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Baltimore — Stroll just a few blocks in Baltimore with Mayor Brandon Scott, and there isn’t any lacking the issue: The town has 1000’s of broken-down, boarded-up row homes, the results of a protracted civic spiral, with individuals and companies leaving and blight and crime shifting in.
“When it seems to be like somebody would not care, proper, individuals who need to do unhealthy issues are going to return,” Scott advised CBS Information when requested concerning the relationship between constructing vacancies and crime.
Scott, who has served as mayor since 2020, counters, although, that regardless of the view on the bottom in sure areas, Baltimore is a modified metropolis that’s displaying main enchancment.
Since 2019, when Baltimore’s homicide price hit an all-time excessive, based on metropolis knowledge — and had one of many highest murder charges within the nation — one thing has certainly modified. The variety of vacant buildings is down 25%, the inhabitants grew in 2024, and murders have hit a virtually 50-year low, per metropolis knowledge.
“It is a 15-year, $3 billion technique of how we’ll take care of vacants in Baltimore, block by block,” Scott mentioned.
President Trump, nonetheless, has held onto a far grimmer image, declining Democratic Maryland Gov. Wes Moore’s invitation final 12 months to stroll Baltimore’s streets.
“I am not strolling in Baltimore proper now,” Mr. Trump mentioned in August of 2025. “Baltimore is a hellhole.”
The president even floated the concept of sending within the Nationwide Guard, as he has elsewhere. In his State of the Union handle Tuesday evening, Mr. Trump took credit score for the discount within the homicide price nationwide.
“Baltimore’s liable for Baltimore,” Scott mentioned when requested about Mr. Trump’s remarks. “We have now a method.”
That technique consists of concentrating on these most definitely to commit gun violence.
Scott additionally confirmed CBS Information areas which might be seeing new housing building. And as blighted buildings come down, piles of illegally dumped trash are getting picked up. In a single case, the pickup occurred simply minutes after the mayor noticed the trash whereas strolling with a CBS Information crew.
“They’re coming to select it up proper now,” Scott advised CBS Information.
It is all a part of a reversal the mayor hopes means an replace to his metropolis’s fame.
“We’re doing all of this collectively as a result of Baltimoreans imagine that we’re the best comeback story within the nation,” Scott mentioned.
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