In this design competition, New Strategies for the "Undercrowded" Baltimore Neighborhood: Encouraging Neighborhoods of Choice and Diversity, students were challenged to propose phycial design interventions which would help reverse the pattern of deterioration and disinvestment within the Middle East Baltimore Neighborhood. 

The competition posed two key questions: 

1.  How should urban neighborhoods with large numbers of vacant houses and lots mixed in with occupied dwellings be redesigned and redeveloped at lower densities? 

2.  What physical amenities are necessary for depopulated neighborhoods to become communities
of choice for market-rate rental housing and homeownership? 

The competition asked for  neighborhood- and block-scale designs for the "creative rearrangement" of the built environment — homes and open space— that would  make it appealing to potential market rate investment.  This competition sought to help urban neighborhoods proactively formulate new approaches and prototypes that incorporate the kinds of amenities and urban design elements that are characteristic of enduringly strong residential neighborhoods while also recognizing that inclusion of such amenities is not an automatic guarantee of success.

This competiton was sponsored by The Neighborhood Design Center, 1401 Hollins Street, Baltimore, Maryland.