Building Baltimore Better: Visions of a developer and an urban planner

Today it’s Midday on Development.  A little later in this hour, Tom speaks with Klaus Philipsen, an architect, urban planner and the president of ArchPlan, Inc., a design firm in Baltimore. He also hosts The Community Architect blog and he's the author of Baltimore: Reinventing an Industrial Legacy City.  Philipsen discusses the proposal to revive the old "dollar house" homesteading program in Baltimore City and the different urban development strategies that might help move the needle on the more than 15,000 vacant properties scattered throughout the city. Klaus Philipsen joins us on our digital line. But we begin with a Baltimore developer who has for several years built homes and commercial properties in Remington, an historic neighborhood that borders the Johns Hopkins University Homewood Campus. He’s also involved in reviving Lexington Market on Baltimore’s West Side and other projects. Thibault Manekin is the co-founder of Seawall Development. Drawing on his experience running basketball leagues in South Africa and other countries that was premised on the assumption that playing together heals deep-seated wounds, Manekin has thought about how to bridge the Black and White divide in Baltimore, and transform not just buildings, but lives. He's just published a new book, Larger Than Yourself: Reimagine Industries, Lead With Purpose, & Grow Ideas into Movements. Thibault Manekin joins us on Zoom.Email us at [email protected], tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.