What's Up with Harford Road? (Baltimore, Parkville: section 8, apartment complex, crime)

[B.K.]

Three murders in a little over a week in the Hamilton to Parkville Harford Road corridor. Generally this is a pretty quiet stretch of Northeast, crime wise. What's going on?

[Woodlands]

Originally Posted by B.K.

Three murders in a little over a week in the Hamilton to Parkville Harford Road corridor. Generally this is a pretty quiet stretch of Northeast, crime wise. What's going on?

As John Hopkins buys up more of East Baltimore.. the good, the bad , and the ugly are going to move northeast of east baltimore.. Its a typical migration pattern in baltimore.. Those downtown move north (or out of the City); westside folks move NW; eastside NW.. Most people park heights can trace themselves back to West Baltimore and were likely displaced by the "highway to nowhere". The same thing is happening in NE Baltimore with folks moving into Belair Edison, Gardenville (sorry I see you hail from there) parts of Frankford, Overlea and any old garden style apartment complex in between. This cause turf battles with the native thugs and/or brings in new thugs to prey on the existing residents......It has alot to do with transportation as well.. Many of the same bus lines serve the same section of the city so people are not entirely displaced in terms of what they are familiar with....

[B.K.]

It's true I'm in Gardenville-my wife actually bought this house in the mid-nineties shortly before we married. Things have changed a great deal in NE since. This was a "mixed" neighborhood even then, but a mixed neighborhood of homeowners and working-class (emphasis on the "working") people.
A lot of the older residents have died or moved off, and there are far fewer children to be seen-this was always a key indicator of an area's strength for me: if you see children playing in the area it used to be a sure bet that there would be Moms/Grandmoms around keeping an eye on them, and the rest of the neighborhood as well.
Now we have a lot of Section 8 and the accompanying baggy pants thuggery, beggars at the intersections and Gardenville Shopping Center, Methadone addicts passed out on bus stops, occasional break-ins, City/State SBA-funded businesses which seem to consist entirely of child daycare centers and hair care and product establishments, tax-sheltered storefront churches. Gardenville Elementary is consistently ranked as a "failing" City school, devoid of "diversity", and when in session there are near weekly riots when Northeast Middle lets out for the afternoon.
Baltimore City taxes are built in to our monthly mortgage payment. They account for a large percentage of what we pay. As mentioned, many of our neighbors receive Section 8, so we are paying for them as well. We haven't had any murders close by, recently....but if this is what "transition" and "change" entails then it seems awfully hard on we few remaining "working class" folks.