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Baltimores population is still declining slowly. You could rent a room for $650, pay split utilities for $100, eat for $250, pay a $50 cell phone bill, $200 month on miscellaneous. $50 on transportation so I think you could live in Baltimore for 1150-1450 a month total as a poor individual.
City life is full of people working regular shmegular 9-5s, lot of nice bars in some neighborhoods, decent nightclub culture, nice inner harbor and did middle class neighborhood in most of Northern Baltimore. Working class whites still live in Southwest and South Baltimore, integrated amongst blacks. Small Latino sommunity amongst the gentry in southeast baltimore although about 12/13% of the area is black (such as myself). Pretty walkable, very easy to drive around because it has manageable traffic and a near perfect grid. The city is corrupt as hell but remains pretty functional. 48000 vacant buildings, 15/16k of which are vacant homes. Mix of Northern, Appalachian and Southern culture but it leans northern for sure... East Baltimore is more diverse but obviously mostly black. West Baltimore is very black. Western suburbs are middle class black, jews and WASPS. Eastern suburbs are moe working class white with an Appalachian flair although there is a sizeable black and Latino presence. The northern suburbs are more definitely old suburb WASP. Southern suburbs feel more remote and are white and black nearly uniformly middle class and boring. The southern suburbs start catching major DC spill over about 20 minutes south of the city..
Local cuisine is pit beef, steamed crab, chicken boxes and old bay seasoning..
That’s not too bad budget wise. What part of Baltimore is the downtown and urban core located? Southeast Baltimore is only 12% black? What percent white is it then? What do you see happening for the future of the city in terms of growth and population? Sounds like an interesting city, one I’ve never really thought too much about but is definitely in my mind now.
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Originally Posted by Ben Around
Not exactly what you are looking for, but just for fun, bet you can't guess which state this is in:
I don’t have the slightest idea, Virginia maybe?
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Originally Posted by Tom Lennox 70
Detroit
Baltimore
Philadelphia
Cleveland
Toledo
Flint, MI
Gary, IN
South Side of Chicago
While areas like East and South Central LA, The Rio Grande Valley and Miami (particularly places like Hialeah and Little Haiti and Homestead) are definitely impoverished and violent, Third World even, their sunny climates make them less gritty.
Parts of New Orleans and Memphis are also quite gritty, though not Third World-like, but are also in more pleasant climates.
Nothing like a cold ,dreary winter day in Baltimore or Detroit or Flint, dark clouds over a depressing brown, dilapidated, post-industrial landscape.
Yea LA and Miami aren’t really what I’m looking for but those other cities you mentioned sound good. Thanks
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Originally Posted by ChadChadderson
Troy, NY is a good example of grit. It was built up pre 1900 and hasn't been touched since. The buildings are old, the streets are narrow, there are alleys, graffiti, garbage, grit. It had an extremely high violent crime rate for a city of it's size a few years ago but it seems to have calmed down quite a bit lately.
Do you have any good pics?
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Originally Posted by _Buster
Oh at night, I would say a good portion of any mid atlatnic city will give you that feel. wander off the main drags in Philly, Baltimore and Pittsburgh and its going to seem very gritty at night, unless you happen to be in the upper class areas. Basically one block off the main retail areas of these cities at night, will be gritty
How do you know what parts of the main drags are safe and what aren’t? Just experience living there? Never lived in the Mid Atlantic so I’m curious.
Hell’s Kitchen used to be though. Now the gritty neighborhoods in NYC all seem to be more just rough. Like think of how America was during the Industrial Revolution. Dark and dirty and grimy, and then compare that to like Compton which is just kinda rough and run down. It’s a completely different feeling.
I think plenty of NYC neighborhoods are gritty looking (including some pretty gentrified ones)
IM showing you the arbabbers (horseback salesman) the canton industrial area, parts of east and west Baltimore, and Baltimore's red light district known as "the block"
Note that ghastly black factory building that looks abandoned is very much still in use. I drive buy it quite a bit on S Newkirk Street in Baltimore. Also Baltimore still has a full-fledged redlight district. These are all pics from within the last 5 years so you cant say this is "how it used to be"
Arabbers come around my block in the summer as I dodge dead rats on the sidewalk along the side of my row home. People come into my barbershop selling all types of goods z(likely stolen). Street working women have propositioned me for sex, and i can smell the bread of the H and S bakery all over southeast baltimore.Mr. Joes Bar is at the end of my block selling $2 Bud lights and $2.75 Cornonas, 7 days a week till 2 am. On the backside it is also a small liquor store. I can get a chicken box across the street at NY Chicken and Grill till 2 am. Nephews Pizza sells excellent small 1 topping pizzas for $5, a medium is $7, a large is $8 and an XL is $9. The bodega next to my house sells $2 tamales and also makes full plates in the "kitchen."
I am 26 and work in a warehouse, drive uber and Airbnb the second bedroom of my wife and I's rowhome. My wife works with troubled kids at a special school in Baltimore and does some acting/theatre gigs on the side. We get a full helping of Baltimore every single day so I feel pretty well versed in what I am saying here.
I lived for many years in Baltimore County in Dundalk and never knew the arabbers were a real thing outside of the Wire. I wasn't even aware that was legal in Baltimore City or Maryland in general given the nanny state that dominates the city as well as state government. Dundalk and Sparrows Point are gritty suburbs, but more like faded glory that's seen better days before unfair trade agreements and government overregulation destroyed the steel industry.
I lived for many years in Baltimore County in Dundalk and never knew the arabbers were a real thing outside of the Wire. I wasn't even aware that was legal in Baltimore City or Maryland in general given the nanny state that dominates the city as well as state government. Dundalk and Sparrows Point are gritty suburbs, but more like faded glory that's seen better days before unfair trade agreements and government overregulation destroyed the steel industry.
yea no i see arabbers a few times per summer where i live. I know 1 or 2 stables
I am looking for the darkest and grittiest cities and neighborhoods. I don't really know how to describe it well, but kind of like a romanticized Hell's Kitchen like what you see in Daredevil, or what Hell's Kitchen used to be before it was gentrified. What I like about NYC and Hell's Kitchen are the narrow streets and tall buildings that block the sun and light, and it feels like the city is hugging you kind of because it is dense and compact. LA for example would not be good at this as the streets are a lot wider and it's a very sunny city. When I say gritty and dark I don't mean like abandoned houses like in Detroit I mean more the aesthetic and coziness a dense and dark city or neighborhood provides. What do you all think?
I'm new here so I might not be posting right, but I never knew a forum like this existed there goes all my free time all the threads look so interesting.
Some rustbelt cities have already been mentioned, there is plenty to admire on streetview and youtube. As far as fiction is concerned: I found the movie 'the Crow' with Brandon Lee doing a great job in portraying a gritty, dark Detroit although the movie apparently wasn't even filmed there for most part. I loved the overall gritty atmosphere of New York in 'Once upon a time in America', one of my favorite movies ever and the 'Death Wish' movies starring Charles Bronson. The art deco building in the first Ghost-busters movie was pretty fascinating as well.
More contemporary, I think the tv series Gotham did a great job in portraying Gotham city as a rather dark, gritty city.
Two days ago my wife needed the car and I decided to stay and do some overtime at the warehouse. I walked the 28 minutes home. ON my way home a man in a wheelchair stopped me and asked if I would bring his wheelchair into his rowhome and help him up for a couple of bucks. He was an older gentleman with one leg. I stopped listening to my music and helped him into this rowhome. It was sad, his living room had visible rate feces and all he had was a blanket a small TV and a mattress still wrapped in plastic. His wheelchair was filthy.
He gave me $2 dollars and seeing as Im not that financially well off I accepted and thought Id get a Natty Boh at the local package store. But as I was walking I saw some fruit in a cart and thought it might be an arabber. It was.
I took some pictures for you guys, I bought 5 plums from the arabber with the 2 dollars form the handicapped man. Here are some pics.
I walked the last 5 minutes home to find my one of neighbors on the stoop. Shesa ~40 year old black woman who works for the uniform factory around the corner. She was still in her work clothes. She has a young girlfriend about my age ~25 who was there as well. They were there talking about how DPW had come tot he alley behind our house to install cameras to stop dumping. They found some mail in the trash bags and are mailing $150 citations to the addresses they found.
Baltimore is kind of the epitome of classic blue-collar urban living IMO.
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