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Comment by thestoicattack | Hacker News Reader

Right on. I have lived in Baltimore almost my entire life. I'm a PhD candidate at Hopkins now, but if I do a startup when I finish, I'd much rather stay here than move to California.

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you guys don't even know how motivating it is to read stuff like this. I am forwarding these comments to folks I know in the economic development community. Perhaps we can get a bit more institutional backing for things like this so we can provide more resources to people in your exact spot!

The Wire (while being an incredible show) definitely hurt Baltimore in terms of its reputation. There are some fantastic areas around, and the culture is very inspiring.

Baltimore already had that reputation thanks to Homicide, and also the fact that there really are hundreds of murders every year. I'm a Baltimore native, and there is really no hiding the fact that Baltimore, while a great city, still has some serious social problems and the Wire nailed them perfectly.

I have to admit, the first thing that popped in to my head when I saw this headline was "Body-more Murda-land" from the opening credits of The Wire. Great show, though.

I think it's the consistent 200-300 homicides per year that hurt Baltimore's reputation.

yes but how many other cities have had their homicides so dramatically portrayed to the world cognoscenti?

Ever watch Law and Order? CSI?

Every major American city has its share of violent, drug- or gang-based crime. That's not to diminish it, but unless you are actively involved in those trades or unfortunate enough to be caught up in it by proximity, it likely will never visit you. It's a shame because there are risks everywhere (suburbanites think nothing of climbing in their cars everyday to hop on the highways where 30,000 people die every year) but we're so bad in general at evaluating them.

Frankly, it doesn't bother me that Baltimore's reputation is somewhat tarnished, because that just makes it all the more appealing to live here and know that there is great art, great music, a vibrant technology and hacking scene, lots of smart young people, and friendly neighbors to enjoy. Now if we could just get more bike lanes and some better frickin' public transit ...

To put it in context, Baltimore's homicide rate is six times that of NYC, which itself is also over the national average.

Austin, Texas which is slightly more populous than Baltimore has about 20 homicides per year. This is a similar per person rate as Edinburgh and lower than Dublin, but higher than London. Austin isn't amongst the safest cities in the US. It's just a major city I chose at random. I think it's fair to say that on the whole the US is dangerous for a rich country, but the average is definitely being pulled up by outliers such as Detroit and Baltimore.

Boston, which is almost exactly the same populations as Baltimore, had 72 murders last year.

If New York had the murder rate that Baltimore does that would mean over 3000 people murdered in a year.

Baltimore has a serious violence problem no matter how you try to rationalize it.

who's trying to rationalize it? There's not much I can do about it; it's still an awesome place to live. Good luck buying a house in a nice part of Boston or NYC as a working-class or middle-class person. Meanwhile I'm hacking code, running a startup, and I live in a super nice house in a walkable neighborhood that's very different than the one narrow slice you saw in that show.

I am criticizing as only a family member can (or should.) I grew-up outside Baltimore and lived in the city for 10 years in Federal Hill, Canton, and Homeland.

My wife and I decided we wanted to raise our family in Boston and when we were looking for a place in 2004 I was shocked to find out there were only 39 murders in Boston in 2003.

The status quo in Baltimore is not acceptable and is not what is tolerated in other cities.

However, I will be applying and I would love to spend 3 months back in Baltimore.

What neighborhood? (Charles Village here.)

We haven't locked down the space yet but are hoping for a spot in Fells Point. I actually also live in Charles Village, let's meet up for coffee sometime! (mike@subelsky.com)

That's irrelevant to what Paul said; he didn't say that Baltimore's murder rate wasn't outrageously high.

What he said is:

> unless you are actively involved in [drug] trades or unfortunate enough to be caught up in it by proximity, it likely will never visit you.

Baltimore undoubtedly has a serious drug violence problem; much more serious than Boston and NYC. (Fortunately our government's Drug War is on the verge of eliminating that problem any day now!)

What Paul is saying, though, is that this problem has remarkably small collateral damage considering its severity; almost nobody who's not involved with the drug trade ends up in those murder statistics.

(I know it's not nobody, but I suspect that the rate of "unrelated to drug trade" murders in Baltimore is similar to that in Boston and NYC.)

Yes but The Wire did not take place in Fells Point or Canton. Which is the Hoboken(yuppie) of Baltimore.

Every city has its west baltimore components to it.

I actually don't mind The Wire reputation, because I loved that show so much. Lest anyone think I don't have a sense of humor about it, here's a tour I wrote up for seeing all the sites from the show, for people coming to RailsConf:

http://www.subelsky.com/2008/12/wire-tour-of-baltimore.html

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