safe neighborhoods (Baltimore, California, Ridgely: hair salon, apartment, crime rates)

[rudy_d]

Originally Posted by barante

Some metro prices drop to 3-year lows -- baltimoresun.com

It's interesting that prices in the city are holding up even as sales are falling. That seems to have been the case for the past few months.

[baltimore's best]

Originally Posted by rudy_d

It's interesting that prices in the city are holding up even as sales are falling. That seems to have been the case for the past few months.

HMMMM Maybe that's why the houses aren't selling.

[antsy_nancy]

I'm considering accepting a teaching position with Baltimore City. Since I only have 30 days to decide, I'm trying to quickly learn a lot about what the nice areas are. I currently live in the suburbs of Columbus, OH and while my neighborhood has gone downhill in the past 10 years, I still feel reasonably safe. Coming from OH, I have no idea what traffic to expect, how much reasonable rent is for a 1 br, or if living in the suburbs and commuting to whatever school I'm placed at would be do-able. In Ohio a nice 1br apt. in the burbs is $600 so I have no real point of reference. How is the Owings Mills area? Do you think it would be reasonable to commute into the city from there each day? You have no idea how much I appreciate the help.

[kinkytoes]

Owings mills is fine and you can drive into the city or take the train to downtown from there. There's a new parking garage at the train station.

[mochabizniswmn]

Originally Posted by johnfrancis7763

My wife and I have lived in Baltimore City for about 15 years and are raising our 4 kids in the Ten Hills Neighborhood of the city (west side, near the county line at Catonsville). I can't say enough good things about this area, its convenience, and the people here. Average home prices hover around $450K to $485 (these are accurate numbers...I'm a real estate broker). You may also want to check out Roland Park, Homewood, Guilford, Original Northwood, Westgate, Hamilton.
Glad to have another Washingtonian make the move.

I am relocating from Nc..and having a time finding a good area.. i want to rent for now so that i kind have time to find just what i am looking for but willing to pay a nice price..I am a professional..I don't want an area that is too suburbish yet not too hard core..a mix of people and things to do..can you please direct me?I have family in B-more, Bel Air and the county..Bmore is my home but I was raised here

[14thandYou]

Originally Posted by barante

I've been trying to get an idea about how much it would cost to go to London and back a year from now. Cannot do it for less than about $1,000, when all the taxes and fees are tallied up. And this is just for air.

My wife and I took advantage of a BA special and did a week in London, including roundtrip from Dulles, for around $600 a person. There are deals to be had, you just have to know where to find them...and get a little lucky.

[omgwhydothat]

Why exactly does Baltimore suck? Well this question can be answered a thousand different ways, and that my friends, is why exactly, Baltimore sucks. You see, you can say, well you know, because of "blank","blank" sucks, about pretty much any city in America. For example: Because of the outrageously, overaggressive parking ticket campaign, Philadelphia sucks. Now let's go back to Baltimore. You can say Because of, "blank" a thousand times, and this is why you can say, flat out, Baltimore sucks!

Okay, to be fair, we need to start with a cohesive and realistic set of facts, so I have studied everything from the FBI reports for the city to my own personal experiences, and have judged, and weighed the facts to come up with the top ten facts that make Baltimore suck;

1. Baltimore is the most rat infested city in America, topping even New Orleans, before Katrina killed a lot of them.

2. Baltimore stops selling alcohol at 1:30 a.m. to insure everyone is out of the bar by 2:00 a.m.

3. Baltimore is always in the top three if not top two spots in the country for Homicides.

4. Baltimore is always the top city for Homicides, when weighed per capita.

5. Baltimore had the worst public school system, on all levels, nationwide, when weighed per capita.

6. Baltimore has a never ending supply of Police brutality, rudeness, and incompetence. Even as far as to endanger citizens lives, voluntarily, for no just cause; this is my favorite story to date: http://www.wbaltv.com/news/9229472/detail.html.


7. Baltimore has possibly the single most useless public transportation system in the whole entire first and second world. Still, I am sure that in some third world countries you can get from one part of town to the other via a public transport of some kind, easier and on a more cohesive system.


8. Baltimore and its surrounding areas are the prime example of why and how exactly gentrification does not work.


9. Baltimore has the worst city planning development record since 1994. And that was everything, designed and built after Camden Yards, which is quite possibly the best baseball stadium in the world, and almost since day one, has had a losing team playing in it. That, topped with the fact that no one outside of New York or Boston comes to games there anymore, and that’s to watch their teams play for cheaper tickers; so much cheaper that traveling 5 to 7 hours, and staying overnight is cheaper. Ask any one of those baseball fans where they stay and its within 3 blocks of the stadium or harbor, where most of the hotels are and then ask them if they planned on going to see a show at the Meyerhoff, and they will laugh at you, instructing you to please leave them alone, as they do not wish to be asked to leave the neutral zone of the Harborplace complexes without military assistance.


10. Property taxes in Baltimore City are actually almost twice those of the second most expensive place to live in the country, San Francisco (2.268% to 1.163%). What's worse, while Baltimore City chooses to stay with the State minimum wage, which is the National Minimum wage, three dollars less than San Fran, ($6.55 per to $9.36 per). So while Baltimore residents pay twice the amount in property taxes they are forced to make almost three dollars an hour less, which translates to almost ten dollars an hour less than most jobs in the market place. This is not where it stops; I averaged the cost of one hundred, two bedroom apartment listings, from the San Francisco Chronicle and the Baltimore Sun. The average apartments in both cities are almost identical, landing in the $1350-$2100 a month rent, with both cities having apartments available for $685 a month, however when you google map the two different addresses you would be terrified to live in the area that the two bedroom in Baltimore is listed. Here they are: 1100 Anza Street, San Francisco, California 94118, and 517 N. Carrollton Avenue, Baltimore, Maryland 21223.

So now that the facts are out there for you to decide, let's delve into more personal problems you may find with the city, if you are content, making less, working harder, paying more, and living in a far less desirable neighborhood. The only entertainment districts in the city worth going to are either the gay district, known as Mt. Vernon, (that according to even the local homosexuals, gets boring quickly, since there are five bars, two clubs and the ghetto on either side) or the new East Harbor area (which up until the last five years was abandoned warehouses and bums, which have politely moved for the yuppies and now envelop what was once a decent pub crawl area, and the now faltering Inner Harbor). The gay district is clean, but muggings happen often after the crowd thins out, so you need to get out of the streets promptly at last call, which makes all the after hours events rendered useless. You can walk around this area all evening, but again once there are few out, your chances of getting robbed are very high, even in this posh slightly upscale area. Finding parking here is actually A LOT easier than anywhere else in the city, but you do need to be careful, because on the edges are some not very desirable places to live.

I worked in the Harbor and lived in the gay district, for three years often walking home after midnight, but before the bars closed. I was only mugged two times, and a third time a bum aggressively asked me for money, forcing me to remove his aids infested hands from my jacket with force, needing to punch him away more than once, fearing he would spit on me and destin me to a life of disease, I ran home and vowed to baby Jesus that I would never walk home again. The next day at work, I was called a ***** by a girl who lived in Bolton Hill, a neighborhood even closer to the Ghetto, because she had been mugged three different times that summer and her roommate who worked with us was raped the other week, that’s why she didn’t come in, shame to, she was forced to quit her work because of it. The East Harbor has an astounding resemblance of the Lower Manhattan Greenway waterfront area, but please do not get your hopes up. Unfortunately, the top three restaurants in the whole city are located within two blocks from each other here, two are adjacent on the same street, and all are run by the same people. They also own the only wine shop in the area, and the only decent one in the whole city. That alone should say enough, but let's delve even deeper. All of these restaurants, and the other few dozen that have sprung up in the last five to ten years, are either overpriced, corporate, have small portions, mediocre offerings, or are just plain boring, and filled with way too many overpaid, useless executives from the county. Still this is the best the city can offer. You see the Fell's Point area and the Federal Hill area are also surrounded by the Ghetto and now are overrun with underage, pimple faced, and useless walking sperm. The sad thing is the areas are geared toward them, not even the young twenty something art crowd, if that’s your cup of tea, be prepared to buy a bullet proof vest and a glock kid, cause that area is in the Ghetto, surrounded by the Ghetto, and scares the **** of most people, well at least at night.

[Hamish Forbes]

Hello, omgwhydothat. I am curious about where you're "coming from." I lived in Baltimore til 1970, and left for some of the reasons that you mention. Two questions: (1) I was thinking that things had gotten a lot better since then. Is this not so? and (2) Many years ago, for example in the 1950's, Baltimore was a really great city. What went wrong?

[omgwhydothat]

Originally Posted by Hamish Forbes

Hello, omgwhydothat. I am curious about where you're "coming from." I lived in Baltimore til 1970, and left for some of the reasons that you mention. Two questions: (1) I was thinking that things had gotten a lot better since then. Is this not so? and (2) Many years ago, for example in the 1950's, Baltimore was a really great city. What went wrong?

I wish I knew, but more people need to read my post, it comes from first hand experience. I grew up here, and saw everything that was good about Baltimore that my parents talked about fall to pieces. Ever since Schmoke took office this city has gone Waaaaaaaaaay downhill. Noone has been in office since Schaffer that either was competant enough to hold the posistion (Dixon) or cared about anything else but a stepping stone to ruin the State (O'Malley). Kurt Schmoke, single handedly set this city on a path of destruction, simply because of the fact he was completely inept.

People are so blind and stupid these days, you see, ALL of America was fine until the mid sixties, period the end, sure alot of things happened in the sixties that were okay and benefited a small group of people, but overall, the poorly planned "urban renewal" killed Baltimore, and this new form of it, so elequently called gentrification, is just adding fuel to the fire. Look at Owings Mills because of the Metro, need I say more?

Call it what you want, but I am DONE with this city, and am in the process of relocating FOR GOOD. It's pathetic when everyone of your friends has either been robbed in Baltimore or has a friend who has. Take my good freind who grew up in Hamilton, his brother has been shot in the pat year there, his girlfriends mother was raped last month there, and he has been jumped five times in his 30 some years on this earth, all in Baltimore.

Think about it, what good is a city if you need to stay within a small ten block area to live, shop, eat, sleep, entertain, and walk?

[carolott]

Funny -- I was robbed at gunpoint in a "good" neighborhood last week. Turns out that two of the three people who robbed me live there...or used to, and still have friends/family there.

It irks me to no end.