Good parks, great schools, startling inequality
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8/12/2018
Columbia can be described in one word: unequal.
The neighborhood I live in, River Hill, is jam-packed with almost million-dollar homes, while the neighborhoods of Long Reach, Wilde Lake, and Harpers Choice are decaying slowly from the inside out. Taking a quick visit to any of these aforementioned neighborhoods, you will find some of Columbia's original bland, earth-colored, squat residential and commercial buildings. Taking a look long enough at them would suddenly have the buildings grow on you, until you realize that the houses and the ones around it are being plagued by white flight. Many students at the nicer schools in Howard County talk of the "ghetto" kids from the poorer neighborhoods and about their drug abuse and fighting. This was once only a stereotype, but now is becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy for the core neighborhoods of Columbia.
Columbia, once the suburban getaway from the slums of Baltimore, is now becoming Baltimore in miniature. Prohibitive housing costs in the newer neighborhoods leave poorer residents stuck in concentrated areas of semi-poverty.
Overall, Columbia, started as an idyllic planned community, is growing at a breakneck pace, but neglected to care about those left behind by the slow process of Columbia's gentrification. James Rouse's vision of an egalitarian town is fading with time, and that needs to be fixed.
I would give inner Columbia 2 stars, downtown Columbia 4 stars, and River Hill 3.5 stars.
Trevor | Columbia, MD