Baltimore hired an accomplished city planner, but we can’t get past his hair

The Baltimore Business Journal introduced the new city planning director with a straightforward article on Tim Keane — his priorities, credentials and a photo of him that published online. That’s when things took a turn.

That hair is amazing.

David Bowie is Baltimore’s new planning director?

No one is talking about the polyester suit?

No one was talking about municipal planning, either.

The short article and photo inspired almost 400 Facebook comments on the civic issue of the moment: Does Baltimore’s new planner more closely resemble Robert Redford or Willem Dafoe? What magic produces his magnificent hair?

“I love that people can’t get past the hair to read the article,” wrote Elizabeth Bement, a Towson realtor.

In his first several months in Baltimore, Keane, 61, has turned heads with his vintage polyester suits and fat kipper ties. He might have stepped out of Studio 54. While his profession invokes the picture of a plodding bureaucrat, Keane presents a retro vibe somewhere between 1970s rocker and “Saturday Night Fever,” that, along with his sharp features and perfectly mussed hair, has people approaching him on the street because he looks like, well, somebody.

“My girlfriend thought he was a combination of Robert Redford and Hugh Grant,” said Mark Washington, executive director of the Coldstream Homestead Montebello Community Corporation. “I told him, ‘I hate you.’”

The mayor gave Keane an even bigger stage in February, nominating him to be housing commissioner at a time when the city is drawing international attention for its work to fix and demolish vacant houses. Since he’s new to Baltimore and eager to please, Keane has agreed to give the people what they want. For starters, his hair care secrets?

“I do absolutely nothing.”

His style inspirations?

“Probably ’60s, ’70s,” he said. “For whatever reason, that aesthetic is interesting to me.”

Keane comes to Baltimore with his warm earth-toned wardrobe after leading planning departments in Charleston, South Carolina, Atlanta, Georgia, and Boise, Idaho. He had a stint in Calgary, Canada, before deciding to move back to Charleston to take care of his family. Here, he’s had an eventful few months.

Weeks into his new job in housing, he remarried — to Marian Liou, of Atlanta.

He’s renting a home in Upper Fells Point for now. Liou plans to join him in Baltimore once her sons graduate from high school. During her visits, the couple has shopped at vintage clothing stores in Hampden. He’s checked out the BMore Flea market on Saturdays in Fells Point.

“This conversation happens everywhere he goes,” she said. “Someone will be looking. They’ll do a double-take and then they’ll go, ‘Excuse me. Has anyone ever told you you look like X, Y, Z?’ ... It usually is Robert Redford.”

Indeed, ChatGPT matches his photo to Redford’s based on their shared blonde-gray wavy hair, broad smiles, tight cheeks and classic Hollywood styles. Keane takes these remarks graciously.

“Believe me, I always say, ‘Thank you,’” he said.

A trained architect, Keane considers himself an outsider in his field for his belief that urban planners should identify the central concept of a city and make decisions to reinforce that concept, rather than trying to wrestle a city to submit to their vision. In architecture, this central concept is an organizing principle known as “parti.”

Keane’s organizing principle is harder to define. He came up through high school during the 1980s in Charlotte, North Carolina. He grew his hair long and drove a light blue Chevelle with an 8-track player and exactly two tapes: “The Rolling Stones Greatest Hits” and AC/DC’s “Back in Black.”

One can imagine a straight line from his rock ‘n’ roll youth to a rebel city planner who wears dark boots and has a drawer full of band T-shirts. Well?

“No, I don’t have any of that.”

So where does his retro vibe come from?

“I don’t know. I’ve just always been like this.”

Is Robert Redford an inspiration?

“Not really.”

Let us relent here. Maybe the almost 400 comments say just as much about us — our nostalgia.

“I graduated high school in ’82. This guy’s hot and I want to drink Chardonnay with him at Girard’s,” wrote Donna Ann Ward, the Baltimore tour guide, recalling the city’s old disco.

We are done, really. Keane has been a good sport to sit for another article.

“I’m scared of this now,” he said.

Oh, it will be fine.

“I won’t read the comments.”