Baltimore - The City that Sucks
As a follow-up to my piece about Boston, I'd like to write about the city I've called home for the past 4 1/2 years, Baltimore, MD. Let's start with the good stuff - Low rent, good orchestra, exciting football team, nice baseball stadium, nice inner harbor, some good restaurants. Other than that, this town sucks major ass.
We barely have half a million citizens but manage to average 300 homicides a year and there are 60,000 drug addicts residing in the city. The job market here has always been a sorry state of affairs.
This used to be a great city. It was home to Mencken, Poe, Babe Ruth, Eubie Blake, Francis Scott Key, and many others. It has an important place in the nation's early history and was once the cultural center of the US. It was a great shipping and industrial center. So what happened? The city got complacent. It failed to make the necessary shift in emphasis from manufacturing to commerce like the other major cities on the East Coast.
Let's look at some concrete examples - The loss of the Baltimore Colts. The deterioration of the Peabody Institute. The loss of a large house theater that can handle Broadway caliber shows. The constant mediocrity of the Baltimore Orioles. No major dance company in residence.
I can't believe how many people try to defend the merits of the city. If you love the city that much, then you should be trying to change it. The public transportation system sucks. Anytime you need to buy anything you need to go out to the suburbs. People flee the city due to crime and economic reasons and have very little incentive to come into the city, save for a few tourist attractions.
You cannot be a major city if you don't have a reliable public transportation system, infrastructure that can handle the demands of a city in dying need of growing, a strong commitment to the long term improvement of the city through job creation, drug treatment, and education. Pasting a bunch of dumb-ass slogans like, "Believe", and "Baltimore - The City that Reads" won't do shit unless you address the major issues laid out before you.
Other than that, you have a city government who believes that the solution to all the city's woes lie in real estate development. And more arrests instead of attacking the root of the rampant crime, I don't get it. The state government ended up discovering a $55 million deficit in the education budget - and this was after massive layoffs!
You have here one of the most diverse populations in the nation but they're so isolated and factionalized that you feel like your in Post war Vienna. Walking the streets, I feel like I'm back in time about 15-20 years - heightened racial tensions, etc.
I'm upset because this town certainly does have potential. For a city, there's a fair amount of trees and parks. You can tell that at one point, this must have been an incredibly beautiful city. There are signs of improvement. The Hippodrome's about to reopen with The Producers in February. Who knows what will happen to the Orioles. There are plans to add a new line to the subway system, but I'm not holding my breath. We'll see what happens.
posted by Bob @ 1:29 PM
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