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But cmon don’t go back to the DC area. I was there in PG for a while (and I’m black) and thought ur sucked. DC is now my lest favorite east coast city. Philadelphia is definitely better than Baltimore flat out. But Bmore has good neighborhoods throughout anywhere both of cold spring avenue (Cross Country/Lauraville, Waltherson, Montebello, Belvedere Square, Hillen Road, Howard Park etc). Good neighborhoods al along the Charles street corridor in the middle of the city... Station North, Barclays, Waverly, Bellona, Hampden, Resevoir Hill. I like Baltimore a lot and although Boston is very different it did teach me how to carve out a nice life in a difficult situation-up there it was about finding a place you could afford near work period. Anywhere was somewhat liveable. I could successfully navigate Baltimore’s neighborhoods and get my kids into a solid high school (BPI, Parkville High, Gilman/BM, SEED School, Western School of Tech, Towson High, St. Frances, BCC) it just takes some work financial aid apps and lottery apps-coming from Massachusetts it’s seems like a no browner to apply to a variety of schools and shop for the best education-that competition is part what keeps the schools good, take the kid to each achooo in 7th/8th grade apply for the school and financial aid or the lottery or don’t apply if it’s oublic weigh all your options in the middle of the school year and make a choice. It’s not that bad. Baltimore is a city you have to go to it doesn’t come to you.
I'm sure that by now you've run across one of my (snarky | disapproving | hostile) comments about Official Washington.
Baltimore, like Philadelphia, has no such creatures living in it. Though I would love it if some Official Washingtonians were to take up residence in Baltimore. That city would put them in their place in a hurry.
Morgan State University's on Cold Spring, isn't it? I do recall being driven through a big swath of bosky neighborhoods between Morgan State on one side of Baltimore and Johns Hopkins on the other when I was there to participate as a respondent to a symposium at Morgan State. Unfortunately, the sun had set, so I didn't get a really good look at them. They did, however, strike me as somewhat suburban in appearance from what I could see.
If I'm right, Philadelphia's analogue is the northwest part of the city, where I now live. The Baltimoreans I know - all of them former residents save for the people I met at that Morgan State gathering - didn't strike me as down on or disparaging of their city at all, so I wonder where all these downshouters on the C-D forum came from.
Philadelphia has a long and storied legacy of being down on itself: we still speak of a legendary marketing campaign some local PR folks came up with that featured buttons and billboards that read, "Philadelphia isn't as bad as Philadelphians say it is." But I think the "Negadelphians" are pretty much in retreat these days, replaced by a group I'd call the "tough love" crowd: "We can trash this city all we want, but don't YOU dare put it down." The city's dysfunctional and highly transactional political culture gives this crowd plenty of fuel, as, it seems, does SEPTA.
But I'd echo your sentiment: Whatever you do, OP, don't go back to Washington. Tough it out in Baltimore or move to Philadelphia, which is a lot livelier these days.
Back in the late 2000s, Baltimore and Philadelphia were two of the 7 cities we visited when looking a place move to from Houston for retirement. We ended up in Philly. We had three big problems with Baltimore:
1) The downtown area away from the touristy harbor is pretty dead and uninteresting.
2) The harbor, while attractive, basically cuts the city in two. The neighborhoods you might want to live in ring the harbor (from Federal Hill to Canton), are disjointed and there is not good transit connecting them. You need a car to get around.
3) Property is less expensive but property taxes are outrageous.
Philly is urban, walkable, vibrant, and easy to live in without a car. In terms of culture, restaurants, entertainment and the lgbt community, it is heads and tails above Baltimore. Don't get me wrong: Baltimore is one of my favorite cities to visit, but it's not a place I would live for the reasons outlined above.
I'm sure that by now you've run across one of my (snarky | disapproving | hostile) comments about Official Washington.
Baltimore, like Philadelphia, has no such creatures living in it. Though I would love it if some Official Washingtonians were to take up residence in Baltimore. That city would put them in their place in a hurry.
Morgan State University's on Cold Spring, isn't it? I do recall being driven through a big swath of bosky neighborhoods between Morgan State on one side of Baltimore and Johns Hopkins on the other when I was there to participate as a respondent to a symposium at Morgan State. Unfortunately, the sun had set, so I didn't get a really good look at them. They did, however, strike me as somewhat suburban in appearance from what I could see.
If I'm right, Philadelphia's analogue is the northwest part of the city, where I now live. The Baltimoreans I know - all of them former residents save for the people I met at that Morgan State gathering - didn't strike me as down on or disparaging of their city at all, so I wonder where all these downshouters on the C-D forum came from.
Philadelphia has a long and storied legacy of being down on itself: we still speak of a legendary marketing campaign some local PR folks came up with that featured buttons and billboards that read, "Philadelphia isn't as bad as Philadelphians say it is." But I think the "Negadelphians" are pretty much in retreat these days, replaced by a group I'd call the "tough love" crowd: "We can trash this city all we want, but don't YOU dare put it down." The city's dysfunctional and highly transactional political culture gives this crowd plenty of fuel, as, it seems, does SEPTA.
But I'd echo your sentiment: Whatever you do, OP, don't go back to Washington. Tough it out in Baltimore or move to Philadelphia, which is a lot livelier these days.
What place, Im from PG county, Redskins country and Ive taken residence in Baltimore for 5 years, what place was somebody supposed to put me in. There are plenty of ppl from DC living in Baltimore and vice versa. I don't understand what you are saying
What place, Im from PG county, Redskins country and Ive taken residence in Baltimore for 5 years, what place was somebody supposed to put me in. There are plenty of ppl from DC living in Baltimore and vice versa. I don't understand what you are saying
I'm talking about the crowd that power-trips on its own (self-)importance.
The people who, when you meet them out for a first date, ask you right off the bat "So what do you do?"
The people who would write this copy for an ad for a now-defunct local bank (it imploded in a money-laundering scandal and is now owned by Pittsburgh-based PNC) that I saw on the Metro in the 1990s:
"The most important bank in the most important city in the world thinks you're important too."
People like the guy this 17-year-old Kansas Citian encountered while working for that city's major daily during the Republican National Convention in 1976. How was I supposed to know that the tall lanky guy I was talking to after he noticed my T-shirt and found out I didn't go to whatever school it was he thought I went to was Washington Post editor-in-chief Ben Bradlee? It's not like everyone in KC read the Post or that his picture was splashed all over creation.
These are the people I collectively refer to as Official Washington. I know there's a real city there with real Washingtonians (I'm friends with one who lived in Strawberry Mansion for a while - and he was white), but it tends to get swamped by this other one.
I suspect they're the people I didn't talk to when I took a (then) DC reporter friend of mine to the National Press Club once. We had one beer at its bar and then vamoosed. He found Philly's press club, the Pen & Pencil, more convivial. (Full disclosure: I serve on the club's Board of Governors. Pen & Pencil Club members get reciprocal privileges with the National and London press clubs, which is why I took him there - he didn't belong to it.)
They're generally insufferable, though not all of them are.
I'm talking about the crowd that power-trips on its own (self-)importance.
The people who, when you meet them out for a first date, ask you right off the bat "So what do you do?"
May I add on?
I have been to DC too many times to count on business trips and visits with college friends. Official DC is an impressive city overall with elegant boulevards and lovely monuments in beautifully proportioned settings. I could spend years visiting and revisiting all of its museums (most of them free!). I also think it has better PT than Philly when it comes to moving me to and from the places I want to be (though I understand it's starting to show its age).
Even with all that, DC didn't even make the shortlist of 7 coastal cities we visited when we we became serious about relocating 8 or so years back. Reason: it always feels to me like people there live in a bubble. It is a one company town - just about everyone I meet there either works for the government, a government contractor or an organization trying to court favor from the government. Meeting all these people toiling away for years (decades?) in the same tiny, poorly-furnished bureaucratic corner made me a bit sad. DC impresses me as a world where (perceived) proximity to power rather than an indivual’s contributions to the world determines one's overall value and rank on the pecking order. This is just not the vibe we wanted in a city to call home.
Since the OP asked for opinions, I would move to Philly, but would stay in Baltimore if the only other choice was DC.
I have been to DC too many times to count on business trips and visits with college friends. Official DC is an impressive city overall with elegant boulevards and lovely monuments in beautifully proportioned settings. I could spend years visiting and revisiting all of its museums (most of them free!). I also think it has better PT than Philly when it comes to moving me to and from the places I want to be (though I understand it's starting to show its age).
Even with all that, DC didn't even make the shortlist of 7 coastal cities we visited when we we became serious about relocating 8 or so years back. Reason: it always feels to me like people there live in a bubble. It is a one company town - just about everyone I meet there either works for the government, a government contractor or an organization trying to court favor from the government. Meeting all these people toiling away for years (decades?) in the same tiny, poorly-furnished bureaucratic corner made me a bit sad. DC impresses me as a world where (perceived) proximity to power rather than an indivual’s contributions to the world determines one's overall value and rank on the pecking order. This is just not the vibe we wanted in a city to call home.
Since the OP asked for opinions, I would move to Philly, but would stay in Baltimore if the only other choice was DC.
May I quote you on this?
That's the best one-sentence summary of what makes Official Washington such an unbearable place I've ever read.
As for the Washington Metro: "Starting to show its age" is an understatement - it's hit the age where much of its guts need repair or replacing, and because no one there did routine maintenance on the stuff WMATA built in its first 40 years of existence, they essentially have to rebuild the system completely while still running it now.
And as we found out in the wake of the 2009 Takoma crash, they weren't running it all that well for every one of those first 40 years. The top brass were more concerned with building stuff than with keeping what was built in decent shape; some cost-cutting decisions made at the start meant that the system couldn't even carry all the people it was designed to carry, and now they're finally fixing the main reason it can't; and the agency had a pervasive slacker culture in which covering one's ass-ets mattered more than making sure the things that kept riders safe worked properly.
I found this statistic instructive: From its opening in 1976 until 2016, there had been four fatality accidents on the Washington Metro system. From its opening in 1907 until 2017, there had been only two on SEPTA's rapid transit lines. Even after adjusting for the greater route mileage in Washington, that's a pretty bad comparison.
Dang.. you guys really despise DC. I like it, but it's not for everyone and thankfully there are plenty of cities to choose from within the country.
Nah. I don't despise DC at all. I said some nice things about it and we are planning 3 days there in the spring to museum-hop. It's just not a place I want to live.
DC is changing .... just like other cities that had declines from previous decades. If Philadelphians want ther stereotypes lessened and updated and upgraded...... Then DC deserves just as much for its evolution. Next we need Baltimore to gain more and of course ... Philly continue to improve aspects of previous declines to continue.
Just because DC had this stereotype similar to Bostonians .... I certainly don't think they deserve the old stereotype in a economy that still is diversifying from Government. Especially in the region. As DC proper is not big at all. Even smaller then originally a perfect square, losing boundaries in Maryland and Virginia in the past .... originally part of the city proper
Some might even have DC envy. A bit of jealousy even it has had such a boom to include much of the city and region.... snaring Amazon too.
I still include Baltimore DC Metro's with the Northeast today more then the South. Both Hybrid cities that can go either way. DC is lido one city that needs no Skyscrapers to use to boast of its new arrival .....
I'll honestly say that DC's turn around is very impressive. It went from a city that was seen the same way Baltimore is currently being seen, to the powerhouse that it is today, all in the course of 15 years.
That being said..... I'm #TeamBaltimore.
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boredatwork
What place, Im from PG county, Redskins country and Ive taken residence in Baltimore for 5 years, what place was somebody supposed to put me in. There are plenty of ppl from DC living in Baltimore and vice versa. I don't understand what you are saying
