One of the great paradoxes of contemporary art symbiosis in the United States is that while they [we] generally tend to be politically very liberal (and I'm about to step into the dangerous waters of generalizing), they also tend to be very elitist, bourgeoisie, and neocon critics when it comes as to how much they trust the American public - or the democratization of an arts process (especially if it involves public money) when it comes to the visual arts. The answer is the marriage of both a properly bureaucratically-qualified arts commission process for some works and a more modern, more progressive-minded, less academically-conservative process (already used by some cities and states) where the people living and working with the art choose the art - sans academic minds with art field PhDs and personal artistic agendas.

Imagine the street walking, water-fountain-chatting, bus-riding, 9-5, tax-paying, let's-hurry-home-so-we-can-watch-American Idol public actually having a say in what hangs in the hallways they must walk through every morning on the way to the office, hurrying so they can get a cup of coffee before the pot runs out and then they have to make the next pot.

Do it Baltimore. If anyone can and should, it's Baltimore.