Scott Stanford:

Hi everybody, and welcome to The Infrastructors: the premier podcast for engaging conversations with influential thought leaders in AI, tech, government policy, and smart city innovation. Today's guest is the former mayor of Baltimore and current President of the University of Baltimore, Kurt Schmoke.

Mayor Schmoke, such an honor to have you here, sir, on The Infrastructors. Listen, before we get started and we get into the meat of this interview, I just want to go through your list of accolades because there's really one that stands out to me that I want to ask you about. I mean, Bachelor's Degree in History from Yale, Rhode Scholar at Oxford University, Harvard Law School, President Carter's White House Domestic Policy Staff, Baltimore City State's Attorney. First African American voted into office as the Mayor of Baltimore, former law school Dean at Howard University, and currently President at the University of Baltimore. Mayor Schmoke, these accolades, they're all well and good, but the one that really stands out to me, Quarterback of the City Knights with two undefeated seasons, and back-to-back conference titles in 65 and 66. I don't think you're getting enough credit for what you pulled off there, sir.

Kurt Schmoke:

Well, it stood out in my mind, but I must tell you, I was humbled by my former coach at City. You recall George Young, great history teacher and football coach who went on from our high school to become the general manager of the New York Giants.

After that first season that you just mentioned, when we went undefeated, I was out warming up to prepare for the second season. Coach Young says to me, Kurt, what are you planning to do after high school? I said, I'm applying to colleges. And he said, where? And I said, Ohio State, Penn State, Notre Dame. And he put his arm around me, and he said, I just want to tell you one thing. And I said, what's that coach? He said, you're not that good. I may have done okay in high school, but he humbled me and gave me a different list of schools to think about once I left high school. And I'm so glad that he did.

Scott Stanford:

Wow. Listen, as a New York guy who covered New York sports, I mean, George Young is a legend in New York sports.

Kurt Schmoke:

A wonderful man, just a great teacher and mentor to an awful lot of young men at City College High School in those days.

Scott Stanford:

That is unbelievable. Two back-to-back conference, isn't it funny, to his credit, where he puts his arm around you and says, you're not that good. I said this to someone the other day, said, can you imagine the talent levels at the high school and college levels, but when you get to college and the pros, the speed of the game, you're blown away by it.

Kurt Schmoke:

It's simply amazing. When I look at some of the major elite colleges, watching some of the bowl games and seeing those guys and then knowing that even they've got to ratchet that up a little bit higher to make it to the next level. It;s truly amazing to me, and I could never have done it. I'm glad that he showed me an alternative career choice.

Scott Stanford:

Well, I'm glad I could bring you back to the mid-sixties for a second. Listen, you're born and raised in Baltimore, right? At 38 years of age, you became the very first African American Mayor of the city that you were born in, which is an unbelievable accomplishment. And on the way to that prestigious office, and currently your position as the President of University of Baltimore, we ran down those lists of achievements, I mean, that's one of the best resumes I've ever seen. And when you look back on it all, can you sit back and say, you know what? I've done everything I've set out to do. And just a follow up, was there one time in your professional life that you'd consider the most challenging out of all those achievements?

Kurt Schmoke:

Well, during the time that I was a mayor, I laid out several things that I wanted to accomplish. The most important thing that I said that I wanted to do was to make Baltimore known as the city that reads. That is, have Baltimoreans committed to lifelong learning. But within that goal, I had hoped to be able to dramatically improve K-12 education, and that I was not able to achieve. We had some successes promoting lifelong literacy. In fact, you may know President Bush, the first. President Bush, gave us a national literacy award for promoting adult literacy programs. It was a challenge to try to make the entire public school system a system where excellence was the rule, not the exception. And in that effort, I was not as successful as I wanted to be. That was one of those things in life, if you had it to do over again, would you try to make even stronger efforts in that area. We worked hard, but we weren't able to succeed in making the entire system a system of excellence.

Scott Stanford:

And that is a lofty goal. Baltimore is such a vibrant, amazing, big city. The Inner Harbor, Federal Hill, National Aquarium. Even at the time of this taping, Mayor Schmoke, the Baltimore Orioles are one game above 500, if I'm correct.

Kurt Schmoke:

They're showing true grit.

Scott Stanford:

That's right. The Orioles, they're doing okay. Too often people like to talk about what's wrong with the great city of Baltimore, but I want you to talk about what's good about the city. I mean, if you were putting together a tourism brochure, tell the audience about some of the greatness that exists here in your hometown.

Kurt Schmoke:

They're absolutely wonderful strengths. It's a city of neighborhoods and there's still very strong neighborhoods, it's a diverse city in terms of not only racially diverse, but in terms of the economy. We've got some of the world's greatest medical institutions in Johns Hopkins and the University of Maryland. And then of course now tooting our own horns in higher education. When you look at the wonderful, diverse, both public and private colleges and universities, and a lot of people come there, are educated and end up staying in the community, adding to the richness of and diversity of the city.

But when I talk to people about Baltimore, not only about what we have in the city and some of the things that you mentioned, the great museums and things of that nature, but the location itself, between Washington, Philadelphia and New York, people can live here with real estate costs that are much less than DC, Philly and New York. And yet you can get to those places quickly. On the train, also our great airport. So, there are a lot of strengths in Baltimore and people are seeing it. I mean, I notice real estate developers are really investing in Baltimore.

Scott Stanford:

Mayor Schmoke, I just wanted to ask, and tell me if I'm incorrect here. You were instrumental in bringing The Ravens to Baltimore as well, correct?

Kurt Schmoke:

Yeah, it was a real partnership with the state on that. Governor Schaefer had been real advocate for bringing football back to Baltimore while a couple of years we were able to bring a Canadian football team in, and it just demonstrated it once again to the NFL that this was a strong football community and if it all possible, bring an NFL team here. The league didn't quite agree completely with our stadium authority people, but Mr. Schaefer and his folks saw the value of that location. But we were able to produce a plan that allowed the Cleveland Browns to move to Baltimore.

Scott Stanford:

Well, it took a long time to not say Baltimore Colts. I could tell you that.

Kurt Schmoke:

The NFL learned a lesson and by the time the Browns moved by leaving the name of the team, leaving that in Cleveland for possible expansion, and then we came up with a name that really fit Baltimore. But when you think about it would have been nice for them to have left The Colt name insignia and all that kind of stuff, and we could have the new Baltimore Colts.

Scott Stanford:

Right.

Kurt Schmoke:

I've seen several referees screw up in the middle of the game and say, first down, Baltimore, and the Indianapolis folks go nuts.

Scott Stanford:

I could imagine. Well, listen, Baltimore residents consider their past as they search for solutions to the city's more persistent problems. How can citizens here and elected officials that represent them address problems facing Baltimore in the future by knowing about the problems the city has faced in the past?

Kurt Schmoke:

It really is important to note that some of these things, we've been there before, we've seen those problems and overcome them. Right now, for example, we've got problems down in the Inner Harbor. It’s going through a tough time, but we have some developers who are from Baltimore who are going to get financing from the area and are committed to the city and not just to getting profit from those institutions. I mean, the pavilions down there at the Inner Harbor. So I think they're going to build on knowledge of the past and turn that around. And Harbor Place will really gleam again, that's on the economic development side on the one big social slash public safety issue that we face with the squeegee workers. That's something that other cities have dealt with, and we ought to learn from that, that it's primarily an economic issue more than a public safety issue. I mean it's a combination economic public safety, but clearly the solution is much more economic than public safety. And if we talk to one another, not at one another, we'll be able to resolve that one also.

Scott Stanford:

Back when you were mayor and even here in the present, Baltimore faces major challenges, including racial and economic inequality, crime, and unequal benefits of development and the population loss as well. All these impacts work in unequal ways. Can you tell us a little bit about the invisible barriers in the city, if you will, that may have been the cause of neighborhoods being segregated?

Kurt Schmoke:

Of course, Baltimore has the dubious distinction of being the city that created those racial covenants that were in mortgages that people had at the turn of the 20th century. There used to be in certain neighborhoods, a line in there that you couldn't lease or sell to blacks or Jews. And that even in one particular neighborhood said, no blacks, no Jews, no dogs. And that was a restriction, these covenants that fortunately got thrown out by Supreme Court decisions. But that was a legacy that we inherited going into the 20th century. And so, as our neighborhoods developed, unfortunately they were homogenous. We had Greek town, we had a little Italy area, we had the Jewish area up in Northwest Baltimore and African American community in the center. And it's taken a while for us to overcome that and break the barriers. Again, economics have led the way with more people interacting at their job, and we have more people living in integrated neighborhoods.

But it is still clearly defined by race. The biggest issue for us in the city in terms of some of the poor communities is the lack of a good mass transit system. Studies have shown, if you have to get on a bus or take a couple of bus rides for more than an hour and a half to get to a job, an hour and a half to get back, the chances of you staying on that job go down dramatically. So we needed both, a good mass transit system and we needed jobs located inside the city and not just in the suburbs and on the periphery. So that's really what's going to help us as we move forward. And that is why people were so nuts about the fact that our governor decided to kill off one of the lines, the red line, that was going to come into Baltimore, that would have helped a lot of people get to the jobs that are in suburbs.

Scott Stanford:

Unreal. Boy, you talk about a melting pot, but many studies show that the low-income neighborhoods in communities of color have a higher potential to exposure to outdoor air pollutants and have more pollutant sources. I want to talk a little bit about technology in the community, because that's really what we do here on The Infrastructors, the social, economic, and health inequities that these populations face can also make them all vulnerable to the effects of air pollution.

For example, chronic asthma. Right here at The Infrastructors, we like to look at technology and how it can help solve problems. So modern technology that analyzes types of vehicles is available that can identify these vehicles and match the information up against their remission scores. So effectively what it does is provide a hyperlocal real-time daily report as to greenhouse gas and smog scores. And the adage is true. You can't manage what you don't measure. So after all that, what's your take on better understanding communities of color and all our city communities for that fact by using technology for real time, air quality information?

Kurt Schmoke:

Scott, I think it's absolutely central, and I know that technology is one of the major answers to a number of these problems, but it's not only new technology, it's affordable technology. And that's where we sometimes run into a problem, either the cities not being able to afford the technology or individuals not being able to afford it. So as those advances continue and address a number of these climate and environmental problems, we must make sure that we are focused on costs so that they can actually be implemented on a wide scale.

Scott Stanford:

And listen, staying on our favorite topic of technology, you started and supported Baltimore CitiWatch. Is that true or no? Was that done after you?

Kurt Schmoke:

Yeah, the CitiWatch was implemented by Martin O'Malley, and was a part of his whole general city stack approach, which he modified from the way New York City did their statistical analysis. Obviously, it helps to be able to measure certain things, but it also can lead to some downsides, as we found out, as it relates to police. Because in meeting certain statistical measures, you ended up with an awful lot of unnecessary arrests. You met the number, but you really didn't need to make those kinds of arrests. So in other areas though, for example, in picking up trash or recycling, the CitiWatch efforts were really significant and taught us all a lesson about the need to measure to see whether in fact, we are succeeding as a community with the goals that we set forth.

Scott Stanford:

Mayor Schmoke, we were talking about vehicles and the emissions and using technology to follow what they give off. They are all too often involved with crimes as well. And I think the CitiWatch cameras can see the street as well as the vehicles traveling on those streets and artificial intelligence now exists that can be added to those cameras that identify makes, models, movement, and direction, as well as the license plate information. The new AI adds to the CitiWatch mission to identify and solve crimes, with an added focus on not knowing who is in those vehicles.

Kurt Schmoke:

Yeah. Scott, I am a strong supporter of expanding the use of cameras in the city. I know that it makes some people nervous because they have seen some abuses, particularly the way in which the more authoritarian regimes like in China have used that technology. But a good community conversation about it would be extremely helpful. It would make ours a safer city. I'm absolutely convinced of that because right now there are a lot of people who don't necessarily want to volunteer to come forward to testify against somebody with all the retribution that we hear about. But having cameras around that can identify perpetrators of crime so that police can just use the technology and not have to rely on human participation all the time, it would make a big difference. And I think a good community conversation about that would lead us to expand the use. I think New York City and London have expanded their use of camera technology in a very reasonable way. It would help us to do that in Baltimore.

Scott Stanford:

Profiling cars, not people. Sounds a lot better to me. Mayor Schmoke, before you go, you are the President of the University of Baltimore. College campuses are for many students their first taste of freedom from their parents' rules, but this also brings complexity of societal issues straight to campus. If you can address this for a second, how are colleges using technology to monitor campuses, to keep students safe and to solve crime? Should they happen all while really ensuring a reasonable expectation of privacy and a welcoming environment at the school?

Kurt Schmoke:

Yeah. Well, one of the things that the colleges now understand, the University of Baltimore is still a commuter institution, but all the University Presidents in the public system meet regularly. There are 12 Maryland university presidents who meet regularly. So, I know how my colleagues who have dormitories and athletic facilities and things like that have been addressing these concerns. And a lot of it has to do with early conversation with the students as they come in about expectations. They are now experiencing freedom, but they also want to make sure that they are safe moving around campus.

They are usually on buildings. There are cameras that allow people to be monitored as they walk along late at night. The library facilities have technology that they use not only for safety reasons, but to reduce theft. The biggest problem that the universities have faced, however, is a different type of technology. And that is using the internet to get papers. That is assignments. You can actually go online and get somebody else to do your papers or you can combine these documents. That has become increasingly more of a problem. It's an integrity issue. That is a great concern and there has been a lot of debate on campuses about that.

Scott Stanford:

Unbelievable. Mayor Schmoke, listen, thank you so much for your time. Ladies and gentlemen, two-time conference titled Champion in ‘65 and ‘66. I was just born, Mayor Schmoke, you were already winning conference titles back in ‘65.

Kurt Schmoke:

An athletic legend in his own mind.

Scott Stanford:

You played under the great George Young, and of course, are currently the President of the University of Baltimore. Mayor Schmoke, thank you so much for your time. It was an absolute honor, and again, the achievements in your career, just simply astonishing and legendary, my friend. Thank you so much for joining us.

Kurt Schmoke:

Appreciate it. And all the best to you.