Thursday, December 18, 2025, episode of the podcast The Excerpt: Baltimore leaders say a major new effort to tackle vacant homes could be a turning point for the city. USA TODAY reporter Andrea Rikier explains the strategy, the political and financial risks, and what success or failure could signal for cities across the country.
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Dana Taylor:
Baltimore has spent decades solving its most enduring challenges. Thousands of vacant buildings are hollowing out neighborhoods and fueling cycles of crime, poverty, and disinvestment. Their success so far has been spotty. That is until now. Now, with new housing growing in this corner of the city, neighborhoods revitalized and crime falling, leaders say the stars are finally aligned to launch the most ambitious revitalization effort in a generation.
Hello. Welcome to this excerpt from USA TODAY. I’m Dana Taylor. Today is Thursday, December 18, 2025. USA TODAY reporter Andrea Rikier joins us to explain why Baltimore believes this moment could be a turning point in the long fight against urban blight and how it affects other cities facing similar battles. Andrea, thank you so much for having me.
Andrea Riquier:
Hey, Danna. Thank you for having me.
Dana Taylor:
You’ve sketched a clear divide between places like Park Heights, which are seeing revitalization, and sandy towns where residents say they feel forgotten. What can you tell us about these two very different regions?
Andrea Riquier:
of course. One of the things I wanted to highlight in this story is how difficult decisions have to be made when there are so many vacant properties all over the city. And while some districts will take action first, others will have to wait a while. Now Park Heights, which happens to be where Mayor Scott grew up, is the beneficiary of some funding and some revitalization efforts.
But I visited another area where I was told they haven’t seen it yet. The strategies that have been revealed to combat vacant homes seem a bit contradictory, but they need to be intentional and worked hard. I think that’s exactly what the City Council member explained to me. You can’t just pick one house on one block in one neighborhood here because that’s where someone bought their home.
One of the things that always happens is that the number of vacant homes does not exist statically, so we have to tackle the problem thoroughly. People are constantly moving and going into foreclosure. Houses come in all the time on the vacant house list, but I want to be very intentional, so I can’t lift entire blocks with hard edges. The mayor wants to be very intentional. This is the challenge. How do we implement grassroots, bottom-up, intentional neighborhood collaboration strategies that are strong enough to actually make a difference?
Dana Taylor:
Mayor Brandon Scott sees the vacancy strategy as parallel to a long-term approach to crime, consistency, patience and resistance to ad hoc responses. Andrea, according to your reporting, is that a fair comparison? And does he have the same political runway to make it work?
Andrea Riquier:
The mayor led a truly sweeping change in direction on violent crime in his first term. He is currently in his second term. Some may question some of the numbers, but overall my report seems to confirm that crime is indeed down significantly. It was tough to win. There’s a super documentary about his efforts called The Body Politic. And it really shows how he’s identified a different strategy than the kind of broken windows enforcement strategy that Baltimore has tried before.
Many didn’t think it would work, but another part of fighting crime was not only identifying a strategy, but sticking to it even if it took a while to see results. Yes, crime is definitely on the decline. Again, there’s some question as to how much, but it’s decreasing. And now I think he certainly has the political capital from residents and voters to try to tackle this other big issue. How much political capital he has, how patient some of these other regions are. That’s the big question.
Dana Taylor:
Some long-time residents you spoke to say they’ve heard about big ambitions before, but haven’t seen any meaningful change in their blocks. What do they share with you?
Andrea Riquier:
This is the problem. Then again, Mayor Scott is not the first person to bring big ideas to the table. Nor is he the first person to arrive with big ideas and money. I spoke to a woman in Sandtown, the neighborhood I mentioned earlier, and she said there were squatters across the street and their houses were on fire. As things progress in this city, it can be not only inconvenient, but dangerous.
Dana Taylor:
Baltimore leaders say they have reached a tipping point where the housing market is healthy enough again that private capital will flow naturally. Based on what you’ve heard, how realistic is that idea, and how close or far is the city from reaching it?
Andrea Riquier:
That’s a very realistic idea. Evidence of this temporary tipping point can be seen elsewhere. The question is how to calculate it. How do you plan your finances based on that? There are so many factors, from the macro to the micro, the state of the economy, the state of other housing markets near Baltimore, etc., that it’s very difficult to pinpoint exactly how much public funding will be needed and how much private funding will be expected.
Dana Taylor:
There is disagreement about the size of the assessment gap. Why is there so little agreement on the numbers and what does that uncertainty mean for the success of the plan?
Andrea Riquier:
The evaluation gap is basically what we just talked about. How much can a renovated property sell for compared to what it costs to buy and develop? So while there may not be as much demand right now, a finished home in Baltimore, which is a very healthy and vibrant city similar to Boston or Philadelphia, for example, will sell for more on the open market.
Dana Taylor:
A large part of the plan hinges on raising the remaining $1.8 billion from private and philanthropic sources. What are the biggest risks if the funds don’t materialize or don’t materialize quickly enough?
Andrea Riquier:
If that happens, I think these efforts will be seen as failures, just like other efforts have been in the past. The reason I heard this again and again when reporting this story is because this time the scale of the resources deployed was different. If everyone doesn’t come together, or if everyone doesn’t come together quickly enough, it can just disappear.
Dana Taylor:
Andrea, you write that there were moments when redevelopment efforts were derailed by violence and mistrust, like Mr. Cruz’s refusal to work on Johnston Square. What happened there?
Andrea Riquier:
A really compelling story that I heard from this developer is that he went into this area called Johnston Square and started working with one of the local organizers. And he really prioritized and cared about grassroots work with the community rather than a top-down approach. His commitment to development began at a young age when he worked in a very sad city called Camden, New Jersey.
And he had to convince this woman that this time we were really going to fulfill these big promises. And she spent months rallying the entire neighborhood. And suddenly, right where construction was supposed to start, a small act of drug-related violence broke out. and the crew refused to start work. And he had to call her and say, “Regina, this isn’t going to happen.”
And she said, “You’re here. You call yourself a people person. You’re just like everyone else.” And it took a really long time to rebuild that trust and say, “Look, it’s not that we won’t do the work, but we’re not going to start right away,” he said. But in a city like Baltimore that’s undergoing a lot of change, if you take too long to get things moving, you can lose trust and people who want to work with you. He said that’s what happened in his organization and that there could be violence, drug-related violence, or the fires that we talked about earlier.
Dana Taylor:
Areas like Carrollton Ridge, which has the most fires and other safety concerns, appear to be in the worst condition. How do leaders decide which districts get help first and who is basically told to wait?
Andrea Riquier:
I don’t know that there is a master plan for the city, and I think that’s what some critics are criticizing. I don’t know what it feels like to be told to wait from above. Even just talking to some of the Sandtown guys I mentioned earlier in the car, I can tell there’s a lot of frustration. They say we just don’t see it.
Dana Taylor:
What are the signs to watch in 2026 that indicate whether this renaissance is gaining momentum or starting to stall?
Andrea Riquier:
I’ll be watching to see if more capital is raised, if municipal bonds come to market, how those bonds are received by the investment community, if philanthropy is stepped up, if there’s more commitment from the state, and if developers continue to want to bid on projects because I believe there will be a receptive market for real estate sales and rentals. There’s so much to see in Baltimore.
Dana Taylor:
And finally, Andrea, how can or can Baltimore’s success be applied to other cities suffering from urban epidemics?
Andrea Riquier:
What’s really interesting about Baltimore is that it’s unique in some ways. It’s not just the sheer scale of abandoned and vacant homes, but some wonder if Detroit is the only city with such a large number of abandoned homes. Other particularly rusty industrial, industrial Northeast, and Midwestern cities are also experiencing epidemics, such as Pittsburgh.
But in a way, what’s interesting about Baltimore is that at the same time it has this big problem, it’s in a great location on the Atlantic Ocean, about an hour from Washington, D.C., and it has very expensive housing, and it’s not far from Philadelphia, it’s not far from New York. So if Baltimore can really make some progress on crime, open space, we may reach that tipping point that we talked about much sooner than people realize.
Dana Taylor:
Andrea Rikier is a USA TODAY reporter covering housing and urban development. Andrea, thank you so much for reporting on this show. I’m glad you’re here.
Andrea Riquier:
Thank you, Danna. be careful.
Dana Taylor:
Thanks to Senior Producer Kaely Monahan for her production assistance, Executive Producer will be Laura Beatty. Let us know what you think about this episode by sending a note to the podcast at usatoday.com. Thank you for your attention. I’m Dana Taylor. Tomorrow morning, we’ll be back with another episode of USA TODAY Excerpts.
