Baltimore not unfriendly/aloof like DC/N. VA? (Columbia, Silver Spring: transplants, crime)

[Tom Lennox 70]

Originally Posted by Sal_TMermaid

I grew up in B-more and now live in the District. I can tell you what I always tell people down here -- Baltimore is a much friendlier town than DC and N.VA, which I think is a very sterile place! People I have made friends with in DC say the same thing-- it just takes a long time to make friends and people seem to be more guarded and superficial in DC.

Don't know what you are looking for there but there are lots of beautiful neighborhoods, whether you want a row house or single family home in Baltimore, despite the bad rap it gets around the DC area. Check out the Live Baltimore website to learn about all the different communities.

Best of luck!

I hate the Live Baltimore thing....I've seen their ads in the DC subway and in the Washington Post. What that does is bring more of those shallow yuppie types to Baltimore. The DC area is like New York and LA in one way, how whenever people from there move elsewhere, they mess up the new place. I definitely see it in Baltimore, the Eastern Shore, Frederick, even as far away as Hagerstown and West Virginia.

[DivineMsK]

Not all of us "yuppie-types" from N.VA are shallow. Some of us are looking for a place where we can afford to live, where we can get involved in the neighborhood and be part of a community. And not all of us want to move somewhere and "fix" it.

[michaelcarter2008]

I grow up in baltimore and I hated it there! Friendly? who have you been talking to? I must say though balto. is better than the others inthe area.

[Augie]

Originally Posted by dcsfanatic

Don't generalize.

The Atlantic seaboard (DC, Balt, Philly, NYC, Boston) tends to have cities where people aren't exactly the friendliest.

It goes with the territory.

Am I missing something???

[projectmaximus]

Originally Posted by Annisette

Thanks much for your responses! It's what I suspected. It's so true that the very first thing people ask is where you work and what you do.

I see what you're saying but i don't think this necessarily indicates a shallow mindset. That's generally one of my first questions when meeting a professional (ie, non-student) and, along with "where are you from," is the easiest way to learn more about a person. Judging someone on their line of work or where they work within that profession is the furthest thing from my mind when I ask.

[Tom Lennox 70]

Originally Posted by michaelcarter2008

I grow up in baltimore and I hated it there! Friendly? who have you been talking to? I must say though balto. is better than the others inthe area.

I now work part time (only a couple times a month) in Dundalk, a suburb in Baltimore County and I'm truly amazed at how warm and friendly the people there are compared to Potomac and Bethesda. If anything, people in the two suburbs I reguarly spend time in, Dundalk and Arbutus/Landsdowne, seem to have more in common with more small town folks like the Eastern Shore compared to people in Montgomery County or Northern Virginia. The feeling is completely different. For some reason I really like the vibe in Arbutus and Dundalk. Most of my exposrue to the Baltimore region has been the city, Dundalk, and Arbutus so maybe its a skewed view but one thing I really notice is that its a lot less classist than Montgomery County, where someone's worth is mostly based on their wealth and power and everybody is out to prove they are better than everyone else around there, and especially Potomac where everyone is arrogant and snobby with an inflated sense of self-worth. Even if they are complete losers and lazy bums who inherited the money and did not earn it they still swagger around with that air of arrogance.

In comparison, Towson, Hunt Valley, Arundel Mills and Howard County are a lot more snobby and unfriendly. Baltimore City itself isn't that friendly....last week this driver (a stereotypical inner city kind of guy wearing a bandana) honked and actually cursed at an old woman for crossing the street too slow. The city seems to be either really ghetto or really yuppie.

The thing about people commuting from Baltimore to DC like really bugs me. Its one thing for Baltiomreans to choose to go down to find more employment since the economy here sucks, but when Bmore becomes a bedroom of DC you see that DC attitude spread north. These are the yuppie, greedy, snobby types who work for the federal government, and they come up here and drive aggressively and behave rudely and arrogantly. I dont know how to describe, the negative energy of DC is VERY palpable and its spreading far beyond the region. People from Frederick, West Virginia, and Frederciskbrug complain about it. I don't know what it really is abotu DC. Maybe because its culture is more Northeast/NY/NJ style than most of Maryland and Virginia, maybe its the fact that its a government city, but I'm never going back. I'm not staying I'll stay in Baltimore....probably move South, West or to the Eastern Shore or Southern Maryland but once you leave that DC style living you can never go back again.

[vivo]

Originally Posted by Tom Lennox 70

I now work part time (only a couple times a month) in Dundalk, a suburb in Baltimore County and I'm truly amazed at how warm and friendly the people there are compared to Potomac and Bethesda. If anything, people in the two suburbs I reguarly spend time in, Dundalk and Arbutus/Landsdowne, seem to have more in common with more small town folks like the Eastern Shore compared to people in Montgomery County or Northern Virginia. The feeling is completely different. For some reason I really like the vibe in Arbutus and Dundalk. Most of my exposrue to the Baltimore region has been the city, Dundalk, and Arbutus so maybe its a skewed view but one thing I really notice is that its a lot less classist than Montgomery County, where someone's worth is mostly based on their wealth and power and everybody is out to prove they are better than everyone else around there, and especially Potomac where everyone is arrogant and snobby with an inflated sense of self-worth. Even if they are complete losers and lazy bums who inherited the money and did not earn it they still swagger around with that air of arrogance.

In comparison, Towson, Hunt Valley, Arundel Mills and Howard County are a lot more snobby and unfriendly. Baltimore City itself isn't that friendly....last week this driver (a stereotypical inner city kind of guy wearing a bandana) honked and actually cursed at an old woman for crossing the street too slow. The city seems to be either really ghetto or really yuppie.

The thing about people commuting from Baltimore to DC like really bugs me. Its one thing for Baltiomreans to choose to go down to find more employment since the economy here sucks, but when Bmore becomes a bedroom of DC you see that DC attitude spread north. These are the yuppie, greedy, snobby types who work for the federal government, and they come up here and drive aggressively and behave rudely and arrogantly. I dont know how to describe, the negative energy of DC is VERY palpable and its spreading far beyond the region. People from Frederick, West Virginia, and Frederciskbrug complain about it. I don't know what it really is abotu DC. Maybe because its culture is more Northeast/NY/NJ style than most of Maryland and Virginia, maybe its the fact that its a government city, but I'm never going back. I'm not staying I'll stay in Baltimore....probably move South, West or to the Eastern Shore or Southern Maryland but once you leave that DC style living you can never go back again.

you do realize dundalk and arbutus are working class and hunt valley /towson etc are richer? perhaps this explains the dichotomy between the dc and bmore regions to some extent. lol there are trailer parks right near arundel mills I think in severn. the area itself is being spruced up with housing developments. try the rte 1 corridor in howard for more blue-collar people.

[eamjr86]

Are you all talking about Baltimore City? Friendliness....uhhh....NO! Baltimore is overall not a friendly city. People here do tend to open up quickly but only enough to entice strangers to tell them their business. I know, I grew up here. People here act like their too busy to care much about what the next person has to say or do. Overall I would say Baltimore's rudeness is pretty much the same as DC/N.VA or maybe worst. Pick ur addiction.

[LIS123]

I also prefer not too make overly general statements, but I have heard that people in Baltimore are friendlier and easier to approach than those here in the DC area. To be honest, I think many people here in the DC area might appear aloof or self-absorbed on the surface, but most of them are OK once you meet them.

I hate the sizing up of people in this area and the use of the wordm 'professional' as a noun, implying that certain people are 'unprofessional' if they don't have employment in certain fields or a set amount of Education.

[Tom Lennox 70]

Originally Posted by eamjr86

Are you all talking about Baltimore City? Friendliness....uhhh....NO! Baltimore is overall not a friendly city. People here do tend to open up quickly but only enough to entice strangers to tell them their business. I know, I grew up here. People here act like their too busy to care much about what the next person has to say or do. Overall I would say Baltimore's rudeness is pretty much the same as DC/N.VA or maybe worst. Pick ur addiction.

Vivo is right about the working class vs snobby areas, but if you take the same kind of area in the Baltimore region and match it with DC B'more is still friendlier, like if you were to compare Dundalk with let's say Silver Spring/Wheaton/Greenbelt.....though Wheaton/Greenbelt are technically more ghetto wheras Dundalk is just blue collar....BIG difference....Wheaton has illegal alien gangs) or Hunt Valley vs. Rockville/Gaithersburg.When I was at the Wal-Mart in Arbutus asking for directions to UMBC this guy just asked me to follow him since he was going that direction. Strangers say hi to me on the street and talk in the supermarket or Wal-Mart in Arbutus, Dundalk and parts of the city. No place in the Baltimore region is as stuck up, elitist, shallow or unpleasant as Potomac and Bethesda, not even Columbia.

Baltimore City itself is pretty unbalanced. Again you have the liberal elites in Fed Hill, Fells Point, Mt. Vernon who go to Starbucks and Panera, and then you have totally ghetto areas like Greenmount Avenue, Park Heights Avenue, west side MLK, the area north and east of Patterson Park, etc. DC has fewer ghettos now that a lot has been pushed into PG County and Wheaton but the worst ghettos in DC (like Anacostia) are just as bad as the bad parts of Baltimore.