Poll: The most dangerous strip in Baltimore? (Towson, Catonsville: houses, public schools)

[lemonhead]

i hope the first poster is not what everyone thinks when they come to my house (that area)
if it is....it might explain why people laugh at me when I say I live in a pretty nice area.

[sbyman]

Originally Posted by kinkytoes

There is one thing I never understood about poor people in America. Why does poverty here seem to go hand-in-hand with low morals, dirt and crime? Anyone can feel free to flame the hell out of me for saying this. That's my impression after living here for many years.

I have wondered that too? But it has been that way since the industrial revolution. I guess since people dont have to answer to kings and feudal lords and everyone isnt worshiping the same god then the poor i guess dont have any guidance.

[upinflamezzz]

Poverty goes with crime, low moral, dirt, etc. because of the inability to afford education. Most people in poverty have to drop out of school in order afford the things in life that the well to do take for granite. Education will get you far in life.

[rudy_d]

Originally Posted by sbyman

I have wondered that too? But it has been that way since the industrial revolution. I guess since people dont have to answer to kings and feudal lords and everyone isnt worshiping the same god then the poor i guess dont have any guidance.

I don't think it's much different in other countries, except that many places seem to be better at keeping the poverty-stricken occupied/medicated and away from firearms. (I'm not making a political statement here, just an observation.)

[zesty waters]

How dramatic. Believe it or not-if you needed help someone would have given it to you. Yes-in Baltimore, we have gangs, we have residents with pathology, low morals and values, and lack formal education. Who told you that crime, morals, and values are all related to poverty. I thought poverty was about a lack of disposal resources. Perhaps-interacting with people with less disposal resources may provide you with new lenses in looking at an urban environment where the residents are full of various flavor (attitudes, morals, values, etc). Right now your lenses are looking at what you think is not there-but a closer look may reveal something else.

[Tom Lennox 70]

DavidSki, what's the Pike? Is that Route 40 going into downtown? Wow what an adventure, reads like fiction though I don't doubt your veracity. Felt like a war novel in a way....hopefully I will never have this experience.

[Tom Lennox 70]

Originally Posted by kinkytoes

I think once you have been a victim of crime by the underclass your views may change. On the topic at hand, I once drove through an area in East Baltimore looking for a cheap house I saw advertised in the City paper. "How could a house be so cheap?" I said to myself. Well, I drove over there and I saw why.

It was worse than any bombed-out shanty town in any third world country, and I am from one. It was horrible. Guys in wife-beaters with pit bulls giving evil looks from the corners, burned out boarded up houses. Trash on the street. And then I saw a lady with a baby carriage. . .

At that point I started sobbing.

I think Hopkins is building the biotech park in that area. Or maybe they have already built it. Now that I think back, I felt sorry for the child AND the woman. Now I think, who would consciously bring a child into that kind of environment?

There is one thing I never understood about poor people in America. Why does poverty here seem to go hand-in-hand with low morals, dirt and crime? Anyone can feel free to flame the hell out of me for saying this. That's my impression after living here for many years.

I disagree with your last statement. Urban poverty often is associated with crime, but even there there are a lot of good people who just live under terrible circumstances. And America is more than just the city. There are plenty of people in rural areas throughout the South and the heartland that are financially deprived but rich in morals and soul, richer than a lot of the snotty, self-centered, greedy yuppies in Howard County and Montgomery County.

[Tom Lennox 70]

Originally Posted by PrairieDweller

Hi David,

I thought you were getting a place in Gallery Towers? Did this fall through? Was there some problem with Gallery Towers?

I live in Illinois and I was offered positions in Southeast D.C. and downtown Baltimore. Although I'm probably going with the position in D.C., I've also been lurking this forum to get a feel for Baltimore housing, just in case.

Southeast DC is mostly also very ghetto and run-down, though the Capitol Hill area around the Library of Congress is a very neat, well-kept, safe community though its probably overpriced like everything on the East Coast. The downtown area of Baltimore is safe supposedly.

[Tom Lennox 70]

Originally Posted by upinflamezzz

Poverty goes with crime, low moral, dirt, etc. because of the inability to afford education. Most people in poverty have to drop out of school in order afford the things in life that the well to do take for granite. Education will get you far in life.

I don't think education and morals go hand in hand. There are so many decent, hardworking, genuinely good people in small towns and inner cities across America who never went to college.

All the corrupt stockbrokers and robber barons on Wall Street and Manhattan are college educated, many from the Ivy League. Someone can have an engineering degree and work for NASA but they can go home and pay for their daughter to have an abortion. Morals are not something taught in colleges or public schools, its something taught in the family and in religious institutions. Actually a lot of urban black churches do their best to instill good moral values in youth and for every drug dealer you see there is probably a Christian preacher or chaplain trying to counteract his effects.

[Tom Lennox 70]

Is Route 45 (Greenmount Ave) from Route 40 into Towson safe? I got some intro materials from my graduate student housing complex and they suggest that for shopping we drive all the way to Cockeysville for Wal-Mart and Target. I hear there's a Walmart and Target in the city but the complex suggests Cockeysville instead.