Recent comments in /f/baltimore

Ambitious-Intern-928 t1_iwctshd wrote

Reply to comment by moderndukes in Making Baltimore look good on the Internet by perceptron-addict

There are absolutely people that live here that describe it as such, you think the people living in the rough areas of the city live in some imaginary fairy land? A 13 year old just died from being shot in the head near Douglas-homes. A 14 year old was just shot in the back in Belair-Edison. Pretty recently a 9 year old fatally shot a 15 year old in Edmonson-Village and the family felt it was intentional. There are BRUTAL assaults everyday and many are just random bad-ass kids looking for trouble. I think pretending everything is rosey is just as bad as completely sh***** on the city. These are REAL PEOPLE, not numbers. The murder rate doesn't even begin to paint the real picture, we have way more non-fatal shootings and many of those victims now require long-term care. Many victims of assault have life-long injuries. I don't understand why people get butthurt when somebody points all of this out. Yes, the same thing is happening in other cities, that doesn't mean our extremely high rate of violence should just be swept under the rug.

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jnyerere89 t1_iwcqj90 wrote

Reply to Making Baltimore look good on the Internet by perceptron-addict

These are the types of posts I wish I saw more of on this subreddit. Thank you for doing what you do. I've been in Baltimore for 2 yrs and I love it. I'm wondering if those of us who moved here as adults have more love and appreciation for this city than many of those who've been in the area their entire lives.

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ScootyHoofdorp t1_iwcp76v wrote

Reply to comment by pk10534 in Making Baltimore look good on the Internet by perceptron-addict

Well, first, see my edit. Also, I definitely think there's a link between poverty and crime. I don't, however, think that we should treat poor people as if they have no agency and that society has forced them to become criminals, like the mayor, perhaps unintentionally, implied. That's a disservice to the vast majority of poor people that don't resort to crime. There is heaps of evidence that crime rates can be affected by many factors other than poverty. It's negligent to sit idly by and refuse to pursue other avenues of reducing crime simply because poverty exists.

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savethewale t1_iwcoe7w wrote

Reply to comment by perceptron-addict in Making Baltimore look good on the Internet by perceptron-addict

I don’t know if you are aware, but there is a common thread amongst locations you have listed. The cities people call “war zones” are majority black cities. News media/suburban America is more than happy to shit on majority black cities while seemingly giving more leeway to places like Philadelphia, NYC, even when levels of violence/crime are comparable.

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toaurdethtdes t1_iwcm4ab wrote

Reply to Making Baltimore look good on the Internet by perceptron-addict

I love public transit content online and never see much about Baltimore transit so I think you could find a niche in there along with your Baltimore cycling content if you’d like. The public transit isn’t what it should be so I get why people don’t talk about it online but I would love to see any content about it at all. Maybe show what does actually work in the system there is now despite its flaws along with critiques of what doesn’t

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perceptron-addict OP t1_iwclsvz wrote

Reply to comment by fijimermaidsg in Making Baltimore look good on the Internet by perceptron-addict

Great idea, I'll go check it out. What's considered the "worst" area in Baltimore? I know it's easy to focus on tourist-y areas as nice, and obviously there are some not-so-nice areas. Would be good to show everything. I used to live in Seattle and I'd be surprised if the "boots on the ground" here was substantially worse than in Seattle. Downtown Seattle is lawless, also open-air drug market and with shootings rapes in broad daylight and people defecating in the middle of the sidewalk. But Baltimore has a much worse reputation than Seattle.

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rockybalBOHa t1_iwcl8pv wrote

Reply to Making Baltimore look good on the Internet by perceptron-addict

I have a lot of family and friends who live in and around Philadelphia, and they visit me regularly in Baltimore. This generates an interesting dynamic that is very telling about how people perceive places, namely cities.

For one, they almost all have negative, hopeless feelings about Philadelphia. BUT they all have positive, almost dreamy feelings about Baltimore. The reasons for this are simple - they are inundated with constant negativity about Philly (especially from the local Philly media) and because they live there, they see all of Philly's warts.

When they visit Baltimore, they are only doing fun things and seeing our best neighborhoods. They don't have access to our local media, social media, etc. and the people they know aren't shit talking Baltimore on a daily basis. In their day to day lives all of that negativity is reserved for Philly. Meanwhile, their feelings about Baltimore are based solely on positive, curated experiences. This leads to an intense "the grass is greener" kind of feeling that isn't 100% "valid", but their feelings aren't necessarily wrong either.

Baltimore is great. Philly has it's challenges. But Philly is also great...and Baltimore also has its challenges. Perspective matters a lot.

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perceptron-addict OP t1_iwckqqy wrote

Reply to comment by mindfulminx in Making Baltimore look good on the Internet by perceptron-addict

>Improved public transportation infrastructure and improved public school performance would have immense effects for the city. Every young couple I've known that has moved out of the city wanted to stay for the lifestyle but felt they had to because of schools, and the larger an area people are able to travel in a given amount of time means a larger area people are able to look for jobs, and a better chance of increasing their income.

Wow thank you so much for the ideas! This is really great, I'm going to start trying to implement some of those types of videos.

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fijimermaidsg t1_iwcj23o wrote

Reply to Making Baltimore look good on the Internet by perceptron-addict

Speaking of "boots on the ground" and warzones - have you been to parts of Baltimore like Pennsylvannia Avenue, Upton? Try cycling there... ok no don't... It all depends on where you live and Baltimore changes from block to block. Ride the subway from Lexington Market to Reisterstown... They've tried to gentrify Lexington Market but across the street, it's still an open air drug market.

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