Making Good on Baltimore as a Just City: Building Solutions For A Vacant Housing Crisis Spring 2023

Making Good on Baltimore as a Just City: Building Solutions For A Vacant Housing Crisis will be a field study and community development workshop course. The course will move alongside a community development course taught by Tonya Sanders, Ph.D., AICP, Associate Professor at Morgan State University (MSU) in the City and Regional Planning Program (CREP). Additional stakeholders in the practicum include the Baltimore City Department of Housing and Community Development, Fight Blight Baltimore, and Hello Happy Design.

What this practicum seeks to do is rethink the concept of stakeholder engagement in vacant housing underutilized infrastructure in Baltimore. Students will engage the idea of using Citizen Engineers to explore how the current demolish vacant building initiative by the City of Baltimore can integrate resident perspective in the city’s neighborhood stabilization initiatives. Part of this course will also explore how emerging vacant building assessment digital technology certification in the job market is linked to banking and economies. The primary deliverable will be writing a citizen engagement plan. During the practicum experience, students will create their personal theory of practice, develop their reflective practice strategies, and learn and deploy engaging community strategies.