Facing serious budget shortfalls, the Baltimore city government has offloaded 14 youth rec centers since Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake took office in 2010. While private groups and the school system have taken over ten of the centers, four have closed entirely—all of them in West Baltimore. During the street protests last week, the rec centers emerged as a focal point for residents who see them as a blatant sign of neglect and misplaced priorities.
But the forces that prompted the city to pull funding from its rec centers also reveal why it will be so challenging for Baltimore to move forward, despite new calls for dramatic change. Both the city of Baltimore and the Maryland state government have been grappling with budget shortfalls that will make it harder for officials to turn their promises of sweeping change into a reality. Rawlings-Blake inherited a massive budget deficit when she came into office, prompting austerity measures that included not only public pension cuts and deferred infrastructure projects, but also reductions to “building upkeep, prisoner re-entry and mentoring programs, Arts and Culture funding” and other city services in Fiscal Year 2013, according to an outside report commissioned by the mayor.
