> She described how bewildering it had been to accompany a friend downtown, near the tourist-friendly Inner Harbor, one night a few months earlier. “The lighting was so bright. People had scooters. They had bikes. They had babies in strollers. And I said: ‘What city is this? This is not Baltimore City.’ Because if you go up to Martin Luther King Boulevard” — the demarcation between downtown and the west side — “we’re all bolted in our homes, we’re locked down.” She paused for a moment to deliver her point. “All any of us want is equal protection,” she said.
This rings pretty true to me. The past few months I've taken walks around the Inner Harbor, Fells Point, and Federal Hill in the mornings, and it has never felt unsafe. When I've ventured into other parts of the city it's like I've entered a different world. Also, as an aside, you can get a feel for how safe various areas of the city are by checking out the Baltimore Homicides Map: