Lexington Market will test civic spirit

Which comes first: safe streets or more people? More people or safe streets?

The question would seem to have an obvious answer, but I don’t think there is one — at least not in this age of endless guns, with some 400 million of them in civilian hands. By one estimate, the United States, with about 4.25% of the world’s population, has 46% of all the civilian-held guns in the world. We have so many guns, so many mass shootings and so much daily violence that my which-comes-first question seems quaint and probably irrelevant.

But let’s walk through it.

If there are more people in a place — a neighborhood, a city market or an event in the public square — then opportunity for crime would seem to be reduced. A full, healthy neighborhood with vigilant residents seems less likely to invite crime, especially the violent sort, than, say, an abandoned Baltimore neighborhood with more vacant than occupied houses. That’s mere logic.

On the other hand, there’s the gun violence of America today, with a potential to erupt just about anywhere at any time.

But let’s set that horrible condition aside for the moment, and go back to my question, as it pertains to Baltimore, and more specifically, to the new Lexington Market: Which comes first, people or safety, safety or people?

In the case of Lexington Market, I think I can provide a little perspective.

If you go back to the 1970s and 1980s, when Baltimore had violent crime but not at the level we’ve seen during the last seven years, Lexington Market thrived. It had a robust weekday lunch hour, with the kind of racially mixed crowd that makes you forget about race, and it’s hard to remember an empty vendor stall in the main market. I must have eaten a quarter-million pounds of fruit salad there — and a few fried chicken livers — and my old friend, the late Turkey Joe Trabert, put away bushels of bean burritos.

Was crime a concern? I’m not sure it was. I would say it was a good 10 years later, after the crack epidemic had commenced, that we started to see more obviously strung-out people on the sidewalks and smell urine near the entrances. The place still jumped inside, with weekly live music in the since-demolished arcade, but some vendors vanished, and the crowds became less racially mixed.

These last couple of decades the market saw more crime on its fringes and less customer traffic, and we started to see more vendor stalls left empty. A rat got in a bakery case a few years ago, and the viral video of that sent word to people far and wide to stay away from Baltimore’s historic Lexington Market.

But people were already staying away, and while it’s easy to say crime and rodents were the reason, there are many explanations for the market’s hard times — changing lifestyles and culinary habits of city residents; the loss of jobs within easy walking distance of the market; the growth of the suburbs and the expansion of shopping opportunities in the counties; the racial and cultural alienation of suburbanites from city life; changing generational views of the market as a place to shop; and the long-stalled redevelopment of the numerous vacant properties within the nearby Superblock.

It was a terrible shame, because all of those issues, starting with the Superblock, could have been addressed with investment. Investment in properties and businesses, combined with the growth of the University of Maryland city campus and the Hippodrome-Everyman theater district, could have given Lexington Market a boost and reversed negative trends. But investment was a tough sell, and certainly race — the idea that only Black Baltimoreans shopped at Lexington Market — was a factor in the delays and failed attempts at kick-starting redevelopment on the west side.

That’s all history now, and a new Lexington Market will open next door to the old one. The potential for success is great, though there are plenty of naysayers convinced it will fail even before the first slab of bacon is sold. In fact, there are plenty of people, some of them reading this column right now, who will never drive to Paca or Eutaw streets to check out the new place — not until it’s safe.

But back to my question: Which comes first, safety or people, people or safety?

I see Lexington Market as a test of a Baltimorean’s civic duty and the local government’s responsibility. Mayor Brandon Scott is rightly concerned about equity in how his administration approaches all things, from economic development to neighborhood services. If anything represents equity it’s the new Lexington Market. To accomplish the mission fully, however, the Scott administration needs to make the area safe and clean. That means checking crime and picking up trash, treating the new market as the city treated Harborplace after it opened — a welcoming place for both locals and tourists.

As for the rest of us, our civic responsibility is seeing the new market succeed. That means breaking through prejudice and fear and patronizing the place.

Which comes first? People or safety? Safety or people? It must be all together all at once.