is the founder of the non-profit, Fight Blight BMore. Nneka N'namdi joins us on Zoom…Email us at [email protected], tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.