Although I know that I have a facility for talking pretty, I also know that I’m rarely the smartest guy in the room.

To compensate, I work on discerning “the heart of the matter,” that one small thing that unlocks the meaning of a much larger thing. Understand the most essential question at play on any issue, and 90% of the chatter swirling around it sounds like Charlie Brown’s teacher.

These days Baltimore is as much a metropolis as it is a national stage for some of The American City’s most entrenched and, sadly, sensational problems, several of them on a thin line separating the tragic from the ridiculous.

Against this backdrop of urban stagnation at best and anarchy at worst is a promise of renewal called Port Covington, the largest real estate development project the city has ever considered.

Continue reading “All Watched Over By Tax Breaks Of Loving Grace” →