Comment by qchris | Hacker News Reader

Comment by qchris | Hacker News Reader

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As another person currently residing in Baltimore (and who just re-signed a lease to stay in a city I've enjoyed living in), it's worth pointing out that when people talk about "systemic" issues in policing and law enforcement, they're talking about things like the fact that for the last, oh, literally 162 years, Baltimore PD has not been administrated within the City of Baltimore, but instead by state lawmakers in the capital, Annapolis, which is around a 45-minute drive away. It's only been during the most recent local election that control was moving locally instead[1][2][3].

This kind of thing has resounding consequences. Baltimore is a city with a complicated history; for one thing, it's down from it's peak of almost 1M people to under 600k [4]. There's a significant history of racism in Maryland at large. There's a lot of fundamental issues, ranging from food deserts to lack of public transportation among the poorer areas. But to say that "[I]t would take Ra's al Ghul to resolve the problems of this city" is not true. It's certainly not all sunshine and roses, there's a lot of work being done at the grassroots as well, from new local investigative news organizations like the Baltimore Banner being funded to small makerspaces being set up in the now-plentiful well-built, but unused buildings that cities like Boston or Washington, DC. would only dream about having near their harbor or highways, and it's unfair to dismiss these things as being worthless.

[1] https://baltimorefishbowl.com/stories/baltimore-officials-co...

[2] https://www.wbaltv.com/article/baltimore-city-control-police...

[3] https://www.thebaltimorebanner.com/politics-power/local-gove...

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baltimore#Demographics (other sources available)

I'll cherry-pick one line. "There's a lot of fundamental issues, ranging from food deserts to lack of public transportation among the poorer areas."

Food deserts in Baltimore? Like the Mondowmin Mall that was destroyed by residents during the Freddie Gray riots? And the companies that tried to rebuild and provide in the neighborhood, only to be robbed constantly to the point that companies gave up for not being able to guarantee workers'safety?

And public transport, in areas where cabbies fear to go, buses take hours, and electric scooters and bikes are routinely dumped in the harbor? Vandalism runs rampant. Bus seats are sliced open, gang members threaten riders, etc.

I hate what poor Baltimore has become. Yuppie white-collar Baltimore thrives, just not in these areas. 35 yrs ago I love going to Balt to play tourist. Nice people, Inner Harbor, restaurants, stores... Employed so many people. Corrupt city government at all levels, corrupt cops, and promotion of a victim mentality are some of the things that brought it down. Baltimore is screwed in general, by its own actions.

I'm not going to try to defend every bad thing about the city; as I clearly stated, it's not all sunshine and roses. But let's look a the public transport issues you names. Again, we can look how the state government under the former Governor Hogan persistently re-directed funding away from things like improving existing light rail or adding new lines[1][2] that would have benefited poorer, usually Black communities, and instead moved that money towards road maintenance or expansion further out into the state in wealthier, whiter ones.

A good example of this is the East-West Red Line project, which would have been the only cross-city rail line that didn't go North-South among the already well-serviced neighborhoods, with a lot of that money getting spent re-vitalizing those areas. But once again, this isn't a cause for dismissal--the new Governor Moore has made reviving the Red Line project possible again[3], which (if it happens), could be a huge boon for the city. Imagine NYC without the MTA or Boston without the MBTA--almost unthinkable. These kind of projects, which finally have the potential to become un-stalled, offer hope of moving Baltimore in that direction.

[1] https://washingtonmonthly.com/2022/06/20/larry-hogan-purple-...

[2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/trafficandcommuting/fiv...

[3] https://www.wbaltv.com/article/reviving-baltimore-red-line-p...

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