Is Baltimore anything like.......... (restaurants, shops, park)

[pottery barn]

Houston, New Orleans? Like Park Slope (Brooklyn) or Fremont (Seattle) areas? Is it diverse, progressive with funky art galleries, shops, restaurants and hip nightspots or is that more towards the D.C metro area?

[HandsUpThumbsDown]

It has more actual artists than DC because it's cheaper (and more fun, and less stuck up). It's like Brooklyn 15 years ago but much, much smaller.

[jonjj]

Originally Posted by HandsUpThumbsDown

It has more actual artists than DC because it's cheaper (and more fun, and less stuck up). It's like Brooklyn 15 years ago but much, much smaller.

agreed.

[End-User]

Baltimore is much more diverse than DC, but that is only because DC isn't diverse by any measure. They are about equally as progressive, but both would be considered conservative compared to many other metro areas. As others have said, the artist community is much larger and we have the annual artscape event (even if the actual artist are disappearing from it) but there is a lack of hip/funky in the shops and nightspots. Of course it depends on what you are looking for, but I haven't much creativity in the area and I doubt you'll find anything that resembles Seattle or New Orleans. That said, I see a lot that could make Baltimore attractive to new artist/musicians if only there was a larger existing community of them. It always takes the adventurous souls to come first and make the scene visible to others that will grow the community.