Community Reflection

While I go into detail about what I observed in the blog posts that serve as my field artifacts, I wanted to write a more holistic reflection. This project was truly enlightening, as it helped me get to know the Baltimore community. A city that often carries an unfair reputation met me as a young adult eager to study community and explore urban life with warmth and openness. Through my fieldwork, I saw how people shape cities through care and compassion, one conversation and one exchange at a time.

Of course, I also noticed a fading of voices as neighborhoods change. While my project focused mainly on markets, I could see clear disparities between spaces like Lexington Market and Northeast Market. I found myself wondering what Lexington Market looked like before its renovation. Yet its transformation also reminded me that markets evolve and survive by adapting their identities over time. Perhaps the way to sustain third spaces is through these kinds of investments. Then again, such changes often come with higher costs, which may exclude the very communities that give these spaces life.

Maybe we need to look at more accessible spaces, such as informal markets, where exchange happens naturally. Still, those spaces are centered around commerce. What about third spaces that exist beyond buying and selling? How can intergenerational connection happen there? Although I did not have the chance to explore that question this term, I hope to continue it next term by examining how we can create spaces that foster both community and intergenerational belonging.

To me, policy should not only protect physical spaces but also nurture emotional belonging and the shared rituals that make a community feel like home.