The Baltimore Rowhouse tells the 200-year story of this building type. It chronicles the evolution of the rowhouse from its origins as speculative housing for laborers and merchants in the 1790s and for newly arrived immigrants after 1850, through its reclamation and renovation by urban pioneers with local government subsidies beginning in the 1970s. Today, the Baltimore rowhouse is of interest for stylistic reference and as a local building genre. It is also an important exemplar of planning for urban communities nationwide.