For real. Someone from a place with a massive drug addiction problem, and meth heads rolling around calling Mount Vernon a shit hole. It’s usually such projection.

Yes. The hate you give little infants fucks everybody, truly.

It was more rant than productive, your summary was much better!

I have lived in the city 8 years now as a middle class 20, 30, and now 40 something black woman. Even with stints in Baltimore County and Howard County suburbs, I still choose the city.

My first apt here was in a nice area, but I had mice near the end. My rent was affordable... But I decided I valued not having mice more than the lowest possible rent. Bumped my housing budget by 200 a month, and no more mice. Since then, I have bumped my budget many times, and I am paying at least twice as much for housing as I was back in 2011, and I have not had to deal with mice since.

Similarly, If you don't want to see homeless people or poverty or want to be insulated from violent crime, bump your budget enough and you will be able to afford to live in a neighborhood where you will not. If you want dedicated off-street parking: money. If you want to be able to walk to an ice cream shop and not be visually reminded of the weight of the world, that too is just a matter of having enough money to live in a walkable neighborhood where you will not.

But first, you have to be honest with yourself. And, you have to have the money to have a high enough budget in the first place.

Antony Jewelers out in Owings Mills is great. Family owned. Great service.

I was looking into the menu at Allora, Tilted Row, and Alma Cocina Latina - all three have been hits for me recently!

Uptown Jewelers in on Reisterstown in Pikesville

Not just poor blacks, the effects of discriminatory practices affected poor whites (just look at Curtis Bay, Brooklyn and pre-gentrified Locust Point and Fed Hill) and any non-white group. Redlining, Blockbusting, Steering destroyed the American dream for so many families.

Chiapparelli’s is busy on Valentine’s Day but worth it. Food is really good

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Idk what you wrote, but the city really has a bad reputation so it's understandable if it wasn't that kind. Like I said, I grew up in the Dirty Dena and basically AACo looks at the city like Fallujah, or the Wild West. So that kind of thinking isn't unheard of

This is accurate, and also kinder than what I wrote.

^^ my favorite part about these comments is the person usually lives in Dundalk or Pasadena or some shit 😂

https://www.baltimorepolice.org/crime-stats

I grew up in Pasadena and used to think that the whole city is just a crime-ridden mess. Yet, after I left and now work in West Baltimore; a lot of the serious crimes (murders and assaults) happen to people who are actively engaged in crime. Other than that, crime in the city is crime of opportunity, just like some areas of Annapolis (Tyler Heights, Georgetown, Bywater Estates). I wouldn't be too worried based on where you live, unless it's near the more infamously redlined neighborhoods (Sandtown, Penn-North, Upton, Middle-East, etc.) Basically, if you're able to afford to not live in a neighborhood that's been left to rot by city and federal leaders (you can see them clearly) then the city has a lot to offer. Even in the less desirable areas, people are just trying to get by and survive.

Basically, don't play in the dirt, and you won't get dirty

Second this

If you’re not “in the game”, your personal crime rate is much lower than the stats show. Normal city nuisance crime will happen. S Balt is definitely an easier commute.

The local news makes a profit off of keeping the suburbanites in a constant state of fear. American cities have always had a crime problem, so did Rome. It is hard to know how to give a picture of life in the city as it differs from neighborhood to neighborhood. People think the loss of population is all due to crime. Much actually has to do with a government which is not able to improve basic city services or control outside entities which own most of the decayed property. Many of these owners are living in the nearby leafy suburbs, and own decayed property for money laundering or as slumlords. We do have an underclass which is more like the few kids in a classroom who are able to derail the teacher. It only takes a few to do disrupt. If you travel through the wealth belt of Roland Park, Bolton Hill, Guilford, or Homeland, you will not see bars on the mansions. I take this as a sign that the problems tend to be in the underclass neighborhoods and between segments of the poor who are having turf wars. The ills of Baltimore can be traced back to the post WWII actions by the federal and state government which ghettoized the poor blacks of the country's cities. Their actions were to use federal money to build the suburbs, using city infrastructure, like sewer, water, electricity, and not allow federal dollars to be used to rebuild the cities which had suffered 20 years of decay during the depression and war.

If you were to locate in Federal Hill, South Baltimore, or Ridgley's Delight, you would be near I-95 and have access to I-97

It is and it isn’t. I mean the stats aren’t somehow inflated or anything. Things are as bad as those numbers say, but the maps of crime in the city go a long way to contextualizing those numbers. If you are planning to be driving south regularly, I’d consider a southern neighborhood like Locust Point since getting across the city is annoying depending on the time of day. There are plenty of neighborhoods like that where people still walk their dogs at night, have a few neighborhood watering holes, even leave their front doors unlocked while they’re around. But it’s a city and you should be conscious about your actions and risk. In terms of the real experience living here, the main minor crimes that have happened to me or i have seen are basically nuisances/social crimes that are symptomatic of the city’s larger decay and history of systemic disenfranchisement - packages may get stolen if you leave them out, people will come by and try to open all the cars and steal stuff out of your car if they can or if something is very visible, there are groups on motorcycles who will speed past you doing wheelies and making a lot of noise, occasionally car theft or people breaking into and trashing businesses, and lots and lots and lots and lots of panhandling/squeegeeing- that sort of thing. My dog walker got jumped and battered pretty severely in fed hill in the middle of the day and went through the whole fuss to report the guy and testify against him only to see him back out on the street a few months later because baltimore is catch and release, so she stopped walking dogs in that area. That to me is the worst thing. I work at hopkins and in that area there are fairly frequent robberies and assaults. I travel with a buddy if I have expensive stuff on my person when I leave work and walk to the garage in east baltimore. The medical campus wants us to use security escorts after a certain time but I never have felt it was necessary since I don’t leave that late. People talk a lot about crime seeping from areas of lots of social issues to areas that are generally considered better invested and safer (we’d been looking at houses in Roland park and it seemed to come up at every open house, for example), but i have to say personally I just haven’t seen that. Maybe it comes out in the numbers, but I think it’s just a concern about future property values in the area. People who find the petty stuff too much of a nuisance to live around tend to move to the county, which is more suburban-rural. There’s petty stuff out there too but land doesn’t do crime so fewer people per foot means fewer bad actors per foot means fewer incidents that impact any one resident.

I will end by saying my childhood best friend just moved from an Annapolis burb to Sykesville because she couldn’t stand the pretension there anymore. She still works in the city and just commutes. So I think you’re reasonable in looking outside of that immediate area. Baltimore can be great, but I think like any city you just have to pay attention when you are living around that many people.

I’m in pigtown and love it. It’s as hassle free as possible for commuting, east to get everywhere else in bmore and a chill neighborhood, mostly.

I am a desegregated lesbian male who identifies as a tyrannosaurs erector set.

My star sign is banana.

My gemstone is potato.

My spirit animal is Bill Murray.

Politically I consider myself a bipartisan upward swinging inconsequent.

Religiously I’m Facebook friends with Jesus, but we don’t talk as often as we should.

Sports wise I’m a Ravens and Orioles fan. In THAT order.

I also like pizza.

It's wild that BOH is in the tip pool

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Yeah, you’re def not making it out alive

Depends on whether you get into the right crew or not. Shiiiiiiiit. This isn't naptown, might be best to get a job elsewhere. /S

Pitamore is one of the most underrated spots in town.