Gentrification is a dirty word in many Baltimore City neighborhoods, especially among activists and community leaders in minority communities. Disinvestment in inner-city neighborhoods has resulted in boarded-up and vacant properties, unemployment, low academic achievement and the flight of the black middle class.

These are the communities where white residents with college degrees begin to invest, and where private developers seize on opportunities to invest in both residential and neighborhood commercial development: cafes, bookstores, boutiques, etc.

Activists view the traditional definition of gentrification as the process of renewal and rebuilding accompanying the influx of middle-class or affluent people into deteriorating areas that often displace poorer residents.

Such neighborhoods include Sharp-Leadenhall, lower Charles Village, Middle East, Station North, Reservoir Hill and, soon, Greenmount West. These neighborhoods were traditionally a mix of black homeowners and renters, and they have been or will be gentrified.

These neighborhoods are on the rise. Demographics show a change in educational attainment, increased incomes and development of neighborhood-based businesses, and the new residents are primarily white; middle-income blacks are not participating by choice. I suspect that the black middle class will follow as the initial risks dissipate.

In neighborhoods that were formerly targeted for the abundance of public housing and low-income, multi-family development, the process of gentrification is slower or nonexistent due to governmental restrictions. However, recent initiatives are taking place to remove barriers for acquisition of select developments within amenable neighborhoods. These communities include Johnston Square, Oldtown, and Greenmount West.

In Baltimore, gentrification must be embraced in our challenged neighborhoods. Activists and community leaders must embrace gentrification by buying and revitalizing real estate and increasing the social, economic and political power of residents.

To meet the concerns of legacy residents (owner-occupied homeowners and tenants), incentives can be provided to both new investors and the legacy residents. Already the incentives are in place for developers and senior homeowners with tax credits. As for legacy tenants, rent increases will occur over time.

An incentive for retention of these tenants is to provide an opportunity to for them to convert to a homeowner. This can be accomplished with access to a community-based organization that provides both loan and rehabilitation services as was done with the Neighborhood Housing Services program in Patterson Park, Govans and Irvington neighborhoods. In addition, for those legacy residents who wish to remain tenants, tax incentives may be provided to the property owner.

Gentrification is necessary to improve public safety and education. Criminals have a tendency of moving from areas of improvement and activism to areas of less activity. In addition, invested neighbors contribute volunteerism and participation in community schools, thus, improving children's performance.

Rather than condemn gentrification, activists and community leaders must be prepared to manage it. And our black middle class must participate to remove the perception that gentrification means the removal of poor black folks and the abandonment of middle-class black folk.

Ronald Miles, Baltimore

The writer, a resident of Reservoir Hill who grew up in East Baltimore, has worked in a variety of roles in community building and housing here and in other cities.