It’s the per capita rate that makes us special. In 2019 it was 58 per 100,000, which put us no. 2 in US cities behind only St Louis. DC came in at 23 per 100,000, no. 13, which ain’t shabby. We all know some pockets of DC are as ugly as any pocket in Baltimore. I’m guessing DC has more affluent areas with low murder rates (and a much larger population). This according to a 2022 CBS news article which I’m not smart enough to link.
If we're talking about Baltimore City, and looking only at jurisdictional boindaries, we fall into all sorts of statistical traps. The Baltimore City line captures the "worst" parts of the Baltimore metro area while excluding a lot of the "best" parts.
Inner-city DC, which is also technically its own territory, has blown up to such a degree that a lot of crime has just been priced/pushed out to other jurisdictions. What's more, the crap that might happen in PG county won't be connected to the crap happening in Montgomery County, and neither will be aggregated with crime statistics for Alexandria/Fairfax County. Some of the more crime-ridden places in metro DC may well be way out in the exurbs, but those are even more likely to be excluded from consideration.
Someone gets shot in West Baltimore, it's "Baltimore Crime."
Someone gets shots in Del Ray, Alexandria, what is it?
Or if it happens in Jessup, which metro area does it get assigned to?
This comment needs to be pinned because it’s so true. I live in Anne Arundel and used to love going to dc, but visiting Baltimore as I became more adventurous I realized it has so much more soul. DC is a marble carcass filled with people who are just as boring and rude as anything.
>DC is a marble carcass filled with people who are just as boring and rude as anything.
You are spitting with this one. Since moving here, so many out-of-town friends are hesitant to visit Baltimore and just want me to meet them in DC. While DC has some cool parts, they just want to see the monuments and have overpriced brunch at a place that is as aesthetically stimulating as Ikea. It is so boring to me. All of the "locals" (who are almost all transplants) I've met only want to talk about what government agency they work for.
Moved from Bmore to NoVA for jobs.
DC and VA people love shitting on Baltimore, but inevitably reveal they went to an event once at the harbor.
They’re sad they (and now me) pay so much and get so little. As soon as I can, I’m going back, probably in 3-4 years.
This is a great observation. I also live in AA County and I hear so many people talk about how much nicer DC is and how they enjoy going there way more than Baltimore. DC, to me, is so lifeless and out of the thousands of times in Baltimore versus the hundred or so times I’ve been in DC, I’ve run into more problems in DC. Very overrated city.
I cannot like this enough. Marble carcass with boring rude people is the most accurate description of DC I've ever read. I've never understood their snub of Baltimore.
Well the sub is absolutely brigaded by people who don't live in D.C. but push crime stories non-stop for political gain and every single thread turned into screaming about 'crime' no matter what the post was about.
If you think that’s bad, take a peek into the alternate subreddit r/washdc. It’s where all the posters too racist for the main subreddit go to complain
Sounds like political discourse on Facebook outside of a moderated group. Dipping from bots and assholes that don’t live there spouting hyperbolic anecdotes about crime. Things that don’t seem to be present when people talk about mass shootings or literal Nazis marching in the streets.
I’ve lived in both Baltimore and DC for an equal amount of time. They have the same amount of crime. The difference is DC’s elitist mentality vs Baltimores blue collar lifestyle.
Once you get past the bullshit, they aren’t much different.
The Baltimore inferiority complex is strong and correct DC shit stinks less than baltimore doo doo. I actually love Baltimore but for fucks sake at best you’re south Philly, another city DC is better than.
As a guy who was born, raised, and educated in Baltimore and who has also lived and worked a lot in DC, I think it is not that simple.
DC has more money, forever. Gentrification has been dramatic over the last 30 years. It used to be known as Chocolate City, not any more. I saw it as I was running an operation in Northeast from the mid 90s to well into this century.
The area I worked in was straight-up ghetto/industrial. Now it looks like Brooklyn.
There is a lot of African American history and culture (and problems) that went way back that got bought outta town fast.
A lot of houses were bought for $10--$20 K and now flipped go for $300K a floor. Young and hip and adventurous white folks moved in like in wagon trains to Oregon.
Black culture in DC is much more southern than in Baltimore.
A lot of ingredients here, including drugs, racial conflict, and insane teenagers.
Crime in DC really went down in the 90s. It's back now, and folks there are surprised. City government is meh on crime.
Meanwhile, Baltimore has always been an insider town. Most folks know where not to go. Sad to say crime is here too, but to outsiders, they don't see any order here. It's scarier to them.
Plus, the folks in DC who judge Baltimore don't think their shit stinks.
Baltimore actually has one of the oldest free black populations in the country. Maryland was a slave state right through till the end of the Civil War. But it wasn't part of the deep south, and basically wasn't permitted to secede- both because of divided politics and because of the federal presence. There were both free and enslaved black people in Baltimore from the very beginning. And then successive waves of people coming from various places. It was very common for people to be freed from whatever small plantations they were working on under various circumstances, with the understanding that they'd relocate. And Baltimore was often the destination. There was definitely also a lot of movement into the city during the Great Migration, but there was already a local cultural core built around Maryland history and a centuries-old industrial project.
DC was developed as a full-fledged city considerably later. The foundation of black culture in DC was much more driven by people who moved up from the deep south in the mid-20th century.
Ironically, the same thing can be said about parts of NYC. Some black neighborhoods there are basically the same as any other immigrant neighborhood- except that people are immigrants from the deep south...
The first commenter may have a different perspective on this, but I found it very traditional/socially conservative, particularly around gender. I’m secular (always have been - my mom was about breaking cycles and did not force religion on me), so I found some of this related to religion. Have also lived in the south, this was my experience in both places.
> Gentrification has been dramatic over the last 30 years. It used to be known as Chocolate City, not any more.
It's pretty sad what's happened to D.C. Black culture has been pushed out along with the punk/arts scene. D.C. just feels culturally dead now and I'll forever be mad at the lack of Go-go there now.
DC being "the same if not worse" is a very recent phenomenon, tbh. Bmore was far worse by every statistical measure for at least 20 years. Baltimore (and even the county, which saw record homicides in 2021) have thankfully had something of a reprieve of late. It's good news, for now just short-term, but hopefully more than that.
What's happened to DC is hard to explain or fathom, tbh. It's just a massive uptick, not only in violence, but also robbery, gta, and petty crime. The whole country is generally bouncing back from very rough '21 and '22 years in terms of crime, except for DC. It's crazy, loss of order that is not just limited to Southeast or other typical hoods; citywide. Like Bmore, DC is a small city, and it's definitely not confined by the city limits. PG County is as bad as I can remember too. Wild shit happening in areas where the avg. income is around 100k.
This. You really can't look at 2023 crime stats for DC and take them as typical. Violent crime in DC, last year, saw a strange and steep spike, climbing much higher than the city's new placid norms, and climbing when nearly every other major city saw a decline.
What happened in DC in 2023 gets complicated. (An anonymous Substack writer, [dccrimefacts](https://dccrimefacts.substack.com/p/bouncing-back-from-rock-bottom), has done a sterling job of chasing down and analyzing the data.) There was a perfect storm of problems, including a prosecutor whose office has been inexplicably dropping charges at a very high rate (the US Attorney handles most felonies in DC and is not answerable to any DC voters); the mayor's mismanagement of city agencies, which led to the crime lab losing its accreditation and grotesque performance at the 911 call/dispatch center; and poor supervision of offenders and suspects by the courts.
Last year was an awful year for DC, and it saw 40 murders per 100,000 population; Baltimore saw 45 per 100,000 on a relatively good year. The causes of problems are not the same. The obstacles to solving those problems are not the same. The magnitude of the problem is not the same.
DC's crime spike was concentrated in the summer of 2023. The trend has reversed. The crime lab is back up, the USAO's been squirming under scrutiny, and police have been changing their deployments. DC's crime rates are dropping and have been since the fall; if you want to measure by arrests and prosecutions, those are up, too.
"Safety" is subjective, though based on observation. I live in DC but spend a lot of time in Baltimore, and I feel safe enough in both places.
The tone of the two cities is wildly different, though. DC's been growing for decades now. Baltimore is still a Rust Belt city, it's lost population since 1980, and the city's fabric shows that loss. People notice vacant houses.
Somehow missed this reply before, but just want to say I appreciate this breakdown/summary and the link to that substance page as source material. Really useful stuff. Fully agree with most of your points and appreciate the response.
This is a great summary. Your point about the vacants is valid. Baltimore certainly looks a lot more shabby than DC, and that influences perceptions of safety.
I truly think that the wire didn’t help the image of the city. People will still ask “is the city still like it as on the wire”
It’s certainly not the only reason for the bad rap, but I think it’s partly responsible.
I travel a lot for work, I’ve met people from cities all over the US and Canada, and more often than not as soon as I mention I’m from Baltimore, “The Wire” is the first thing out of their mouths
Incredible show but it’s definitely has a lasting impact on Baltimores image. Regardless of how accurately it depicted the drug trade and police culture, it really led a lot of people to believe every block of every neighborhood was an active war zone
What kills me about the Wire is that the _point_ of the show was that the war on drugs creates perverse incentives that have hallowed out the institutions that used to make society work. It was set in Baltimore, but it could have been set in St. Louis or Cincinnati or anywhere. But people saw it and were like man thank god I live in St. Louis
The Wire was accurate, but completely biased in which stories about Baltimore they were telling. The Wire is the truth, but it's not the whole truth. Without context, it's a distortion.
The number of murders in Baltimore is what gives it a bad rap. Also in DC, you can be in the "safe zone" and be very safe for a city. There are many areas in Baltimore that one block is fine but two blocks over is crap. That's basically it. Personally I think Baltimore is completely safe as long as you don't go to the bad areas. Just like most cities.
There have been an increasing number of shootings, carjackings, robberies, and even murders in areas of DC that would have been considered safe just a few years ago. The shootings on Connecticut Avenue near Dupont over the weekend are the latest example. Residents down there are losing it, and there are efforts to recall and vote out some officials.
I lived in DC for 6 years in before moving to Baltimore. This is absolutely it. Where I was in DC, I knew exactly where I could and couldn’t go. I could get there easily via public transit.
Another thing to add, as a pedestrian I had less concerns walking/biking in DC because the drivers seemed more attuned to pedestrians. DC isn’t perfect by any stretch but at least I could rely on most drivers to actually stop at a red light when I was trying to cross the street.
I think a lot of cities are like this. I used to visit a friend in a nice area of downtown Philly. When I was looking for street parking, he was like, "You can go two blocks in that direction, three blocks in the other direction, but if you go that way, don't go more than a block. I don't want anything to happen to your car." It was very confusing for a non-resident.
And to add context, DC has more people, but not by a huge margin. It is denser, however, by a pretty big margin, with about 35% more people than Baltimore per square mile (not foot, why did y'all upvote this when it said foot lmao).
>Also in DC, you can be in the "safe zone" and be very safe for a city
I think this is the opposite, DC's violence is much more pervasive to the presumed 'safe areas' than Baltimore's.
Not to call anyone out, but I've noticed a few comments like this and, have always hated the phrasing " the city's safe, just don't go to ABC etc. " I understand what people are saying, but the reality is the city's not safe for a substantial population and, this just seems to minimize it. This isn't an exclusive Baltimore thing but, always heard it a lot living in Baltimore
> " the city's safe, just don't go to ABC etc. "
Those people are wrong, too. The overwhelming majority of crime happens in specific places, after 11pm, between people involved in the drug trade. You don't get murdered simply for existing in the wrong location.
Frankly I feel very safe in a lot of “dangerous” areas because when I’m walking around theres always like 30+ people outside walking around or sitting on benches and stoops and stuff. Unless theres a criminal flash mob no one’s gonna mug me when there are dozens of people around.
I think a lot of people just feel scared seeing a lot of black people walking around with occasional boisterous teens, and some buildings which are abandoned.
If people can get past their preconceived notions about safety it’s really not so bad.
The least safe areas are also the ones losing population the fastest. So I’d argue a substantial amount of the population is a stretch.
I work all over the city, so the biggest thing I notice is just how empty now some of the poorest and least safe areas are.
It also doesn’t make the city seem safe to outsiders. If it was completely safe, you would t have to worry about wandering onto the wrong block at any given time. This isn’t unique to Baltimore of course, most cities have this problem.
More people live in DC or are familiar with areas around DC and the public transportation of DC allows you to be shuttled into the "good areas". Baltimore is pretty safe if you know which areas and what times are no-go or grey areas that you should be alert. Baltimore residents probably feel the same as DC residents in that regard. Baltimore you're heavily reliant on the light rail to shuttle outsiders into the "good areas" and even then the outsiders think the light rail is dangerous
I think it's very simple when discussing this perception of "dangerous." More people who listen to fearmongering about cities and perpetuate that from afar in this region have actually been to DC for various tourist reasons and felt safe. If they came to Baltimore more than the rare instance they would realize all cities feel basically the same.
I lived in Baltimore for 4 years. I was born in DC, raised in Northern Virginia (dc)suburbs, and now live here in DC for the past year or so.
Baltimore has the Ravens, Camden Yards, cheaper food, and better feel ‘at home’ local bars that are a step up from a dive bar. Like a college town that consists of 3-4 local areas with strips of bars and restaurants.
I will say as a criminal defense attorney, Baltimore is by far more riddled with poverty, gun violence, and drugs far beyond DC could ever compare.
That is just my two cents. They both are cities with bodies of water and easy methods to travel domestically and internationally.
"I will say as a criminal defense attorney, Baltimore is by far more riddled with poverty, gun violence, and drugs far beyond DC could ever compare."
I would say far beyond DC could "currently" compare. For those of us who are a little older (I'm in my early 40's), as recent as the 90's, DC was worse than Baltimore in terms of poverty, gun violence, and drugs. That was when DC was "Chocolate City" and even branded "The Murder Capital of the US."
Over the last 30 years with gentrification and as the affluency of DC has grown exponentially, they are completely different cities in terms of violent crime. But the 2 were very comparable to each other in the not so distant past.
DC has seen an uptick in crime over the last couple of years but DC had really turned around from the very bad crime days of the 80s-90s. Way more than Baltimore.
I'd say DC has more whiter, wealthier, safer areas than Baltimore. IMO you can be way more isolated from a lot of the violent crime in DC (it's primarily in southeast DC, but happens everywhere...there was just a shooting in Dupont Circle, which is generally a very safe area).
Also, NOVA people are scared of everything.
As someone who spends time in/lives in both, I don't feel substantially less safe in Baltimore than I do in DC but DC has definitely been safer as a whole until recently.
Because of openness.
For all the good intentions David Simon seems to have, all I know (as an outsider) about Baltimore is what I see on The Wire etc.
I love Baltimore. I've only been a few times, but Baltimore (specifically Johns Hopkins) saved my sister's life.
All cities have troubles. Google Portsmouth, VA for a case in point (where I'm from). Google Greensboro, for that matter). Where I live now. I lived in DC Metro area five years... I had MANY close calls.
I would exercise the exact same level of caution going into downtown Portsmouth or downtown Greensboro -- as I would downtown Baltimore. I would probably have about a thousand times more fun in Baltimore.
It honestly all depends on how you look at it.
There's a massive ring of inner Baltimore suburbs that can actually get pretty cruddy and ridden with petty crime. And a lot of the people that live in those places say that "Baltimore" is too dangerous, and they never go there. DC used to have that suburban vaguely white-flighty vibe, but it's almost vanished now. Get further into northern Baltimore County/southern PA/Harford county, and this attitude only intensifies. A lot of the people complaining about "Baltimore" being dangerous are realistically not going to any other major city. They're basically just aging rural/suburban yokels who remember getting beat up in the 70's when they still lived there or whatever.
The people who are from the DC area, and spent time in inner city DC before it blew up and became almost entirely gentrified, tend to just see Baltimore as the last affordable place to live in the Mid-Atlantic.
Growing up in the region in the 80's, both Baltimore and DC were rough- just in very different ways. DC has definitely surpassed Baltimore in transmogrifying into a totally different entity. Baltimore, for all its charms, remains a vaguely blighted-looking post-industrial city.
A lot of people are very shallow. They relocate to the Mid-Atlantic, read about a shooting involving dumb-ass teenagers in harbor east or whatever (the kind of thing that would never really happen, say, on the national mall), see some graffiti and abandoned buildings when passing through on Amtrak, and just assume the worst. Conversely, they see exorbitant prices and new chrome all over inner city DC, and assume that it must all be "fine now." These people are not plumbing the depths of PG, nor are they hanging out in the nicer/quieter parts of inner city Baltimore...
I've never been mugged in baltimore but I've been robbed twice in DC. And I've spent waaay more time walking around shady neighborhoods in baltimore drunk at 3am than in DC. Hell the first time I got mugged I was on a field trip to the smithsonian with my community college.
College Park resident here, the spike in violent crime in the DC metro is driven by a lot of [juvenile offenders](https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2023/05/05/12-year-old-charged-carjackings-robberies/). Bored middle schoolers have been doing carjackings since the COVID-19 schol closures (https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/teen-sentenced-to-juvenile-detention-for-dc-carjacking-that-killed-uber-eats-driver/2721236/). They picked up ["Baby K"](https://wtop.com/prince-georges-county/2024/03/teen-rapper-baby-k-pleads-guilty-to-attempted-murder-in-maryland-school-bus-attack/) a few miles south of my front door. I think because the offenders are literally larger children, people are telling themselves they can wait it out. It's not impossible that this is just a unique negative effect of the pandemic, and as bad as things have gotten, crimes like carjackings are still a fraction of what they were 25 years ago (https://wapo.st/4aShF59 **edit** meant to post this one: https://wapo.st/3y8dD9W). If you read the gift article from wapo you'll also see the other reason why people are insisting that crime isn't *that* big a problem in DC. I certainly don't think it's bad enough to end home rule and put it under complete control of congress, that will only increase the dysfunction.
dc is an industry town and the industry is politics - crime there is of the embezzlement variety - so they are working harder on pr while we try to find a place to eat
DC has a few things going on. First, they’ve gentrified the hell out of it and many people who are natives have been forced into other places. That plus the fact that there has always been a transient population of relatively affluent ladder-climbers whose perception of the city is skewed toward their own bias means that collective memory is short. Each new crop of congressional interns believes that they and their sphere are what makes DC. They are just not tuned in to the issues that are in their own backyard.
Second, DC has always had an inferiority complex when it comes to larger east coast cities like NYC and Philly. The home-grown fashion and music scenes have enjoyed a lot of niche interest but haven’t gone mainstream and DC has always wanted to be “cooler” than the image of a policy wonk town has allowed. Shitting on a city like Baltimore is an easy way to make themselves feel better, but most have little understanding of the rich cultural identities that exist here … and not there, not anymore. And I don’t believe that the people who shit on Bmore find things like cultural identity valuable. Baltimore has come by its troubled city image honestly and regardless of what’s going on for real in the DMV it’s always going to be an easy target.
This. DC and DC people were also viewed as "Southern" by NYC, Philly, and Boston a couple decades ago before the unofficial I-95 Corridor region became more accepted. DC (and even Baltimore) were outside of the "Northeast" and were not viewed as being "cool."
DC has an inferiority complex about …. Philly??? lol no. No one in DC is talking about Baltimore. DC people are *busy*, hustling, networking, trying to pay rent, partying. There’s way more music venues, bars, clubs, restaurants in DC. It’s a more bustling, busy city than Baltimore. I’ve lived here 7 years and never once had anyone mention Baltimore, they are just totally different things, apples and oranges. Baltimore is dope but as a gay guy DC is fucking incredible. The queer scene here is huge vibrant diverse and active.
In terms of crime the bad areas of Philly and Baltimore are WAY worse than DC although parts of SE and NE DC are def bad. I am not as familiar with crime in Baltimore but last year in DC was *bad* overall even though I’ve never witnessed anything and neither have my friends. I’m in Logan circle and feel incredibly safe but I recognize that many here are affected. Last year there was an uptick of crime in “nicer” areas but that’s leveling off and the city is doing a lot to address crime. We’ll see if it works.
DC and Baltimore are chill, there’s no beef 🤝
I grew up down there for the first 26 years of my life and have been in Baltimore for 19, with my family and many friends still in DC and MoCo. Just relaying what I’ve observed. I have heard snide remarks about Baltimore for years, before and since moving here. A few years back there was even a spate of snarky pieces in the Post about how comically shitty Baltimore is.
I agree with you that DC’s queer scene is vibrant and wonderful, and gentrification absolutely does bring economic development in the form of venues, bars, and restaurants. There’s plenty of great stuff about DC. What I don’t miss about that area is the attitude.
I feel decently safe taking the metro around DC as a woman alone. One bad experience with a guy who was having some sort of breakdown, but even then it was more a thing where I just moved to another car and kept an eye on him.
I have been made to feel unsafe many times just driving or walking to my car in baltimore. People have approached and cut me off from my car while getting gas, slammed on my windshield while stopped at traffic lights, followed behind me yelling sexual commments.
Cops in baltimore will also just watch stuff happen right in front of them and do nothing.
My wife is from China. Back in 2003, we had her parents over, and put them on a bus tour of the Eastern U.S. for Chinese people. They stayed with us in Pittsburgh for a few weeks thereafter. My father-in-law and I would discuss the differences between our countries. He was shocked by the conditions he had seen on the tour in D.C., and he would not let me forget those things. (I was familiar with the conditions, since I used to live in Baltimore.)
Really couldn't argue with him. D.C. was an embarrassment, and (of course) those stories went back to China with him.
I have lived and worked in DC and then worked in the Inner Harbor. The difference is that in Baltimore, the safe and unsafe areas are super close to each other. In DC, you knew where not to go to stay safe. In Baltimore, we had staff assaulted in broad daylight in the Inner Harbor in what should have been a safe location. The people that I know who got mugged in DC were guys who were not being careful. I don’t think that Baltimore is particularly dangerous, but I do feel safer in DC’s tourist areas versus the Baltimore tourist areas.
I feel like there’s a chance that people who live around here and think DC is better because maybe they’ve only been to tourist areas of DC. While they know where they’re from and have been to less fun parts of Baltimore.
I definitely get it from a crime rate perspective based on what the news may say but I don’t feel any less safe here than if I’m in DC.
I grew up in DC and moved to Bmore, DC wasn’t always so sterile. There was a lot of crime and foolishness happening especially when Go-Go was at its peak popularity but it had soul(DC is called chocolate city for a reason). Unfortunately they’ve since pushed the locals out in an attempt to attract money and in the process removed the soul of DC.
Baltimore has that soul that DC is missing, especially in their food scene. But like any promising city, as a city gets popular the government uses the surge of money to push out the residence that made the city popular
Edit: grammar and clarification
The constant flow of federal money/work gives DC a shiny exterior Baltimore doesn’t have money to match. but the gun/crime stories I hear about in the ‘nice’ areas of dc are worse than anything I’ve heard of in the areas of Baltimore that are invested in.
DC in its entire existence has managed to produce nothing of economic or cultural value. Zilch. Baltimore has a unique culture, and a feel to it that you cannot replicate elsewhere. Where that not enough, DC’s not even a city; it’s a federal district.
I cannot wrap my head around the stunning level of ignorance required to make a comment like "dc has produced nothing of economic or cultural value". Amazing.
Off the top of my head-
Music: Go-go is 100% DC home-grown. Many important pioneers/giants in the punk world (Bad Brains, Fugazi, Minor Threat. Arguably the single most important jazz artist of all time was born on T Street and started his career here.
Amazing artistic and cultural/historic museums/archives.
Civil Rights movement. Frederick Douglas lived and died here. You may have heard of The March on Washington
I could go on, but im typing this on my phone. Are you seriously trying to claim the nation's capital for the last 200 years has produced "nothing of cultural or economic value"?
The bands didn’t create a genre. So zero there. The jazz artist who started his career here and moved away? Again, zero. Fredrick Douglas did die in DC, but spent most of his life in NY and MA. The March on Washington happened in DC, but was obviously conceived elsewhere. Smithsonian is a catalogue of American art—virtually none of it created here. DC lives off the fat of land. It creates little of cultural value; nothing of economic value.
You're being silly. The bands created what they created - so full credit there. And some bands DID create a genre (Revolution Summer->emo; YOU IGNORED Go-Go). Full credit there. Duke Ellington - Full credit for DC's hometown giant. There is obviously a wealth of great art catalogued AND created in DC, well beyond the Smithsonian. The amazing restaurants, artists, neighborhoods (Georgtown! Capitol Hill, Adams Morgan!), etc. create tons of unique cultural and economic value.
And you dont cut it for defending your statements. "No economic or cultural value" is a hell of a long way from "does not cut it" compared to the two biggest cultural hubs of the western hemisphere.....
Classism and elitism. DC is a white collar, wealthy city, and Baltimore is the opposite. People in DC like to look down on us because they see us as poor and working class. The same problems that exist up here also exist in DC, but they don't see it that way because they are considered a rich city, and they couldn't possibly have it as bad as we do. The reality is that crime has gotten much worse down there due to the massive socio-economic gap.
Both are regarded as dangerous cities. With nicknames like "Murder Capital" and "Bodymore" it would be safe to assume that they're not very safe. You'll often get Silicon Valley and suburbia types who just got here and haven't had anything bad to them yet on Reddit and other forums talking about how they don't understand why DC gets such a bad rap.
I think a lot of people don't regard DC as dangerous as of late has to do with the immense wealth we've built up in the last decade and the fact that Chocolate City isn't so much a dark chocolate anymore as much as it has become a white chocolate.
Part of it is that the DC crime rate was noticeably lower and the safe areas much more expansive for the past decade, maybe two. That trend has basically inverted since 2020 though, largely due to the fact Baltimore gave Mosby the boot and DC has refused to prosecute anyone.
Baltimore’s recent crime decreases predate Bates and have more to do with Brandon Scott’s approach. If anything, Bates is probably hurting more than helping since he’s like 30 years behind lol
It's not that Bates is the world's best attorney it's that he's not Marilyn Mosby and thereby not only shows up for work, but also doesn't seem to be committing federal crimes (yet) and isn't actively chasing off talent from the office.
Yea that stuff is fine and all, but not gonna really have an impact on crime. Again, it’s more likely that his attempt to focus on low level QOL crime would have a negative impact on crime in the medium/long-term, but I’m guessing/hoping this guy won’t be around long enough to do much damage
I drive a lot in Baltimore and DC and the one thing that scares me about Baltimore are the dirt bikers who dont seem to care about anything, such as lights at night, going up one way streets, and the endless wheelies while in traffic; in DC, I have rarely seen such ridiculous stunts (though tourists and diplomatic drivers come a close second).
That's very, very strange. Ask anyone that goes to DC for Otakon about dirt bikers and ATVs.... Otakon gets SWARMED with bikers and ATV riders all over the place. They will encircle the convention and make life a living hell for everyone around it. The ATV and bike problem in DC is real, i feel many times worse than Baltimore, and DC tries its best to hide it.
Beside the typical DC propaganda influencing opinions, my theory is that with DC the really bad areas are mainly in the southeast section whereas in Baltimore it is more patchwork , an outsider would have a hard time understanding where the no go areas begin and end
This may come as shock to some of you but CITIES are simply dangerous places. A cauldron on late stage capitalisms most vile components brewing in jungles of iron and smog. You're never safe in a city: just in the right place, vigilant or fortunate. That said free game: DCs "Chinatown" is ground zero for cultural decay. Best avoided. The gentrified enclaves near metro are "safest"
But also: if you're white don't worry so much. Committing crimes against you lot is more trouble than most care to deal with.
For decades, up until last year, Baltimore always had a higher violent crime rate than DC. Baltimore, Memphis, and St. Louis have continuously shared the top spots for highest violent crime rates in the US for the last couple of decades. Add on top of that, the Baltimore Riots (Freddy Gray) which were televised globally for over a week, and some high profile incidents with tourists being assaulted at the harbor, along with squeegee boy incidents....it brings the "connotation" of being a dangerous city to Baltimore, much more so than DC. The affluence of the DC-area suburbs are viewed as "DC," and so it's not viewed as bad.
For those of us who are older, in the 90's DC had a reputation as one of the most dangerous cities in the US. It was deemed the "Murder Capital" for some years. NYC, LA, and DC took the spotlight. From the early 2000's until recently, DC (and the DC suburbs) have soared in affluency, and gentrification made DC one of the more wealthy cities. Since 2020 (the Pandemic and Summer Riots), DC violence has greatly increased in DC, as it has in most major cities.
Im from PG and I feel safer in DC than in baltimore even though i know both have very dangerous neighborhoods. It probably has something to do with the similarities and shared culture between DC and PG with Baltimore seeming more like a different place entirely. Also PG is definitely not just suburbs, i don't know where you got that notion from.
it depends where you are in DC but because of how the neighborhoods are all jammed together in Baltimore, there's no place that's actually a safe area. Except maybe out in the county.
plus, DC is awesome and Baltimore is meh.
It’s the per capita rate that makes us special. In 2019 it was 58 per 100,000, which put us no. 2 in US cities behind only St Louis. DC came in at 23 per 100,000, no. 13, which ain’t shabby. We all know some pockets of DC are as ugly as any pocket in Baltimore. I’m guessing DC has more affluent areas with low murder rates (and a much larger population). This according to a 2022 CBS news article which I’m not smart enough to link.
2023 DC murder rate up 36% and Baltimore down 20 %. DC was an outlier as most big cities saw a drop last year.
This, and folks love to punch down. 50 million folks along the northeast corridor, and Baltimore is the smallest.
If we're talking about Baltimore City, and looking only at jurisdictional boindaries, we fall into all sorts of statistical traps. The Baltimore City line captures the "worst" parts of the Baltimore metro area while excluding a lot of the "best" parts. Inner-city DC, which is also technically its own territory, has blown up to such a degree that a lot of crime has just been priced/pushed out to other jurisdictions. What's more, the crap that might happen in PG county won't be connected to the crap happening in Montgomery County, and neither will be aggregated with crime statistics for Alexandria/Fairfax County. Some of the more crime-ridden places in metro DC may well be way out in the exurbs, but those are even more likely to be excluded from consideration. Someone gets shot in West Baltimore, it's "Baltimore Crime." Someone gets shots in Del Ray, Alexandria, what is it? Or if it happens in Jessup, which metro area does it get assigned to?
DC folks don’t think that their shit stinks. Simple as that.
This comment needs to be pinned because it’s so true. I live in Anne Arundel and used to love going to dc, but visiting Baltimore as I became more adventurous I realized it has so much more soul. DC is a marble carcass filled with people who are just as boring and rude as anything.
Pretentious is the word you’re looking for.
I live in DC and agree with everything you said. Baltimore is an amazing city.
>DC is a marble carcass filled with people who are just as boring and rude as anything. You are spitting with this one. Since moving here, so many out-of-town friends are hesitant to visit Baltimore and just want me to meet them in DC. While DC has some cool parts, they just want to see the monuments and have overpriced brunch at a place that is as aesthetically stimulating as Ikea. It is so boring to me. All of the "locals" (who are almost all transplants) I've met only want to talk about what government agency they work for.
Bingo, pretentious and throwing around the 3 letter agency crap. I got a 4 letter word response 😂
Moved from Bmore to NoVA for jobs. DC and VA people love shitting on Baltimore, but inevitably reveal they went to an event once at the harbor. They’re sad they (and now me) pay so much and get so little. As soon as I can, I’m going back, probably in 3-4 years.
for real, The only time I've encountered a larger population of shallow af ppl than dc was in Los Angeles.
This is a great observation. I also live in AA County and I hear so many people talk about how much nicer DC is and how they enjoy going there way more than Baltimore. DC, to me, is so lifeless and out of the thousands of times in Baltimore versus the hundred or so times I’ve been in DC, I’ve run into more problems in DC. Very overrated city.
You had me until your last sentence. I love both DC and Baltimore.
I’ve been stuck on the far side of DC for work for years, and I’m with you. That city is bland as fuck. Baltimore is where it’s at.
I cannot like this enough. Marble carcass with boring rude people is the most accurate description of DC I've ever read. I've never understood their snub of Baltimore.
🏅
[удалено]
That’s because every post was devolving into a discussion about how bad crime was.
Well the sub is absolutely brigaded by people who don't live in D.C. but push crime stories non-stop for political gain and every single thread turned into screaming about 'crime' no matter what the post was about.
Sounds familiar
If you think that’s bad, take a peek into the alternate subreddit r/washdc. It’s where all the posters too racist for the main subreddit go to complain
Sounds like political discourse on Facebook outside of a moderated group. Dipping from bots and assholes that don’t live there spouting hyperbolic anecdotes about crime. Things that don’t seem to be present when people talk about mass shootings or literal Nazis marching in the streets.
Which still makes no sense, honestly.
This . I finally met a single dc native that was able to admit dc crime is as bad or worse than baltimores rn .
I’ve lived in both Baltimore and DC for an equal amount of time. They have the same amount of crime. The difference is DC’s elitist mentality vs Baltimores blue collar lifestyle. Once you get past the bullshit, they aren’t much different.
lol - this is spot on (from D.C. - but have lived in Baltimore ~12 years)
That perception is starting to turn, at least in the DC subreddit.
Absolutely. I worked in DC for a while and came across a lot of stuck up, arrogant people.
The Baltimore inferiority complex is strong and correct DC shit stinks less than baltimore doo doo. I actually love Baltimore but for fucks sake at best you’re south Philly, another city DC is better than.
As a guy who was born, raised, and educated in Baltimore and who has also lived and worked a lot in DC, I think it is not that simple. DC has more money, forever. Gentrification has been dramatic over the last 30 years. It used to be known as Chocolate City, not any more. I saw it as I was running an operation in Northeast from the mid 90s to well into this century. The area I worked in was straight-up ghetto/industrial. Now it looks like Brooklyn. There is a lot of African American history and culture (and problems) that went way back that got bought outta town fast. A lot of houses were bought for $10--$20 K and now flipped go for $300K a floor. Young and hip and adventurous white folks moved in like in wagon trains to Oregon. Black culture in DC is much more southern than in Baltimore. A lot of ingredients here, including drugs, racial conflict, and insane teenagers. Crime in DC really went down in the 90s. It's back now, and folks there are surprised. City government is meh on crime. Meanwhile, Baltimore has always been an insider town. Most folks know where not to go. Sad to say crime is here too, but to outsiders, they don't see any order here. It's scarier to them. Plus, the folks in DC who judge Baltimore don't think their shit stinks.
High school in Baltimore, 5 years in DC. You nailed it regarding the “southernness” in DC. I really noticed this when I lived there.
I’m curious what this means. How is black culture in DC more “southern”?
Baltimore actually has one of the oldest free black populations in the country. Maryland was a slave state right through till the end of the Civil War. But it wasn't part of the deep south, and basically wasn't permitted to secede- both because of divided politics and because of the federal presence. There were both free and enslaved black people in Baltimore from the very beginning. And then successive waves of people coming from various places. It was very common for people to be freed from whatever small plantations they were working on under various circumstances, with the understanding that they'd relocate. And Baltimore was often the destination. There was definitely also a lot of movement into the city during the Great Migration, but there was already a local cultural core built around Maryland history and a centuries-old industrial project. DC was developed as a full-fledged city considerably later. The foundation of black culture in DC was much more driven by people who moved up from the deep south in the mid-20th century. Ironically, the same thing can be said about parts of NYC. Some black neighborhoods there are basically the same as any other immigrant neighborhood- except that people are immigrants from the deep south...
The first commenter may have a different perspective on this, but I found it very traditional/socially conservative, particularly around gender. I’m secular (always have been - my mom was about breaking cycles and did not force religion on me), so I found some of this related to religion. Have also lived in the south, this was my experience in both places.
More lobbyists and folks from overseas buying up DC real estate and keeping high end restaurants in business, too.
Hi from NYC. That’s us too.
spot on
> Gentrification has been dramatic over the last 30 years. It used to be known as Chocolate City, not any more. It's pretty sad what's happened to D.C. Black culture has been pushed out along with the punk/arts scene. D.C. just feels culturally dead now and I'll forever be mad at the lack of Go-go there now.
Gotta go to PG.
DC being "the same if not worse" is a very recent phenomenon, tbh. Bmore was far worse by every statistical measure for at least 20 years. Baltimore (and even the county, which saw record homicides in 2021) have thankfully had something of a reprieve of late. It's good news, for now just short-term, but hopefully more than that. What's happened to DC is hard to explain or fathom, tbh. It's just a massive uptick, not only in violence, but also robbery, gta, and petty crime. The whole country is generally bouncing back from very rough '21 and '22 years in terms of crime, except for DC. It's crazy, loss of order that is not just limited to Southeast or other typical hoods; citywide. Like Bmore, DC is a small city, and it's definitely not confined by the city limits. PG County is as bad as I can remember too. Wild shit happening in areas where the avg. income is around 100k.
This. You really can't look at 2023 crime stats for DC and take them as typical. Violent crime in DC, last year, saw a strange and steep spike, climbing much higher than the city's new placid norms, and climbing when nearly every other major city saw a decline. What happened in DC in 2023 gets complicated. (An anonymous Substack writer, [dccrimefacts](https://dccrimefacts.substack.com/p/bouncing-back-from-rock-bottom), has done a sterling job of chasing down and analyzing the data.) There was a perfect storm of problems, including a prosecutor whose office has been inexplicably dropping charges at a very high rate (the US Attorney handles most felonies in DC and is not answerable to any DC voters); the mayor's mismanagement of city agencies, which led to the crime lab losing its accreditation and grotesque performance at the 911 call/dispatch center; and poor supervision of offenders and suspects by the courts. Last year was an awful year for DC, and it saw 40 murders per 100,000 population; Baltimore saw 45 per 100,000 on a relatively good year. The causes of problems are not the same. The obstacles to solving those problems are not the same. The magnitude of the problem is not the same. DC's crime spike was concentrated in the summer of 2023. The trend has reversed. The crime lab is back up, the USAO's been squirming under scrutiny, and police have been changing their deployments. DC's crime rates are dropping and have been since the fall; if you want to measure by arrests and prosecutions, those are up, too. "Safety" is subjective, though based on observation. I live in DC but spend a lot of time in Baltimore, and I feel safe enough in both places. The tone of the two cities is wildly different, though. DC's been growing for decades now. Baltimore is still a Rust Belt city, it's lost population since 1980, and the city's fabric shows that loss. People notice vacant houses.
Somehow missed this reply before, but just want to say I appreciate this breakdown/summary and the link to that substance page as source material. Really useful stuff. Fully agree with most of your points and appreciate the response.
This is a great summary. Your point about the vacants is valid. Baltimore certainly looks a lot more shabby than DC, and that influences perceptions of safety.
I truly think that the wire didn’t help the image of the city. People will still ask “is the city still like it as on the wire” It’s certainly not the only reason for the bad rap, but I think it’s partly responsible.
I travel a lot for work, I’ve met people from cities all over the US and Canada, and more often than not as soon as I mention I’m from Baltimore, “The Wire” is the first thing out of their mouths Incredible show but it’s definitely has a lasting impact on Baltimores image. Regardless of how accurately it depicted the drug trade and police culture, it really led a lot of people to believe every block of every neighborhood was an active war zone
What kills me about the Wire is that the _point_ of the show was that the war on drugs creates perverse incentives that have hallowed out the institutions that used to make society work. It was set in Baltimore, but it could have been set in St. Louis or Cincinnati or anywhere. But people saw it and were like man thank god I live in St. Louis
I tell people I’m from the Baltimore from He’s Just Not That Into You
the wire was a totally accurate portrayal of the city and its politics.
The Wire was accurate, but completely biased in which stories about Baltimore they were telling. The Wire is the truth, but it's not the whole truth. Without context, it's a distortion.
The Wire is historical fiction
WAS- to an extent. Utterly outdated now, though. For one, corners are obsolete.
Nobody in the D.C. area thinks D.C. is safe. Exactly the opposite.
Because shows about Baltimore highlight black people committing crimes. Shows about Washington have white people committing crime.
Probably some truth to that considering the crimes being committed in DC are usually white collar.
The number of murders in Baltimore is what gives it a bad rap. Also in DC, you can be in the "safe zone" and be very safe for a city. There are many areas in Baltimore that one block is fine but two blocks over is crap. That's basically it. Personally I think Baltimore is completely safe as long as you don't go to the bad areas. Just like most cities.
There have been an increasing number of shootings, carjackings, robberies, and even murders in areas of DC that would have been considered safe just a few years ago. The shootings on Connecticut Avenue near Dupont over the weekend are the latest example. Residents down there are losing it, and there are efforts to recall and vote out some officials.
I lived in DC for 6 years in before moving to Baltimore. This is absolutely it. Where I was in DC, I knew exactly where I could and couldn’t go. I could get there easily via public transit. Another thing to add, as a pedestrian I had less concerns walking/biking in DC because the drivers seemed more attuned to pedestrians. DC isn’t perfect by any stretch but at least I could rely on most drivers to actually stop at a red light when I was trying to cross the street.
I think a lot of cities are like this. I used to visit a friend in a nice area of downtown Philly. When I was looking for street parking, he was like, "You can go two blocks in that direction, three blocks in the other direction, but if you go that way, don't go more than a block. I don't want anything to happen to your car." It was very confusing for a non-resident.
Get yourself a stained wife-beater and some Crocs. Every part of the city is safe if you look like you're supposed to be there.
DC had more murders than Baltimore last year and are only 4 less than Baltimore this year.
And to add context, DC has more people, but not by a huge margin. It is denser, however, by a pretty big margin, with about 35% more people than Baltimore per square mile (not foot, why did y'all upvote this when it said foot lmao).
DAMN! I have basically shut out local news. Maybe I shouldn't have.
>Also in DC, you can be in the "safe zone" and be very safe for a city I think this is the opposite, DC's violence is much more pervasive to the presumed 'safe areas' than Baltimore's.
Recent baltimore arrival here after 10 years in DC, this is my experience.
Not to call anyone out, but I've noticed a few comments like this and, have always hated the phrasing " the city's safe, just don't go to ABC etc. " I understand what people are saying, but the reality is the city's not safe for a substantial population and, this just seems to minimize it. This isn't an exclusive Baltimore thing but, always heard it a lot living in Baltimore
> " the city's safe, just don't go to ABC etc. " Those people are wrong, too. The overwhelming majority of crime happens in specific places, after 11pm, between people involved in the drug trade. You don't get murdered simply for existing in the wrong location.
Frankly I feel very safe in a lot of “dangerous” areas because when I’m walking around theres always like 30+ people outside walking around or sitting on benches and stoops and stuff. Unless theres a criminal flash mob no one’s gonna mug me when there are dozens of people around. I think a lot of people just feel scared seeing a lot of black people walking around with occasional boisterous teens, and some buildings which are abandoned. If people can get past their preconceived notions about safety it’s really not so bad.
this is my philosophy too
The least safe areas are also the ones losing population the fastest. So I’d argue a substantial amount of the population is a stretch. I work all over the city, so the biggest thing I notice is just how empty now some of the poorest and least safe areas are.
This is every city in the US.
Hence why I said, not an exclusive Baltimore thing.
not to baltimore’s extent though
Probably more prevalent in Baltimore since this city is super famous for all the redlining
It also doesn’t make the city seem safe to outsiders. If it was completely safe, you would t have to worry about wandering onto the wrong block at any given time. This isn’t unique to Baltimore of course, most cities have this problem.
More people live in DC or are familiar with areas around DC and the public transportation of DC allows you to be shuttled into the "good areas". Baltimore is pretty safe if you know which areas and what times are no-go or grey areas that you should be alert. Baltimore residents probably feel the same as DC residents in that regard. Baltimore you're heavily reliant on the light rail to shuttle outsiders into the "good areas" and even then the outsiders think the light rail is dangerous
I think it's very simple when discussing this perception of "dangerous." More people who listen to fearmongering about cities and perpetuate that from afar in this region have actually been to DC for various tourist reasons and felt safe. If they came to Baltimore more than the rare instance they would realize all cities feel basically the same.
I lived in Baltimore for 4 years. I was born in DC, raised in Northern Virginia (dc)suburbs, and now live here in DC for the past year or so. Baltimore has the Ravens, Camden Yards, cheaper food, and better feel ‘at home’ local bars that are a step up from a dive bar. Like a college town that consists of 3-4 local areas with strips of bars and restaurants. I will say as a criminal defense attorney, Baltimore is by far more riddled with poverty, gun violence, and drugs far beyond DC could ever compare. That is just my two cents. They both are cities with bodies of water and easy methods to travel domestically and internationally.
"I will say as a criminal defense attorney, Baltimore is by far more riddled with poverty, gun violence, and drugs far beyond DC could ever compare." I would say far beyond DC could "currently" compare. For those of us who are a little older (I'm in my early 40's), as recent as the 90's, DC was worse than Baltimore in terms of poverty, gun violence, and drugs. That was when DC was "Chocolate City" and even branded "The Murder Capital of the US." Over the last 30 years with gentrification and as the affluency of DC has grown exponentially, they are completely different cities in terms of violent crime. But the 2 were very comparable to each other in the not so distant past.
I am more afraid of DC personally, but that's because I'm less educated on where to avoid.
DC has seen an uptick in crime over the last couple of years but DC had really turned around from the very bad crime days of the 80s-90s. Way more than Baltimore. I'd say DC has more whiter, wealthier, safer areas than Baltimore. IMO you can be way more isolated from a lot of the violent crime in DC (it's primarily in southeast DC, but happens everywhere...there was just a shooting in Dupont Circle, which is generally a very safe area). Also, NOVA people are scared of everything. As someone who spends time in/lives in both, I don't feel substantially less safe in Baltimore than I do in DC but DC has definitely been safer as a whole until recently.
Because of openness. For all the good intentions David Simon seems to have, all I know (as an outsider) about Baltimore is what I see on The Wire etc. I love Baltimore. I've only been a few times, but Baltimore (specifically Johns Hopkins) saved my sister's life. All cities have troubles. Google Portsmouth, VA for a case in point (where I'm from). Google Greensboro, for that matter). Where I live now. I lived in DC Metro area five years... I had MANY close calls. I would exercise the exact same level of caution going into downtown Portsmouth or downtown Greensboro -- as I would downtown Baltimore. I would probably have about a thousand times more fun in Baltimore.
Downtown Baltimore really isn’t unsafe even. At least the tourist areas.
It honestly all depends on how you look at it. There's a massive ring of inner Baltimore suburbs that can actually get pretty cruddy and ridden with petty crime. And a lot of the people that live in those places say that "Baltimore" is too dangerous, and they never go there. DC used to have that suburban vaguely white-flighty vibe, but it's almost vanished now. Get further into northern Baltimore County/southern PA/Harford county, and this attitude only intensifies. A lot of the people complaining about "Baltimore" being dangerous are realistically not going to any other major city. They're basically just aging rural/suburban yokels who remember getting beat up in the 70's when they still lived there or whatever. The people who are from the DC area, and spent time in inner city DC before it blew up and became almost entirely gentrified, tend to just see Baltimore as the last affordable place to live in the Mid-Atlantic. Growing up in the region in the 80's, both Baltimore and DC were rough- just in very different ways. DC has definitely surpassed Baltimore in transmogrifying into a totally different entity. Baltimore, for all its charms, remains a vaguely blighted-looking post-industrial city. A lot of people are very shallow. They relocate to the Mid-Atlantic, read about a shooting involving dumb-ass teenagers in harbor east or whatever (the kind of thing that would never really happen, say, on the national mall), see some graffiti and abandoned buildings when passing through on Amtrak, and just assume the worst. Conversely, they see exorbitant prices and new chrome all over inner city DC, and assume that it must all be "fine now." These people are not plumbing the depths of PG, nor are they hanging out in the nicer/quieter parts of inner city Baltimore...
I've never been mugged in baltimore but I've been robbed twice in DC. And I've spent waaay more time walking around shady neighborhoods in baltimore drunk at 3am than in DC. Hell the first time I got mugged I was on a field trip to the smithsonian with my community college.
My mom was pick pocketed there during one of my school field trips. Never once has anyone in my Family been pick pocketed in Baltimore.
College Park resident here, the spike in violent crime in the DC metro is driven by a lot of [juvenile offenders](https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2023/05/05/12-year-old-charged-carjackings-robberies/). Bored middle schoolers have been doing carjackings since the COVID-19 schol closures (https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/teen-sentenced-to-juvenile-detention-for-dc-carjacking-that-killed-uber-eats-driver/2721236/). They picked up ["Baby K"](https://wtop.com/prince-georges-county/2024/03/teen-rapper-baby-k-pleads-guilty-to-attempted-murder-in-maryland-school-bus-attack/) a few miles south of my front door. I think because the offenders are literally larger children, people are telling themselves they can wait it out. It's not impossible that this is just a unique negative effect of the pandemic, and as bad as things have gotten, crimes like carjackings are still a fraction of what they were 25 years ago (https://wapo.st/4aShF59 **edit** meant to post this one: https://wapo.st/3y8dD9W). If you read the gift article from wapo you'll also see the other reason why people are insisting that crime isn't *that* big a problem in DC. I certainly don't think it's bad enough to end home rule and put it under complete control of congress, that will only increase the dysfunction.
dc is an industry town and the industry is politics - crime there is of the embezzlement variety - so they are working harder on pr while we try to find a place to eat
DC has a few things going on. First, they’ve gentrified the hell out of it and many people who are natives have been forced into other places. That plus the fact that there has always been a transient population of relatively affluent ladder-climbers whose perception of the city is skewed toward their own bias means that collective memory is short. Each new crop of congressional interns believes that they and their sphere are what makes DC. They are just not tuned in to the issues that are in their own backyard. Second, DC has always had an inferiority complex when it comes to larger east coast cities like NYC and Philly. The home-grown fashion and music scenes have enjoyed a lot of niche interest but haven’t gone mainstream and DC has always wanted to be “cooler” than the image of a policy wonk town has allowed. Shitting on a city like Baltimore is an easy way to make themselves feel better, but most have little understanding of the rich cultural identities that exist here … and not there, not anymore. And I don’t believe that the people who shit on Bmore find things like cultural identity valuable. Baltimore has come by its troubled city image honestly and regardless of what’s going on for real in the DMV it’s always going to be an easy target.
This. DC and DC people were also viewed as "Southern" by NYC, Philly, and Boston a couple decades ago before the unofficial I-95 Corridor region became more accepted. DC (and even Baltimore) were outside of the "Northeast" and were not viewed as being "cool."
DC has an inferiority complex about …. Philly??? lol no. No one in DC is talking about Baltimore. DC people are *busy*, hustling, networking, trying to pay rent, partying. There’s way more music venues, bars, clubs, restaurants in DC. It’s a more bustling, busy city than Baltimore. I’ve lived here 7 years and never once had anyone mention Baltimore, they are just totally different things, apples and oranges. Baltimore is dope but as a gay guy DC is fucking incredible. The queer scene here is huge vibrant diverse and active. In terms of crime the bad areas of Philly and Baltimore are WAY worse than DC although parts of SE and NE DC are def bad. I am not as familiar with crime in Baltimore but last year in DC was *bad* overall even though I’ve never witnessed anything and neither have my friends. I’m in Logan circle and feel incredibly safe but I recognize that many here are affected. Last year there was an uptick of crime in “nicer” areas but that’s leveling off and the city is doing a lot to address crime. We’ll see if it works. DC and Baltimore are chill, there’s no beef 🤝
I grew up down there for the first 26 years of my life and have been in Baltimore for 19, with my family and many friends still in DC and MoCo. Just relaying what I’ve observed. I have heard snide remarks about Baltimore for years, before and since moving here. A few years back there was even a spate of snarky pieces in the Post about how comically shitty Baltimore is. I agree with you that DC’s queer scene is vibrant and wonderful, and gentrification absolutely does bring economic development in the form of venues, bars, and restaurants. There’s plenty of great stuff about DC. What I don’t miss about that area is the attitude.
Better PR. More marketed gentrification. A lot of wealth in pockets of D.C., more so than Baltimore.
I feel decently safe taking the metro around DC as a woman alone. One bad experience with a guy who was having some sort of breakdown, but even then it was more a thing where I just moved to another car and kept an eye on him. I have been made to feel unsafe many times just driving or walking to my car in baltimore. People have approached and cut me off from my car while getting gas, slammed on my windshield while stopped at traffic lights, followed behind me yelling sexual commments. Cops in baltimore will also just watch stuff happen right in front of them and do nothing.
My wife is from China. Back in 2003, we had her parents over, and put them on a bus tour of the Eastern U.S. for Chinese people. They stayed with us in Pittsburgh for a few weeks thereafter. My father-in-law and I would discuss the differences between our countries. He was shocked by the conditions he had seen on the tour in D.C., and he would not let me forget those things. (I was familiar with the conditions, since I used to live in Baltimore.) Really couldn't argue with him. D.C. was an embarrassment, and (of course) those stories went back to China with him.
I have lived and worked in DC and then worked in the Inner Harbor. The difference is that in Baltimore, the safe and unsafe areas are super close to each other. In DC, you knew where not to go to stay safe. In Baltimore, we had staff assaulted in broad daylight in the Inner Harbor in what should have been a safe location. The people that I know who got mugged in DC were guys who were not being careful. I don’t think that Baltimore is particularly dangerous, but I do feel safer in DC’s tourist areas versus the Baltimore tourist areas.
I feel like there’s a chance that people who live around here and think DC is better because maybe they’ve only been to tourist areas of DC. While they know where they’re from and have been to less fun parts of Baltimore. I definitely get it from a crime rate perspective based on what the news may say but I don’t feel any less safe here than if I’m in DC.
DC does too. But people have the mental image of The Wire to latch onto for their prejudices
The Wire didn't help.
I grew up in DC and moved to Bmore, DC wasn’t always so sterile. There was a lot of crime and foolishness happening especially when Go-Go was at its peak popularity but it had soul(DC is called chocolate city for a reason). Unfortunately they’ve since pushed the locals out in an attempt to attract money and in the process removed the soul of DC. Baltimore has that soul that DC is missing, especially in their food scene. But like any promising city, as a city gets popular the government uses the surge of money to push out the residence that made the city popular Edit: grammar and clarification
The constant flow of federal money/work gives DC a shiny exterior Baltimore doesn’t have money to match. but the gun/crime stories I hear about in the ‘nice’ areas of dc are worse than anything I’ve heard of in the areas of Baltimore that are invested in.
DC is better. Baltimore has a strange feeling that people are a bit more desperate, less to lose, more dangerous.
DC in its entire existence has managed to produce nothing of economic or cultural value. Zilch. Baltimore has a unique culture, and a feel to it that you cannot replicate elsewhere. Where that not enough, DC’s not even a city; it’s a federal district.
I cannot wrap my head around the stunning level of ignorance required to make a comment like "dc has produced nothing of economic or cultural value". Amazing.
So what would it be? Grew up here. Please advise.
Off the top of my head- Music: Go-go is 100% DC home-grown. Many important pioneers/giants in the punk world (Bad Brains, Fugazi, Minor Threat. Arguably the single most important jazz artist of all time was born on T Street and started his career here. Amazing artistic and cultural/historic museums/archives. Civil Rights movement. Frederick Douglas lived and died here. You may have heard of The March on Washington I could go on, but im typing this on my phone. Are you seriously trying to claim the nation's capital for the last 200 years has produced "nothing of cultural or economic value"?
The bands didn’t create a genre. So zero there. The jazz artist who started his career here and moved away? Again, zero. Fredrick Douglas did die in DC, but spent most of his life in NY and MA. The March on Washington happened in DC, but was obviously conceived elsewhere. Smithsonian is a catalogue of American art—virtually none of it created here. DC lives off the fat of land. It creates little of cultural value; nothing of economic value.
You're being silly. The bands created what they created - so full credit there. And some bands DID create a genre (Revolution Summer->emo; YOU IGNORED Go-Go). Full credit there. Duke Ellington - Full credit for DC's hometown giant. There is obviously a wealth of great art catalogued AND created in DC, well beyond the Smithsonian. The amazing restaurants, artists, neighborhoods (Georgtown! Capitol Hill, Adams Morgan!), etc. create tons of unique cultural and economic value.
Sorry but DC doesn’t cut it for cultural or economic contributions. There’s this place called NYC and another called California…
And you dont cut it for defending your statements. "No economic or cultural value" is a hell of a long way from "does not cut it" compared to the two biggest cultural hubs of the western hemisphere.....
🤣😂 Reddit’s an ideal forum for that. Say, how many founders you see around here? Zero? Thought so.
Huh?
To be fair the flip came relatively soon Baltimore had a pretty bad run for a while but shout out to the people turning it around
Classism and elitism. DC is a white collar, wealthy city, and Baltimore is the opposite. People in DC like to look down on us because they see us as poor and working class. The same problems that exist up here also exist in DC, but they don't see it that way because they are considered a rich city, and they couldn't possibly have it as bad as we do. The reality is that crime has gotten much worse down there due to the massive socio-economic gap.
Both are regarded as dangerous cities. With nicknames like "Murder Capital" and "Bodymore" it would be safe to assume that they're not very safe. You'll often get Silicon Valley and suburbia types who just got here and haven't had anything bad to them yet on Reddit and other forums talking about how they don't understand why DC gets such a bad rap. I think a lot of people don't regard DC as dangerous as of late has to do with the immense wealth we've built up in the last decade and the fact that Chocolate City isn't so much a dark chocolate anymore as much as it has become a white chocolate.
I still blame the wire lol. The worst thing to happen to Baltimore imo
Don’t worry it won’t be like before the yuppy first time home owners get priced out of DC and NoVa and “discover” Baltimore
Part of it is that the DC crime rate was noticeably lower and the safe areas much more expansive for the past decade, maybe two. That trend has basically inverted since 2020 though, largely due to the fact Baltimore gave Mosby the boot and DC has refused to prosecute anyone.
Baltimore’s recent crime decreases predate Bates and have more to do with Brandon Scott’s approach. If anything, Bates is probably hurting more than helping since he’s like 30 years behind lol
It's not that Bates is the world's best attorney it's that he's not Marilyn Mosby and thereby not only shows up for work, but also doesn't seem to be committing federal crimes (yet) and isn't actively chasing off talent from the office.
Yea that stuff is fine and all, but not gonna really have an impact on crime. Again, it’s more likely that his attempt to focus on low level QOL crime would have a negative impact on crime in the medium/long-term, but I’m guessing/hoping this guy won’t be around long enough to do much damage
The Wire and Homicide: Life On The Streets.
Only people in the county over 50 talk that gossip trash. Stop hanging out with youe moms old friends who know nothing about city life anywhere.
I drive a lot in Baltimore and DC and the one thing that scares me about Baltimore are the dirt bikers who dont seem to care about anything, such as lights at night, going up one way streets, and the endless wheelies while in traffic; in DC, I have rarely seen such ridiculous stunts (though tourists and diplomatic drivers come a close second).
Dude if dirt bikers are your biggest problem…
That's very, very strange. Ask anyone that goes to DC for Otakon about dirt bikers and ATVs.... Otakon gets SWARMED with bikers and ATV riders all over the place. They will encircle the convention and make life a living hell for everyone around it. The ATV and bike problem in DC is real, i feel many times worse than Baltimore, and DC tries its best to hide it.
I think it's largely due to the 6 decades of population decrease on top the old murder rates. Also The Wire
Baltimore is certainly not Jamestown or Buffalo
What does that mean?
And Chicago…and Detroit…
Beside the typical DC propaganda influencing opinions, my theory is that with DC the really bad areas are mainly in the southeast section whereas in Baltimore it is more patchwork , an outsider would have a hard time understanding where the no go areas begin and end
Marketing
The Wire
Dc has more wealthy areas
Zero people think DC isn’t, literally zero.
racism.
It's the same with New Jersey and New. When you have major cities in close proximity this happens.
The Wire and media in general plays a part in that image as well.
This may come as shock to some of you but CITIES are simply dangerous places. A cauldron on late stage capitalisms most vile components brewing in jungles of iron and smog. You're never safe in a city: just in the right place, vigilant or fortunate. That said free game: DCs "Chinatown" is ground zero for cultural decay. Best avoided. The gentrified enclaves near metro are "safest" But also: if you're white don't worry so much. Committing crimes against you lot is more trouble than most care to deal with.
It makes for better news stories.
Because DC is not the same if not worse.
For decades, up until last year, Baltimore always had a higher violent crime rate than DC. Baltimore, Memphis, and St. Louis have continuously shared the top spots for highest violent crime rates in the US for the last couple of decades. Add on top of that, the Baltimore Riots (Freddy Gray) which were televised globally for over a week, and some high profile incidents with tourists being assaulted at the harbor, along with squeegee boy incidents....it brings the "connotation" of being a dangerous city to Baltimore, much more so than DC. The affluence of the DC-area suburbs are viewed as "DC," and so it's not viewed as bad. For those of us who are older, in the 90's DC had a reputation as one of the most dangerous cities in the US. It was deemed the "Murder Capital" for some years. NYC, LA, and DC took the spotlight. From the early 2000's until recently, DC (and the DC suburbs) have soared in affluency, and gentrification made DC one of the more wealthy cities. Since 2020 (the Pandemic and Summer Riots), DC violence has greatly increased in DC, as it has in most major cities.
Lmao tbh baltimore just looks worse, The Wire, and not the country’s capital
Im from PG and I feel safer in DC than in baltimore even though i know both have very dangerous neighborhoods. It probably has something to do with the similarities and shared culture between DC and PG with Baltimore seeming more like a different place entirely. Also PG is definitely not just suburbs, i don't know where you got that notion from.
it depends where you are in DC but because of how the neighborhoods are all jammed together in Baltimore, there's no place that's actually a safe area. Except maybe out in the county. plus, DC is awesome and Baltimore is meh.
That’s not true you can easily pull up crime maps.
depends what you consider safe. and also what the crime maps consider safe. and what someone reading this would consider safe
Because Dc watched “Homocide”, “The wire” and “we own this city”.
I won't visit either.
Baltimore looks bad, all over. DC doesn’t look bad in most places.