The Implications of Zoning Changes in Baltimore

Baltimore, Maryland, USA

By Grace Paik
zoning, real estate, development, baltimore

In 2017, the zoning for the whole city of Baltimore changed. The new zoning is complicated and there are not enough maps comparing the changes.

This mapping project was inspired by the 2017 zoning changes in Baltimore, Maryland. There have been maps provided by city agencies showing some of these changes, but I had a hard time finding one map that compared the new zoning changes with the previous zoning, which was far less complicated.

Also, the new zoning has many different subcategories. New zoning maps do include other areas of interests like historical districts and designated business districts, but did not include the old zoning. Real estate development maps do show new projects, but without the new zoning.

There are three goals of this map and website. First is to group the new zoning data into simpler, more understandable categories.

Second is to compare the zoning changes, layered with current development projects, in a way that is easy to read and navigate. And third is to bring awareness that there is development, and a lot of it, happening in Baltimore, which is indicative of large, imminent forces of gentrification.

I also wanted to make complex and perhaps inaccessible data about zoning accessible to those who aren’t involved in urban planning and similar disciplines, especially when the city makes decisions on behalf of the community who will be impacted by these decisions.

Data included in this map was accessed via Open Baltimore and via the maps created by the Mayor’s Office of Information Technology. Data were modified by data cleaning and processing, using QGIS, Carto, Mapbox, and Glitch.