Visiting Baltimore (Mount Vernon: house, neighborhoods, school districts)

[famusdarlin]

My husband and I will be visiting Baltimore next week for abou 5 days. This will be our annual vacation, but we are also hoping to scope out Baltimore to see if it is someplace we would have interest in living.

Our plan is to move our family within 3 years, but it is dependent on finding a city that meets our needs. We need a city with affordable inner-city homes (under $400k), with decent public schools or charters, interesting cultural benefits for our three young daughter, and being within driving distance of nice vacation spots.

So, my question, are their any affordable neighborhoods in the city with decent schools? What would be the best way to visit these neighborhoods and get a feel for them if we are staying downtown with no car?

What are some of the best tourist attractions and night spots for 30 somethings traveling without kids? When we go out we generally like good drinks, good food, nice lounges, and we LOVE to dance!

[remstone]

I guess it depends on just how "inner city" you mean. While there is a decent crop of charter schools serving the urban core, almost nobody would describe the standard feeder public schools in Baltimore as good until you get to northern neighborhoods around Roland Park, and a few selective high schools like Polytechnic, Western, and City College. You might also count parts of the northeast (Greater Lauraville, more or less) in there - the northeast is affordable, while much of the north is not. I'd certainly like to point you to more central neighborhoods like Patterson Park, Charles Village, and (my own) Reservoir Hill that are within your price range and attractive, though you're dependent on charters. You might also find the occasional house in Mount Vernon, Federal Hill, Bolton Hill, Butchers Hill, Fells Point, or Canton (generally nicer neighborhoods) that are in your price range. Without going into too much detail I'll just say there are good charter options that keep families in the city beyond the point when the kids turn school-age, and there are many great parents working to improve and start charters and improve regular city schools.

DFBA doesn't have tons of school data/dirt on their website, but if you talk to some members or get on their listserve you'll learn plenty:
Downtown Baltimore Family Alliance > Home
Also you can start with some neighborhood basics at Live Baltimore:
Live in Baltimore - Home

As the cultural heart, I'd recommend you center your visit around Mount Vernon. Great restaurants everywhere you turn. Stay at the Tremont or Peabody Court and walk around - Charles Street has most of the attractions. For dancing in Mount Vernon I guess there's Red Maple (loungier as well), or the latin/salsa Saturday nights at 13th Floor. Many of the neighborhoods nearer the harbor can offer you at least some dancing (more for the singles), while lounges are a bit rarer. Check out one of the other threads (Must Do and See, Date Ideas) for more to do, others may chime in too.

Getting around without a car will be tough, and public transport much doesn't help for that here. The free circulator will help some for moving directly east and west of downtown, but only the Orange line is operating at the moment:
Route Maps | Charm City Circulator
I think the Tremont offers a free shuttle, but I'm not sure if that would get you back without a cab ride. You might just do one of the touristy ride-around buses that cover the waterfront neighborhoods to spot where to head later, or perhaps the Water Taxi:
Ed Kane's Water Taxi Home
For really getting out of the downtown area I would give Live Baltimore a call and see if they have any ideas. There are MTA buses but they might not make a good impression - slow, often late, and loud if there are school kids on them. If you plan an itinerary well you might be able to see half a dozen outer neighborhoods on a day pass.

Good luck, hope you can find a good fit!

[famusdarlin]

Wow, great information. We are from Kansas City and though we live in the inner burbs we choose to send our children to charter schools in the city. Kansas City is like Baltimore it sounds like and most inner city school districts, struggling, but good charter options. I love charters, they allow me as a parent to really get involved in my child's education and play a part in making decisions.

Thank you for the list of neighborhoods. That gives me great info to start with. I will take your suggestion and spend time our first day doing a tour to get an idea on where we want to see more.

I am not against taking a cab ride, here and there, just don't want to pay for my plane ticket again with cab rides all over the city!

O, and thank you for the tip on Mount Vernon. I read that somewhere else, so I am adding it to my "must do" list!

[remstone]

Funny, I was just listening to this about KC on the drive home:
Schools Across U.S. Grapple With Closures : NPR
We went through our recent school closings a few years ago, and came through pretty well. Of course we haven't seen quite the drop-off in enrollment it sounds like KC has over the years. We have transitioned from about 50/50 black/white student split in the 70s to about 88/12 today, which was corresponding with losing many of our white (80s) and black (90s) middle class residents in the last decades.

The school system / unions were reasonably resistant to charters but in the last few years we've succeeded in opening up several good ones, spurred partly by a (flawed) state enabling law. There were few before but there's a mini-explosion since. Baltimore has most of the ones in the state as, for the most part, residents in the counties are pretty happy with their public schooling options (PG County excepted):
Maryland Charter Schools
MCSN and the existing schools form a pretty good support system, though I think we've seen most of the new schools we're going to see for a while ... the pace of new applications and approvals has dropped quite a bit. Midtown Academy and Patterson Park Public are the two I'm most familiar with.

On another note, you might check out Pazo in Harbor East when you come in. No dancing, but might impress you otherwise. I guess there are a couple lounges in Federal Hill as well but for the most part Baltimore doesn't do pretension well, and there's a certain anti-lounge attitude that might come through. There's no real shortage of places to drink though - Federal Hill, Fells Point, Canton, Mount Vernon, Hampden, on and on. I forgot to mention Hampden as a funky, affordable neighborhood you might consider as 30 somethings.

Also something new and useful from our alt-weekly:
Baltimanual :: City Paper's Guide to Charm City