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Community Concerns
Community concerns about environmental needs and conditions in the Gwynns Falls Watershed are as
important as scientific and technical information about local environmental and social conditions.
The Importance of the Community Perspective
Residents see their communities and their environment with an understanding that combines elements
of history, local economics, quality of life, and human sociology. These views may be unscientific, but
they are often extremely perceptive. In addition, residents – and therefore their concerns – must be at
the heart of any successful strategy to improve the conditions of the Gwynns Falls Watershed.
In the following pages we briefly present and summarize efforts, by the Revitalizing Baltimore project,
to record community concerns within the Gwynns Falls Watershed.
Trash and recreational and educational opportunities for youth are consistently voiced by Baltimore
region residents as primary concerns, while issues such as forest health and water quality fall farther
down the list of concerns even in forums that are focused on natural resources. This indicates that
residents and environmental professionals alike need to find ways of addressing these primary community
concerns at the same time as they work to solve other, perhaps more environmentally important,
issues of development, deforestation, runoff, water quality, or habitat.
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