I’m living and raising a family in a struggling city, and I won't pretend that this hasn't influenced my history of America in recent decades. I feel close to this struggle every morning when I read the newspaper. You may be familiar with Baltimore because of a movie or television program. If you watched The Wire, you probably have a mental picture of dark streets, warehouses, and crime. We have plenty of those. Baltimore is typical of the East Coast port cities that have been having severe problems for many years now, have had one or more surges of inner-city revival, and are continuing to look for ways to deal with drugs, crime, and commercial decay.

Each city has, of course, its own particular qualities and history. In Baltimore, for instance, there are several enclaves within the city where the big old houses of yesterday's urban elite have not been broken into apartments, one of the first steps toward decay. My family and I live happily on one of those urban islands, Guilford, eight minutes from my university and twelve minutes from my young daughters’ school.