Who Wants to Live in Baltimore?

One of the most obvious issues affecting the very survival of the city itself is the loss of residents it has steadily experienced since the height of its population in the 1950's. During World War II, people flocked in droves to industrial centers like Baltimore, stretching infrastructure and overcrowding neighborhoods, with no relief throughout the War due to the moratorium on new building put in place by FDR's Administration to ensure all resources and labor went directly to the war effort. The result for Baltimore was a population in 1950 just shy of 1 Million people.

Since that peak the growth of the city's population has declined decade after decade, with the possible exception (hints are often given off by officials in the press that the stats are being juked) of the current decade we're living in. Today the population of the city according to census estimates is around 637,000 residents, a 32% drop from 1950. The reasons are simple enough:

• The tense racial situation alone in the city scares the shit out of many residents.
• The city school system is generally considered an unmitigated disaster, necessitating the common big city expenditure for private school for those who want to both remain in the city and provide their kids with a good education.
• The erosion of much of the tax base of the city over the past 50+ years has made for jaw dropping property taxes, over double those found in the neighboring County, which, by the way, provide for worse social services than those found in Baltimore County.
  
• "Did you know we have high crime?" as the waitress at Matthew's Pizza told a new doe-eyed transplant from Boston, in a glorious Baltimore accent.

So who would want to live in Baltimore given these conditions? Let's make a list:

• Young people, in their 20's and 30's, with no kids yet, who rent apartments (no property taxes) and want to be near Big City cultural venues and the social and romantic opportunities afforded by urban nightlife.
• College students.
  
• Gays and Lesbians who look to the city for a more tolerant attitude toward their lifestyle. The city has done a poor job in reaching out to this community however, making neighboring Washington DC, Philadelphia and New York all more attractive options.
• Rich people who send their kids to Gilman or Boys' Latin, could frankly give a damn about property taxes, get in a huff about people taking their park away but not about sky high murder rates and live in a world resembling an F. Scott Fitzgerald novel in Roland Park or Guilford.
• People who don't know any better. Take a walk around Hampden and you'll find plenty. Many of whom are in their teens and can be seen pushing baby carriages, smoking and getting into domestic quarrels on The Avenue.
• Resident physicians at city hospitals who fear they'll fall asleep at the wheel if they opt to commute in from the County.
  
• Drug dealers who enjoy and profit off the easy access to the area's many junkies.
  
• Junkies who enjoy the easy access to the area's many drug dealers.
• People who can't afford to move.
• People who really, really love the city.

Have any to add to the list? Post them in the comments section.

The Problems: Drugs

Perhaps the most obvious and urgent problem afflicting the City of Baltimore is its enormous heroin epidemic. The famous estimate that has stuck in the both the press and popular imagination is that there are approximately 50,000 full blown addicts in the city, or 1 out of every 10 adults. But there is no way of knowing whether this number is accurate, due to the fact that nobody has even done the legwork, aside from former Baltimore City Public Health Commissioner Dr. Joshua Sharfstein's estimate 3 years ago, to figure out what the true metrics and dimensions of the epidemic are. This is an unforgivable oversight in and of itself, but more on that later.

While we may not know the exact size of the drug problem confronting the city, the signs of it are everywhere. You cannot drive through either the east or west side of downtown without seeing numerous junkies, dealers, syringes on the pavement, drug addicted prostitutes soliciting, or all of the above. Beyond all these commonplace signs of a dysfunctional society is the violence and sky high murder rate that encircles a drug trade and culture where the only recourse for grievances, petty and otherwise, is gunfire.

The toll goes even further than those lives taken in the drug violence or the zombie lives being led by those addicted to heroin. The neighborhoods most heavily affected by the drug trade have had most other forms of commerce move out, with sensible business owners deciding that the profit potentials in these areas are simply not worth the constant threat of violence and robbery.

What's notable about the drug and specifically heroin problem in Baltimore though is that the scope of it is much greater than almost any other city in the country. There are areas of blight in our neighbors DC, Philly and New York, but nothing to the extent of the devastation seen on the East and West sides of the City. Add to that the excruciating difficulty of getting heroin addicts off their drug of choice and the city becomes saddled with "The Crisis That Keeps on Giving" for generations into the foreseeable future, along with the crime and HIV rates that come part and parcel to the heroin epidemic. Finding some way to lessen or halt this ongoing human tragedy needs to be Job #1 in the City of Baltimore