Future City

Schools in Baltimore City have struggled over the years, and face a potential $60 million budget shortfall in 2021. Meanwhile lawmakers are debating whether or not to fully fund the recommendations of the Kirwan Commission.  

On this episode of Future City, the monthly conversation on innovative responses to the city’s most pressing problems, we ask what it’s going to take to make Baltimore City schools the best that they can be. We explore how improvements to school buildings, wrap-around services and curriculum changes can be paid for and what Baltimore can learn from other jurisdictions. 

In the spring of 2019, Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh resigned amid the fallout from the “Healthy Holly” scandal, where she struck more than $800,000 in deals to sell copies of her self-published children books. Although she’d lost the support of the City Council, they had no power to remove her unless she was convicted of a crime. 

That incident led many to question the way the Baltimore City government is structured. Mayors of Baltimore have a lot of power relative to mayors in many other cities because of our so-called strong mayor system. And some on the City Council are trying to change that through charter amendments that would make major changes to how the city government is run.

Erricka Bridgeford is a co-creator of Baltimore Ceasefire 365, an organization that seeks to end homicides in the city. The group organizes quarterly ceasefire weekends, asking Baltimoreans to handle conflict nonviolently while celebrating life and sharing resources. They also practice healing rituals at the sites of homicides and offer support to the surviving friends and families of homicide victims.

Bridgeford spoke to Future City producer Mark Gunnery for a special podcast extra to accompany this month’s episode "Baltimore’s Different”: Gangs, Youth, And Stopping Violence.

For the fifth year in a row, the annual number of homicides in Baltimore has surpassed 300. Young people have been at the forefront of the city’s violence. On this month’s episode of Future City, we discuss violence in Baltimore, how it affects young people in particular, gangs in the city and efforts to end cycles of retaliatory violence.

Baltimore is at the center of the lead crisis in the U.S., and generations of Baltimoreans have been poisoned by the heavy metal. How did lead exposure become such a drastic problem here in Baltimore? And how can the city deal with lead poisoning in a lasting and comprehensive way?

In 2015, there were over seven-hundred Confederate monuments displayed in cities, parks, and towns throughout the United States. Since that time more than 25 American cities have removed one or more Confederate monuments from public view, sparking a heated national debate - Is this revisionist history or an attempt at rectifying a historical wrong? The country is extremely divided. Baltimore's four explicitly Confederate statues were removed during the night in August of 2017. In this episode, Wes asks experts to contextualize these monuments and their purpose, while asking how we will address memorials and historical memory in our future cities. 

Trends are suggesting that fewer and fewer people will be opting for a four-year college degree in the future. The average student who takes out student loans ends up with nearly 30,000 dollars to pay back, and many graduates just aren’t seeing a return on their investment: About 44% of graduates end up at a job that doesn’t require a college degree.

So what is the future of higher education? Some say it’s vocational and trade schools – programs that offer more technical training in specialized fields – many which traditionally haven’t required a bachelor’s degree.

But is our education system set up for students in vocational schools to succeed? What about students who don’t go to college? What sort of economic outlooks will they be looking at?

Over 3.4 billion people use social media, but with privacy concerns and accusations of false information – what’s the future of internet use? New social media sites are emerging pitching authenticity and transparency, but are consumers willing to make the switch to new platforms? Wes discusses media, marketing strategies, and the future of the internet on this episode. 

Here in Maryland, there are nearly 4,000 children in foster care. With so many children in need, how do we ensure a future where children, parents, and foster parents are all provided with the best possible care? Wes discusses interracial adoption, foster parents, biological parents, and the emotional realities of this complex system. 

With the highest imprisonment rate in the world, the United States is long overdue to address the issue of mass incarceration. With 2.2 million people behind bars in this country, what have been the effects? Has our prison system worked? We’re looking to examples in Europe to learn more. Many European models focus on rehabilitation rather than retribution. While some here in the U.S. remain skeptical about the European method of incarceration, many are beginning to implement changes and programs that take best practices from European countries and apply them here in the U.S.

When many of us think of the modern workplace, we start thinking about the images we’ve seen of Facebook and Google headquarters: open floorplans, fooseball tables, designer beanbag chairs. Maybe we don’t picture an office at all. Instead, we picture someone telecommuting from home in their pajamas. But do either of these images reflect the reality of the modern workplace? And what trends are emerging that are changing our conceptions about the needs of workers in the 21st century? On this edition of Future City, Wes explores the future of workplaces. 

We live in a society deeply invested in ownership. It’s been the classic way to gain, sustain, and grow family wealth. It’s been the mark of adulthood and stability. Ownership – of a car, of a house, of a phone, clothes - has been a ‘given’ for most of recent history. But will this remain the case? With the rise of the so-called sharing economy and the popularity of Marie Kondo-style minimalism, ownership doesn’t always hold the same appeal.

The National Institute on Drug Abuse reports that Every day, more than 130 people in the United States die after overdosing on opioids. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that the total "economic burden" of prescription opioid misuse alone in the United States is $78.5 billion a year, including the costs of healthcare, lost productivity, addiction treatment, and criminal justice involvement.

And frankly, the problem is only getting worse. Opioid overdoses increased 30 percent from July 2016 through September 2017 in 52 areas in 45 states.

This is a national health care emergency – and a national tragedy.

So what’s being done about it? Today on the show we’ll be exploring the personal impacts of opioid and drug addiction… The tolls on families… And what states and cities are doing to address this is issue as the healthcare crisis that it is.

Accordinding to The College Board, 71 percent of graduates from four-year colleges carried debt, with students at public schools owing an average of $25,550 and those with degrees from private colleges owing an average of $32,300.

So what’s the solution? Consider the relatively low cost of a community college education - Average annual tuition and fees for students attending public, two-year colleges in their communities were just $3,260 in 2013-2014.

With so many people priced out of higher education – what’s the future of colleges – and where do community colleges fit into this changing landscape?

It’s the holidays – and maybe you still have some last-minute shopping to do. But how are you doing that shopping? Is it the same way you were doing your holiday shopping five years ago – fifteen years ago? Are you driving to a mall – are you hitting up your local shops – or are you ordering packages on Amazon?

Wes takes a look at retail and the future of commerce here in the United States – especially considering the seemingly limitless growth of online-commerce based businesses like Amazon. He then focuses in on Baltimore, and how our retail industry is changing and growing. What’s working, what isn’t?

Music has long been used as protest. Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Joan Baez, John Lennon, and CCR, and so many others, used their music as a way to protest the Vietnam War. They wrote songs that addressed systemic injustices and sought to unite people through the power of their music.

Today, many musicians are doing the same.

Music as activism is constantly growing and evolving, and art continues to be a vital medium for expression and dialogue.

Today on the show we’re looking at the Arts… Arts as Activism. We’ll be talking with musicians and visual artists about how their art is intertwined with their activism. 

On this episode, Wes explores the future of security. In World War II we had air raid drills; in the 1960s,  we had duck and cover drills; today, we have active shooter drills. Guests discuss everything from emergency procedures to internet safety in our home. Wes also explores questions surrounding the tension between privacy and security. 

Police departments in our country are struggling. In 2015, Gallup reported that public confidence in police was at a historic 22-year low. This was the same year Baltimore was rocked by Freddie Grey’s case and subsequent city-wide riots. While support has grown since then, the disconnect between the public and the police is palpable. 

What are the messages out there for future cops? Is this a profession that people aspire to? And what are police departments doing to mend relations with the public – possibly enticing new recruits in the process?

Questions about the status of immigrants, refugees, and asylum seekers has reached a crisis point – with children being separated from their parents at the border under a zero-tolerance federal policy – many are asking what is the future of immigration?

On today’s show we’ll be breaking down complex legal terms… We’ll be exploring our country’s historical immigration policies… and what’s at stake for newcomers to this country.

Art puts the Charm in Charm City. But with federal budget cuts that threaten the Arts, what does the future look like for arts education and cultural initiatives? 

The Trump Administration’s budget for 2019 calls for eliminating four federal cultural agencies in a move that would save almost $1 billion from a $4.4 trillion spending plan – these cultural agencies include National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Institute of Museum and Library Services and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

These funding cuts are indicative of a disturbing trend in both federal and state budgets that place little emphasis on the arts. Arts education in schools is particularly vulnerable – with more quote ‘employable’ disciplines lines math and science being emphasized – many educators are worried subjects like music, art, and literature will be poorly funded, or in some cases, cut altogether.

On this episode, Wes learns about the power of arts education on students long-term and talks with local arts educators, activisists, and non-profit leaders. 

A new study by the McKinsey Global Institute estimates that between 400 million and 800 million of today’s jobs will be automated by 2030. The road toward total automation has some people exhilarated… and some people very, very concerned. With robots taking so many jobs, what will the future of work look like here in the United States? 

This is where the idea of “universal basic income” comes in. We’re going to be exploring the idea that everyone, no matter what, gets a certain amount of money from the government in depth on this month's episode. Some say UBI will address the inevitable lack of jobs in an automated age, while others say this is apocalyptic thinking that could bankrupt the nation. 

All trends point to the number of independent voters only increasing as the divide between the two major parties grows wider and wider… So what will our future cities look like in terms of party politics? Is this the end of the party system altogether or is the time ripe for a new party to gain national traction? On this episode, Wes explores the history of the two-party system and asks if it's possible for a third party to gain any traction in our current political landscape. 

In this encore edition of Future City, Wes explores how Baltimore is working to keep pace with the burgeoning Maker Movement, a lifestyle and philosophy based on the idea that a do-it-yourself attitude changes lives for the better. Is the movement really all its proponents say it’s cracked up to be?  Or is it leaving women and the disadvantaged on the sidelines? 

What do you think of when you think of a Smart City? Wi-fi hubs, self-driving vehicles, maybe…  but what about data analysis and research institutions? In this hour, Wes explores the idea of Smart Cities – connectivity hubs that use big data to change the way we interact in urban environments. We’ll be learning from the example of Seattle, Washington – a city that just hired a Smart City Coordinator and has been leading the way when it comes to urban innovation – we’ll then speak with two leaders at Johns Hopkins devoted to making city government more efficient and effective.