Baltimore Fails to Make a Top 10 List (Columbia, Potomac: neighborhood, living)

[pwduvall]

It is hard to tell from the report but at least Baltimore isn't in the top ten most distressed cities out of the hundred largest. A chart on the report: http://eig.org/wp-content/uploads/20...dex-Report.pdf shows that Baltimore may be 12th. This is not great, but it could be worse.

Memphis does surprisingly badly - surprising to me anyway. Not only does Memphis have a lot of distress, but it also has the distress geographically isolated within its rather large city limits. Baltimore has a relatively low isolation of its impoverished population. I think city residents can tell you that poor people are pretty much everywhere and the patches of uniform affluence are relatively small. This makes you wonder about the even more distressed cities!? This also makes you wonder why Baltimore is almost universally considered the nation's most distressed city behind Detroit.

People tell me that as a white guy in a mostly black block and neighborhood that I am living a life of hyper-privilege that I can't begin to understand. This is perhaps true, but most white people in Baltimore, myself included, aren't very physically isolated from the city's problems. Those problems are right around the corner, if not closer.

[steppinthrax]

This is really an academic article that is written from a sociological perspective. It would take a few hours of reading and analysis to see how it relates to Baltimore.

However, upon a quick word search, Baltimore is mentioned in a few places.


Oftentimes in the eastern half of the country, prosperous and distressed
cities sit side by side within the same metropolitan area: The prospering city
being a burgeoning new locale and the distressed city an aging urban core.
Maryland neighbors Columbia and Baltimore exemplify this pattern. Apart
from Bismarck, ND, no central city of a U.S. metropolitan area is considered
prosperous.

This is obviously referencing Columbia v.s. Baltimore. As Columbia is prosperous v.s. Baltimore.


Page 25 Figure 15

The 10 cities with the largest number of people
in distressed zip code

Baltimore is in this table, not near the top but in the top 10, based on population, however higher than this if you look at percentage.

Page 30, Figure 19.

Figure 19. Distress and inequality scores for the 100 largest U.S. cities

Baltimore is being represented as distressed and unequal.

[pwduvall]

Originally Posted by steppinthrax

This is really an academic article that is written from a sociological perspective. It would take a few hours of reading and analysis to see how it relates to Baltimore.

However, upon a quick word search, Baltimore is mentioned in a few places.

Oftentimes in the eastern half of the country, prosperous and distressed
cities sit side by side within the same metropolitan area: The prospering city
being a burgeoning new locale and the distressed city an aging urban core.
Maryland neighbors Columbia and Baltimore exemplify this pattern. Apart
from Bismarck, ND, no central city of a U.S. metropolitan area is considered
prosperous.

This is obviously referencing Columbia v.s. Baltimore. As Columbia is prosperous v.s. Baltimore.

Page 25 Figure 15

The 10 cities with the largest number of people
in distressed zip code

Baltimore is in this table, not near the top but in the top 10, based on population, however higher than this if you look at percentage.

Page 30, Figure 19.

Figure 19. Distress and inequality scores for the 100 largest U.S. cities

Baltimore is being represented as distressed and unequal.

All true. Still, Baltimore isn't represented in the report as being among the very most distressed and most unequal - which is the city's reputation in the national press, public perception, etc. Why even bother to compare Baltimore and Columbia (a place that was mostly corn fields when I was born?)

[steppinthrax]

Originally Posted by pwduvall

All true. Still, Baltimore isn't represented in the report as being among the very most distressed and most unequal - which is the city's reputation in the national press, public perception, etc. Why even bother to compare Baltimore and Columbia (a place that was mostly corn fields when I was born?)

I don't see this type of report. The one I see most often is "Top Ten Crime", "Top Ten Violent" etc... Baltimore seems to make the top 10 in that arena. Those that speak (as you describe) are likely using fueled by both anecdotal and confirmed by public perception. Example, it's easy to say Baltimore is a Cesspool, everyone will agree, however you would have to work real hard to prove Potomac, MD as a Cesspool. "The Wire" and "The Corner", Freddie Gray and the Riots didn't help to improve this.....