Baltimore--Tidying up in the looted and ransacked lobby of the payday loan firm where she works, Brandi Myers looked out at her devastated Baltimore community and pondered what it would take to rebuild.
"A miracle, a blessing. God? Some help? I don't know," said the 28-year-old manager of Ace Cash Express, one of more than 250 shops and businesses that were looted, burned or otherwise harmed in her city's worst rioting in decades.
"If we don't have the resources to fix all this, I feel for Baltimore."
So do many residents of Charm City, where spasms of violence after the death in police custody of an African-American man have highlighted the wealth gap in one of the poorest cities in the United States.
But when the national spotlight fades, Baltimore confronts a piercing question: how do its impoverished, neglected communities recover?
Federal, state and local leaders converged on Baltimore Tuesday to discuss ways to rehabilitate communities.
But the head of the economic development arm of Maryland's most important urban hub was not among them.
Bill Cole, president of Baltimore Development Corporation (BDC) was taking a more pro-active approach, joining the mayor in walking the streets, making sure looted neighborhood shops had what they needed to reopen and strategizing over the future of a city less than an hour's drive from the US capital, Washington.
They met with owners impacted by the unrest, helping them fill out claim applications, explaining grant procedures and offering micro-loans.
"Those small businesses are critical for the vitality and health of the city," Cole told AFP.
While rehabilitating those shops is the short-term priority, "our long-term goal obviously is to look for additional ways to create job opportunities," he said.
And that rehabilitation -- including rebuilding a $60-million senior center that was under construction but went up in flames in the heat of violent riots on April 27 -- will not come cheap.
"It's billions, with a B," Cole said of the investment dollars needed for Baltimore's poorer neighborhoods.
AFP
