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It’s another one of those crazy car mornings over here. There are two articles worth taking a look at today, both in the Baltimore Banner.

Hispanic, Asian, multiracial population growth boosted Howard County in 2023, Ramsey Archibald, Baltimore Banner

And:

Columbia is good for families. But can it draw more young professionals?, Jess Nocera and Abby Zimmardi, Baltimore Banner

Both seem to me to be pieces of a larger puzzle which might be called, “Who comes, who stays, who leaves. And: why?”

One thing I noticed in the article about young professionals was that the only visually identifiable Black resident in any of the photos was the County Executive. I can’t automatically tell you what that means but it definitely means something.

I’m not saying that it was the Banner’s job to seek out a suitable number of young professional Black people to round out their photographs. But I am wondering if Columbia has Third Spaces where young Black professionals feel comfortable and are thriving. I wonder if the reporters who wrote the article saw the attitudes and inclusion of Black Columbians as something that matters.

It matters.

Attracting young professionals is a big goal of the Howard Hughes Corporation and a lot of their recent work seems to be geared at attracting young folks with buying power. Still, largely because of the long gap in Downtown Columbia’s development, much of what they have done feels like pockets of urban living “dropped into suburbia without the means to be successfully interconnected and functional.”

It doesn’t feel organic. Granted, someday it may. Right now it feels rather like that small expensive piece of decor that the tv home designers claim will “bring a moment of luxury to the room.”

Also of note: the Columbia Association’s brief foray into caring about what the young people think with the advent of the (ill-fated) Millennial Advisory Committee. By the time they got around to reaching out to Millennials I wonder if they were aware that Gen Z was coming and would matter, too.

I don’t know. This is not a critique. Think of it as morning musings on a Columbia theme.

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