On the bookshelves in his office, Lenneal Henderson has the usual volumes that a Distinguished Professor of Government at the University of Baltimore would need: books on public policy and government, urban problems, and the driest government documents and publications possible. But in between such books as "The Taxpayers' Guide to Effective Tax Revolt" are a couple that stand out.
Lying on their sides are two well-thumbed paperbacks, "The Pocket Aquinas" and "The Pocket Aristotle." Underneath them are recent autobiographical works by Shirley MacLaine, the actress, world traveler and free-thinker, more likely to write about out-of-body experiences than urban policy.
This is not what one might expect from a man who co-authored the recent -- and controversial -- urban study, "Baltimore and Beyond," and gives lectures and delivers papers around the world on the most serious of topics. For instance, in June he delivered a paper on Stockholm that he describes as being "on the socioeconomic dynamics of household energy consumption and expenditure."
When the incongruity is pointed out to Dr. Henderson, he just beams.
"I suffer from chronic dilettantism," he acknowledges. "I'm always looking for the connecting point, and I'm always looking at new things, and old things in a new way.
"I have a 20- to 25-minute drive to my work from Ellicott City, and I'll slip in a tape by Joseph Campbell on myths or one by [paleontologist] Stephen Jay Gould, who's up at Harvard and is just fantastic. I don't pretend to understand it all, but I'll just listen to it until something clicks."
If it appears that Lenneal Joseph Henderson, 46, is no conventional academic, he isn't. He's a product of housing projects in New Orleans and San Francisco who has gone on to teach full- or part-time at 21 colleges or universities. He was a Ford Foundation Fellow, a Rockefeller Research Fellow and Kellogg National Fellow, and since 1989 has been a senior fellow in the University of Baltimore's William Donald Schaefer Center for Public Policy.
He first went overseas in 1965 after graduating from high school, an inner-city kid who spent the summer in Europe on an exchange program. He estimates his academic and consulting activities have taken him to Canada, most countries in Europe, Russia, China, Japan, India, Israel, Egypt, Somalia, Brazil, Tanzania, Nigeria, South Africa, Peru, Argentina and several countries in the Caribbean.
He's had a longtime interest in the environment; most recently, he was named to the board of trustees of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation. But when he gave a talk this year to an environmental group, his appearance startled one of the organizers, who did not know Dr. Henderson is black. "But he quickly recovered," Dr. Henderson relates with relish. "He said, 'I didn't know you were . . . so tall.' " (He is 6 feet, 3 inches).
A forceful and articulate speaker who possesses a ready wit, his interests seem unlimited, as does his energy. "An eight-hour working day is a short one for me," Dr. Henderson says. "Fifteen or 16 hours are more like it."
"I don't know how he does it, between the travel, consulting and teaching," says Ronald Walters, chairman of the Political Science Department at Howard University, where Dr. Henderson taught from 1975 to 1979. "He does have organization down to a science, but he just has an uncommon ability to do all those things and to do them well. He's just an outstanding individual."
Still, the study of cities has remained at the center of Lenneal Henderson's life. He's lived in many of them around the country, and although he mourns their decline, he still believes in them.
He says that when he remarried in 1989, he moved into the Ellicott City home owned by his new wife, Joyce, but still wanted his younger son, Lenneal "Joey" Henderson III, to attend Baltimore City schools. So this year, Joey's parents are taking turns driving the 5-year-old to kindergarten at Pimlico Elementary School in Northwest Baltimore. "There are many types of education out there, and not just in the schools," Dr. Henderson says. "I want my son to go to school with all kinds of children."
He was one of four authors of the report "Baltimore and Beyond," which pictured the city's health in grim terms ("without real help, Baltimore is in danger of becoming America's next Detroit or Newark, N.J.") and offered such solutions as greater cooperation between Baltimore and the surrounding counties, and increased civic cooperation in neighborhoods.
"I picked Lenneal to work on the report because he has a keen mind, he has studied cities across America and abroad, and he knows Baltimore just enough to be well acquainted with it but not so well as to be entrenched with a set way of looking at things," said Neil R. Peirce, a writer on urban affairs who directed the work on "Baltimore and Beyond." "He had a perspective and understanding that would help bring everything into focus."
Released in May, "Baltimore and Beyond" was praised for its forthright appraisals, but also drew considerable criticism.
Mayor Kurt Schmoke, whose administration was called slow and unresponsive, was among the critics. "Not only do I disagree with its general assessment of the status of our city, but I specifically disagree with the assessment of my administration," said.
Seven months later, Lenneal Henderson is philosophical as he discusses the report and its aftermath. "If you're going to play football, you better bring a helmet," he says. "I'm out there in the public eye, and I expect to take some hits."
But he has not changed his views about the city's situation, or about the need for greater cooperation among the city and neighboring counties.
"The problems that used to be associated with the center city are really metropolitan problems now -- the problems of housing, of health care, of crime and drugs," he says. "The cities and the counties have to find a way to cooperate with each other to address these problems."
He believes American cities have followed a general pattern of decline for four reasons: the loss of manufacturing jobs in cities, the cutback in federal spending, a drop in spending on the cities' infrastructure (bridges, tunnels, airports) and "most critically, the deterioration of the human infrastructure. We have not invested seriously in the human resources -- the young people in our public school systems, for instance, or the development of careers even for college graduates, let alone for high school graduates."
He illustrates each point in classic professorial style, ticking them off with his hands as he speaks. "Take the decline in manufacturing, with Baltimore as an example. For a long time our biggest employer was Bethlehem Steel; now our biggest employer is a knowledge industry, and that's Johns Hopkins University. That pattern is repeated in many of our largest cities. Steel mills, automobile factories, rubber, tin -- all those large concerns have receded and the knowledge industries have emerged, such as biotechnology, computers and so on."
He acknowledges that getting county governments to ally themselves closer with Baltimore may be difficult, given that the counties have their own fiscal problems, and that some people live in the counties precisely because they did not want to be in the city and confront urban problems.
"In the short term, the people in the counties probably are not going to [attempt more cooperation], but as we sink deeper and deeper into this morass -- and I think it will be bad for at least six months to a year -- I think they'll be saying, 'OK, we're already cut to the bone. We've got to find other ways. Let's see, for example, if Baltimore City and Baltimore County can agree on a reciprocal police arrangement.' "
Although he is a product of housing projects, Dr. Henderson says he was not prepared for the desolation and despair he encountered while working on "Baltimore and Beyond." "I was very bothered by the absolute deterioration of the physical and human infrastructure in Baltimore. You see the blocks and blocks of abandoned buildings, or housing in very bad shape. And to see large groups of young men -- not just African-Americans, but of all races -- standing idle on the corner. I found that very depressing."
The oldest of seven children, Dr. Henderson says he learned early on to accept responsibility and to "realize that no door is shut unless you shut it."
"I have parents who are just spectacular," he says with fondness in his voice. "And they're still very active. They've been living in a neighborhood in the southwestern part of San Francisco for 32 years. It used to be at first a white middle-class community, then a black middle-class community. But then drugs and crime moved in. My parents were instrumental in helping get four crack houses closed in the last five years."
That's why, Dr. Henderson says, he refuses to get pessimistic even as he witnesses the slow decay of the cities.
"I've spent a lot of time in South Africa," he says "and the first time I went there, in 1983, I expected to see an oppressed, depressed African population beaten down by apartheid. What I found was an absolutely irrepressible people with no voting rights, no landholding rights, no representation in any kind of government, but they knew they were going to win.
"I've seen a lot of people like that in American cities who will never give up. They don't bring a lot of attention to themselves, but they are the rafters and the beams that are holding up the sagging structure that is the city."
THE HENDERSON FILE
Born: Oct. 27, 1946, in New Orleans.
Family: Married to Joyce Henderson since 1989; two sons: Lenneal Christophe, 13, and Lenneal Joseph III, 5.
Education: Graduated from University of California, Berkeley, with B.A. in political science, 1968; M.A. in public administration at Berkeley, 1969; Ph.D in political science, Berkeley, 1977.
On his experiences teaching at the University of Baltimore: "The average age of the students here is 31 years old. They work, they have families, they're immersed in daily life. They have a rich perspective that I just couldn't expect at most other schools."
On travel: "You need to get away and look at things from a distance. That's why I try to go to foreign countries at least twice a year."
On being the father of two black sons: "It's scary. There has always been an assault on the black male, from slavery days on. And to see such large numbers of black men in destructive behavior is very disturbing. But what uplifts me are the people and groups addressing the issue. The question is whether that successful side will keep pace with the destructive side, and that the successes will be reported as well."