Our mode of planning does not follow with great civic ideas or input. Its all commercially driven. A conversion like this was possible 40-50 yrs ago, when what we see now was hatched. Charles Center & State Center example of this bad thinking. In those days there was an excitement, by city planners to wipe out all of the historical fabric and build "modern" I think they realized that the Baltimore suburbs were not going to be building large urban landscapes, but continue to be flat and spread out, so they allowed bland flavor of the day buildings to dominate Baltimore. No real attempt was to make it a town for people. After all the people who mattered (to them) had left for the county. They thought they could mimic NYC. It was a false idea and one which ruined a large amount of what would have been a people city, with a natural flow of newer architectural ideas, as one went from the old city center to the outer edges. Today, basic services are impossible to get right, so mega ideas are just a pipe dream. Add to this, I have not seen a single city official who has shown any knowledge of architecture or city planning skills. For them, its all about hiring outside visionaries as a quick fix. Remember the Car race idea for downtown?