What do you hate about Baltimore? (Dundalk, Frederick: real estate, rental, violent crime)

[steppinthrax]

Just curious what do you dislike about Baltimore? Are you still living there? If not when did you leave? Was it a bad event or series of bad events that made you leave?

[sobo16]

Hmm, three hours, no responses. Guess there's not much to hate about Baltimore!

LOL

[sobo16]

Just kidding about the above. I grew up in the Baltimore area and went to college in the city. I also lived within the city limits for about 10 years after college. I left to give another area a try (and for a new job).

I didn't like the high property taxes or the crime. Customer service in general isn't that great, but of course there are exceptions. I don't think it's as small business friendly as it could be, but that's Maryland in general. And I think the city needs fresh, new leadership.

But there are things I like, too: the neighborhoods, I have many friends there, and there are some very good restaurants. And in general, it's not as pretentious as some of the other big northeastern cities.

[Infinite_heights77]

Just got off of work! Let me grab a brewski and I can jump on my soapbox.

People constantly say "Baltimore is not pretentious like other East Coast cities!" Theybehavior like it's some badge of honor and respectability. From my experience, pretentious people like to build and create things to boast their already inflated egos. I see no problem with that! I always wondered, if Baltimore was a bit more aggressive and pretentious like say a Philly or NYC, the city would have a lot more going on for itself!!!!

[UsAll]

Well, saying this as someone who has been to Baltimore varied times over the years and made of it the best I could (always being someone who tries to make the best of what is encountered or handed to me in life):

Baltimore, by-and-large, for whatever it has going for it, is not really a place that has a basis for being "pretentious". It simply does not have the full delivery of assets that so many of its competing cities around the U.S. of similar size (and even some of those of smaller size) has to offer. If we are just talking about the Eastern Seaboard alone, it is not a real across-the-board competitor to Boston or New York City or Philadelphia or DC or Atlanta or Miami. And then, encompassing those places outside the Eastern Seaboard as well in the U.S. and Canada, it doesn't really hold its own against Toronto, Montreal, Chicago, Dallas-Ft. Worth, Houston, Austin, Denver, Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Vancouver (B.C.). EACH of those mentioned places has enough going for them to give them each a credible basis for being to whatever degree "pretentious" (though Philadelphia admittedly does has its own set of challenges and problems).

Baltimore is more-or-less in the league of the following cities (i.e., sometimes more, sometimes less, & sometimes in relative parity to): Buffalo (NY), Newark (NJ), Richmond (VA), Cleveland (OH), Columbus (OH), Cincinatti (OH), St. Louis (MO), Kansas City (MO), New Orleans (maybe?), Pittsburgh (PA), Wichita (KS), Omaha (NB), Minneapolis-St. Paul (MN), Milwaukee (WI), Madison (WI), Indianapolis (IN), Tulsa (OK), Oklahoma City (OK), Salt Lake CIty (UT) Phoenix (AZ), and Portland (Oregon). I could name more but I'm just giving a sampling here. <-----"maybe?" as to Portland?.

In the case of Minneapolis-St. Paul (MN) and Portland (OR), those places, while not outright abounding in pretentiousness, may be deemed by enough persons to have more going for them as a desired destination than Baltimore. And as to Philadelphia, it has the makings of what can be a first-tiered (or at least second-tiered) pretentious city but has a host of long-standing problems & challenges similar to Baltimore.

These are not meant by myself as knocks of Baltimore otherwise. It is what it is and it does have its virtues. And it is part of a larger metro area stretch with Washington, D.C., Northern Virginia, and all points between them and Baltimore (re: the Washington-to-Baltimore corridor). But Baltimore itself just doesn't quite have the size and infrastructure, the topographic features, and the other draws in the minds of the U.S. or world population at-large to make it in the league of appeal of Boston, New York City, DC, Atlanta, Miami. Toronto, Montreal, Chicago, Dallas-Ft. Worth, Houston, Austin, Denver, Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Vancouver (B.C.). Those places each have, to their varying degrees, the legitimate premises for taking on a sense of "pretentiousness".

Just my opinion, for what it is worth (and we all know that opinions, by their very nature, are subjective).

[BMoreJuice]

I'm not going to join the IhateBmore train but I do have my personal feelings about the city.

Likes: The Neighborhoods and culture, the history and its architecture, The hustler/mind my business attitude, Inner Harbor, North Baltimore and its unique beauty, City Parks, Restaurants, Jewish life, proximity to D.C.

Dislikes: The lack of development, The lack of energy and drive, Inequality, lack of diversity and unification, Not tourist friendly ( Haven't met a tourist that did not B.... about the boarded up houses), Real estate and rental prices (Baltimore in its condition has no business having inflated housing prices), Crime.

[spencer114]

The thing that I hate most about Baltimore is that it is a three hours drive from Richmond. I'd visit all the time if it was closer!

[Nema98]

I have never been to Baltimore, but is among a handful of cities that I would really like to visit in the near term future. I know it has been listed among the most dangerous cities in America in terms of violent crime, but that does not faze me. I also heard once that Baltimore was once the "rat infested" city in the country. A new list still has it in the top 10, but Chicago is number one now, with my city Los Angeles following close behind.


So yeah Baltimore interests me.

[personone]

Dislikes: All of the groups unsupervised teens that are sometimes seen around downtown; The general blight once you get in a lot of the neighborhoods; The school system (almost all of my friends moved once they had kids because the schools are just not good); The fact that it is patchy- you can be in a nice neighborhood, and 2 blocks away, you can be in a really bad neighborhood; The fact that even parts of downtown feel sketchy (when I was in grad school there was stabbings, shootings near where I lived a couple of blocks away from downtown); Seeing the condition of some of the people at Lexington Market is definitely sad (dilated eyes, drugs, etc.).

That being said, lots of cities have the following, but Baltimore is physically smaller and denser than many cities, so you are more likely to see undesirable things.

Likes: Tons of natural beauty; A city with lots of potential; Lots of new developments in the past years; good sports and food; 2 large medical districts (Univ of MD and Hopkins); Very affordable and near many other nice cities/suburbs; Hopefully revitalization gets into some of the neighborhoods that need it.

Baltimore has all makings to be an awesome city. DC was very recently a dangerous, crime-ridden city, and it obviously turned it around. Hoping that Baltimore can do the same.

[Borntoolate85]

Originally Posted by spencer114

The thing that I hate most about Baltimore is that it is a three hours drive from Richmond. I'd visit all the time if it was closer!

The major obstacle for Richmond is DC, but at least on weekends, traffic often isn't too bad since much of the bottlenecks occur on the Montgomery County side of I-495. On a good day, you can get from just south of Downtown to the Wilson Bridge in 45 minutes via 295 going south, to Fredericksburg in about 90 minutes, Kings Dominion in just under two hours, and Richmond in about 2 hours and 15 minutes, all with NO TOLLS. I've lived in Maryland all my life and while I briefly visited Petersburg when I was about two years old and couldn't really remember anything, I've only driven through Richmond and feel that there are some good things to see and do there.

My father left Baltimore City for Towson in 1964 before marrying my mother who was from the Dundalk/Eastwood/Eastpoint section in Baltimore County (my maternal grandfather left the city around WWII) and of course never look back on the city given how far downhill it since has delved. That said, my maternal grandmother just last year moved to White Marsh given that neighborhood being working class and threatening to turn into the inner city. Besides my father investing a bit in Little Italy in the 1980s/90s due to the proximity to gentrified areas, I still feel that Baltimore seriously lags behind other cities with regards to progress. Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, DC, even Cleveland have made better strides towards increasing development, diversity, quality of life, and lowering crime. It still is the punching bag city of the East Coast, and Time just released another article discussing why Wire exploited the city's industrial decline. But there is so much low that gives the city a weakness for so many other reasons.