By John A. Meyers

Journalist H.L. Mencken once wrote that his native Baltimore looked "like the ruins of a once-great medieval city." To the TIME staffers who worked on this weeks cover story about Developer James Rouse and Baltimore's urban renaissance, Survival City (as it is sometimes called) had clearly come a long way since Mencken's day. New York Bureau Chief Peter Stoler, who made frequent trips to Baltimore's Johns Hopkins School of Medicine from 1970 to 1975 as TIME's Medicine writer, returned last week to meet with Rouse Co. officials and spend an evening with Rouse at his home in Columbia, MD. Says Stoler: "Jim Rouse loves the town and feels, with good reason, that what he has done there has succeeded. It is hard to spend any time with him and not share his enthusiasm." Reporter-Researcher Robert Grieves spent six days in the city talking with politicians, lawyers, journalists and city planners. Says he: "Baltimore used to be a dingy industrial city with uninspiring weather. Rouse and his people have managed to change everything except the weather."

For TIME Photographer Ted Thai, Baltimore's new image posed an unusual challenge. Because the new National Aquarium was so well integrated into its surroundings that it "blended into the background," Thai used ten tungsten floodlights to illuminate the 157-ft. building and shot the picture at night. "We made the building glow like a huge lantern," says Thai. "When the architect saw it he was thrilled." Senior Editor Christopher Porterfield, who edited the story, recalls visiting East Baltimore Street's notorious "Block" while stationed near by in the Army in 1960--but Senior Writer Michael Demarest, who wrote the story, can top that. His memories of the city date back to 1943, when his Liberty ship stopped there for a few days to load tanks for Europe. "It was a marvelous, sleazy sailor's town," he says. This time around, Demarest spent four days talking with shoppers, tourists and shopkeepers in and around Harborplace. His conclusion: "Baltimore has gone from being a kind of national joke to a major tourist attraction, a city that can rightfully take pride in itself. The spirit of cooperation is almost unparalleled in America. Baltimore gives hope to all of us who believe that our destiny lies in our cities."

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