Why I Believe Baltimore Will Be Fine In the Long Run

"Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated" - Mark Twain, maybe 

                                                                  On Northern Parkway
                                                         

Three years ago this week, a wave of violence swept through Baltimore City. The riots (or "uprising" or "civil unrest" - choose your semantics) are now one of the main things people nationwide associate with Baltimore.

In Arlington, Va., recently, I told a lady selling crafts I was from Baltimore; she asked me how things are there since the riots.

A lot of the focus on the riots is confirmation bias. It's easy to believe the worst about Baltimore because it's been crime-ridden for so long.

So why have faith at all? For one thing, I'm an eternal optimist; being negative is boring.

Here's why I think Baltimore will be fine in the long run:

--It's part of the Northeast megalopolis. Any developments in Philly/New York/DC/etc., are likely to benefit B'more, whether it's improvements to I-95, big business coming to town, Army "realignments," the pie-in-the-sky Maglev idea, Rails to Trails, historic trails, bike & beer things, what have you.

--All Baltimore-area jurisdictions have growing or stable populations. Baltimore County, Anne Arundel, Howard have all been steadily gaining population. Harford, Carroll and Cecil are basically stable. Baltimore City is the only one that's still losing people.

--Parts of Baltimore have boomed. To wit:

• The city's property wealth is surging. Downtown, the whole Harbor area (now bleeding into Canton/east B'more/Sparrows Point), Hampden, Charles Village, have seen a lot of development. I remember when Harbor East didn't exist; now it's "a little piece of Manhattan in Baltimore," as I heard one guy describe it. And don't even get me started on Harbor Point.

                                      Construction in downtown, Harbor East and the Inner Harbor
                                              (Image capture: Oct. & Nov. 2017 @2018 Google)

                         View of Harbor East from jail-complex area in East Baltimore

• Baltimore is still a wellspring of black intellegentsia and culture, has one of the country's largest Orthodox Jewish populations, and has significant and/or growing numbers of Hispanic, Russian, Caribbean, African and Asian immigrants.
• The apartment/"luxury" boom here is legit. Is it too much? Time will tell. 

                                           
                                                      Apartments under construction in Hampden

--Baltimore is the Coolest City On the East Coast, according to Travel + Leisure ! This is absolutely accurate. Spend some time in the so-called "cool" neighborhoods of Philly, Boston, what have you, and you'll see they're nothing but posers. 😏 Baltimore is singular in combining a "bubbling hub of DIY artistic activity" with the grit of potentially being robbed at gunpoint at any moment (j/k).

--Kids in even the worst areas continue to do inspiring things and show hope for the future. How many students in the suburbs have you seen protest in support of their teachers? Exactly.

--Every place is capable of a big recovery. I watched "Trump: An American Dream" on Netflix (a legitimately good series), which noted New York City had, like, 2,000 homicides a year for decades. 

--It's had too significant a role in American history to be irrelevant in the future. Star-Spangled Banner, War of 1812, briefly the capital of the country, the list goes on.

via GIPHY

                                           
Things aren't going to "be fine" in Baltimore overnight, or even in 10 years, probably. Right now there's a big crime wave that is really heartbreaking and demoralizing.


                                                  Mural in Locust Point (Anthem House)

That's what I told the crafts-selling lady in Arlington: there's a big crime wave, but things are basically fine and there's a lot of development.

But one of the main things I remember about the riot isn't the destruction but the day after, when strangers across the city came together to clean up the mess done by a small handful of people.

One of the things I like about Baltimore is it somehow regularly surprises me. Nothing against DC, but DC has increasingly felt like SimCity (which, by the way, I loved playing back in the day.)

I think the DC area/northern Virginia has grown so fast that it's lost a lot of character and large parts of it feel cookie-cutter, like a "city by the numbers."

#SimCityMayorForever 

I guess what I'm saying is I like character. I like to be surprised, sometimes.

I will say I recently came across the Bayou Cafe in northern VA, and that place was GREAT and super-cute. Highly recommended.

😎