about 34,000 people were employed by bethlehem steel. and by the time i started looking into this question a much smaller number of people were employed by bethlehem steel as bethlehem steel had been curtailing operations and moving them to overseas locations. and as i try to write in this book, it was not very difficult to confirm what bill wilson had found in chicago. and that is that de-industrialization the closure of factories and other industrial facilities had had an especially dire effect upon african-american working families. but then something surprising happened, and that is that i found myself surrounded by lots of children children who were vivacious and lovely and had ambition before the age of 12. and that led me to become interested in the way in which children perceive their surroundings and what the actual conditions of their life were in those neighborhoods. and as i write in the introduction, you know children -- i knew them long enough and well enough that i could actually trace their life over a period of close to

. >> in the late '60s, baltimore had industries like bethlehem steel, a huge ship-building industry, a very active port. >> neill franklin is a retired police major who spent 34 years in law enforcement. he's seen the decay first hand. >> late '60s, early '70s mainly, jobs started leaving baltimore. industries started leaving going overseas, wherever it ended up. it just wasn't here in baltimore anymore. but it was also around that time that richard nixon decided that he was going to start a war against public enemy number one: drugs. >> but it was president ronald reagan who turned that rhetorical war into a literal one. >> you have to show that you have a drug criminal problem. so how do you do that? through arrests. >> at a time when drug crime was actually on the decline, not on the rise. >> we went crazy arresting people for crack cocaine because of this so-called epidemic that we were having. >> incarceration rates began to just soar off the charts. >> and we just put tons of black people in prison from our inner-cities. ungodly numbers. >>more arrests meant more federal money.

that like so many others was hard hit by the loss of manufacturing jobs after big companies like bethlehem steeltown. the latest available numbers put the unemployment rate in sandtown at more than 21%-- about four times the national average. almost a third of the residents there live in poverty-- that's twice the national average. we begin by looking at health care in sandtown. for more about this we are joined by dr. robert blum, the director of johns hopkins urban health institute. the institute is less than 5 miles from sandtown. so, there's this phrase about this genetic lottery. we don't choose who we're born to. but the infant tortality rate in sandtown is more than three and a half times the national average, 21 per,000 births compared to six per thousand births. from the very outset of life we already see a huge disparity in health for a person born there versus the average american. unpack that for us a bit. >> well, first of all just to put that in perspective if baltimore were a country, we would be 75th in the world for infant mortality, below every industrialize country and many lo

. >> in the late '60s, baltimore had industries like bethlehem steel, a huge ship-building industry, very active port. >> neill franklin is a retired police major who spent 34 years in law enforcement. he's seen the decay first hand. >> late '60s, early '70s mainly, jobs started leaving baltimore. industries started leaving going overseas, wherever it ended up. it just wasn't here in baltimore anymore. but it was also around that time that richard nixon decided that he was going to start a war against public enemy number one: drugs. >> but it was president ronald reagan who turned that rhetorical war into a literal one. >> you have to show that you have a drug criminal problem. so how do you do that? through arrests. >> at a time when drug crime was actually on the decline, not on the rise. >> we went crazy arresting people for crack cocaine because of this so-called epidemic that we were having. >> incarceration rates began to just soar off the charts. >> and we just put tons of black people in prison from our inner-cities. ungodly numbers. >>more arrests meant more federal money. i

this is where one of baltimore's great historic employers, the bethlehem steel mill stood. last year, it was demolished, but the jobs that it once supported have been dwindling for years. baltimore is just an example of the urban dilemma. high poverty areas has tripled and in the big cities, it has been unchanged. since 2000, the entrenched poor have doubled to 4 million people. the decaying schools here offer little hope of advancement. students realize at some point that the schools are failing them. and they don't stick around. bright students are bored and they drop out also. >> for 25 years socialeologist alexander tracked the progress of poor children, black and white until they reached adulthood. and his findings, race still matters. >> doing well until baltimore's economy, is very much conditioned by race, and very much the difference between white man and working class background and everybody else. >> devon butler said that with us the police pick you up, it's hard to have a future. >> they won't be able to get a job, because they write off your past history three

the clinton camp is trying to work with, in baltimore there was a place called sparrow's point, bethlehem steel. globalization and this global trade helped beth steel leave baltimore. and you had so many people who didn't have a college education, but a high school education, who wound up working at beth steel. once they lost their jobs, what do you do? now the clintons, excuse me, the clinton camp is saying that plays into their economic plan. and they are, again, for increased wages, security, and prosperity. but they say with their ten-point plan, they're going to figure out how to work this out. >> tell us how they're going to bring back jobs in the city. >> yes, that's true. >> i think that is the answer. >> yeah. >> we'll be right back. the roundtable sticking with us. >>> next, ted cruz is blaming president obama for not stopping that terror attack in texas. he is blaming him personally. this is "hardball," the place for politics. ink it smells fine, but your guests smell this... febreze air effects works instantly to eliminate odors you've gone noseblind to. smells like a field of aweso

a lot of them worked at bethlehem steel. now it's one out of 15 working with manufacturing.ployer is johns hopkins university and hospital. we have got to make sure we prepare our people for the types of jobs that are available. thief got to have quality education. they've got to have training. they've got to have opportunity. we've got to find ways to draw the jobs back. one of the reasons why i was pleased to see the curfew go by is because i want to hold on to the businesses we have. i had so many people coming to me saying i work in the restaurant down in inner harbor and i'm losing money. >> and last night people said we have to close down early to be home in time for the curfew. >> now we've got to be about the business of rebuilding. we've got a number of foundations, private corporation corporations. p they call me every day talking about the things they want to do. the other thing i'm going to do is ask senator mcconnell, leader in the senate and john boehner and certainly leader pelosi to come to baltimore. >> i know because i've grown up in the maryland/washington

we saw african immigration in detroit with jobs, chicago baltimore, there is no bethlehem steel no morere is no more western electric in baltimore, those jobs are gone. in its place, i don't know what economic hope is. >> i agree -- the truth is it's both. the family is a catastrophe. the deindustrialization is a catastrophe. there has to be some sort of social structure. the person in "the washington post," mom heroin addict he cnd read, arrested four times already in his life. there's many things that are part economic part cultural. i gev obama credit, but i'm not sure he followed through aggressively, he talked in his first campaign talking about harlem children's zones and transplanting them around the country where they do everything. there's schools, boys and girls clubs, mentoring. we don't know what works and you try it all at once in a geographic zone. the obama administration spread it around but not as aggressively as we could. that's at least one mosul that's plausibly successful. >> woodruff: a lot more to think about certainly beyond what happened with the police officers

this is where one of baltimore's great historic employers the bethlehem steel mill stood.he jobs it once supported had been dwindling for years. >> baltimore is just one example of america's urban dilemma. the number of high poverty neighborhoods in major metro areas has tripled average poverty rates in the big cities remain unchanged at 24%. since 2000, the entrenched poor population has doubled to 4 million people. the decaying schools offer little hope of advancement. >> students realize at some point that the schools are failing them, so they don't stick around. they don't stick around. many bright students become bored, so they drop out, also. >> for 25 years sociologist tracked the progress of hundreds of poor baltimore children, black and white until they reached adulthood. his finding race still matters. >> doing well in baltimore's economy without a college degree is very much conditioned by race and very much about the difference between white men of working class background and everybody else. >> my family struggled all their life. >> once the police pick you up

many years ago, baltimore was known for bethlehem steel. fact the major base for train tracks and things of that nature. when the jobs left, that's when a whole lot of things that we wouldn't want begin to creep back in. >> now is there a reality that it can't be fixed? that job base is gone and if there is no new normal here in terms of job base there's simply no solution? >> well the harlem renaissance poet los angelesston hughes said let america be america again. that's what we're trying out for baltimore. everything globally has to happen locally. there's got to be revision of the police department. but even more than that we've got to do something more for our public schools. the greatest piece of technology in a public school shouldn't be a metal detector. it should be computers. >> you had that beautiful young woman who is a senior in high school and she was talking about how she's doing well she's getting ready to graduate and she said i'm learning out of textbooks that were written in the seven'70s. >> right. >> they weren't in sho