For the record, I don't like Starbucks. They just don't make coffee as well as good, dedicated local cafes do. I got my coffee chops going to Berkeley's storied cafes. When Starbucks was a new company, they opened a store in Berkeley and were received with indifference. 15 years later, I have to admit that a city's desirability and popularity for further retail investment seems to require the imprimatur of Starbucks.
By my reckoning, in 2004, when I first moved to Baltimore, there were 5 stores in Baltimore City (1 in Mt. Washington, 2 in the Inner Harbor, 1 in downtown, 1 in Canton). Apparently, seven more have sprouted in the last three years within 5 miles of the city center. Compared to Washington, D.C.'s 86 within a 5 mile radius, this is a drop in the bucket. I can imagine that visitors to Baltimore, used to name-brand experiences, would have found this dearth of Starbucks bothersome. To me and, I hope, to other Baltimore residents, it was a boon, since we get to have home-grown cafes that actually promote a sense of place. There are three fantastic cafes within a 15 minute walk from my house, Metropolitan, Spoons, and Koba Cafe, all owned and operated by local entrepreneurs who provide a great service to their neighborhoods. This claim can be made by many of Baltimore's neighborhoods.
In the 50s and earlier, Baltimore's downtown was a bustling shopping district with grand department stores on what is now a ruined stretch of Howard Street. Suburban flight and the rise of shopping malls pretty much killed retail in the core city. Not until these last couple of years has Baltimore seen downtown openings of well-known national chains such as Barnes & Noble, Best Buy and SuperFresh. In other parts of Baltimore, Safeways and Whole Foods openings signal neighborhood gentrification. But to me, one of the most interesting prospects is the commitment by Target to open up a store in the
Mondawmin shopping mall near Druid Hill Park. This Target will serve a largely African American community in a part of town that isn't actually gentrifying as far as I can tell
[1]. The immediate neighborhood, Mondawmin, is described by the
Live Baltimore web-site as "perhaps the most diverse square mile in Baltimore...of young professionals, retirees and just good hard working folks, where each block has its own character."
If access to high quality goods and services is a social benefit, then these retail developments are positive. As to the first part of the title of this post, "Canaries in the coal mine", I worry a bit for the health of locally-owned stores. But I'd like to think they will be able to thrive quite well against the likes of Starbucks, because of the long-standing relationships they've built with their neighbors. The second part of the title, "signs of life", refers to the prospect that the long period of disinvestment from Baltimore is finally coming to an end. Whether retail leads to repopulation and economic revitalization, or follows it, it remains an indicator of the direction of change worth paying attention to.
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You can see a comparison of Starbucks densities amongst different cities
here.
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[1] Look
here for a diagram of housing values and Target store locations relative to Mondawmin.
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