Walking past the site of the now-demolished Madison Park North apartments on Easter weekend, I stopped to notice a sign with a drawing of the new buildings going up in the neighborhood. It reads, “Working Together to Realize a New Vision for Madison Park North,” but, with a marker, someone had altered the sign to say, “Working Together to Realize a New Vision for White People.”

As my dad read the altered title aloud, a young woman stopped nearby. “Yes, exactly,” she said. She told me community members have not been involved in the process of revitalizing the area, and she believed the developers are simply building from the ground up. No one in the neighborhood will be able to afford the new homes, she said.

To the left of the sign, another board brands the development as part of Project C.O.R.E, the $700 million joint effort between the state and city focused on revitalizing old or vacant Baltimore properties. According to the Department of Housing and Community Development, the project aims to support community growth in Baltimore City, eliminate as many whole blocks of blight as possible and encourage investment in those demolished communities through attractive financing options and other incentives. Madison Park North is the newest victim of this effort.

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