Twenty years ago I walked up N. Charles St. from the Amtrak station to Johns Hopkins at about two in the afternoon, thinking that such a main street at such a time was safe. Reasonably clean and prosperous and absolutely deserted - the eeriest cityscape I ever saw - scarcely a car passed me in a mile and a half. My brother told me I was crazy. He and his wife lived in the most securely gated apartment I’ve yet seen.
My daughter is at Loyola - there is a bus just for students at the different universities so they don’t have to ride public transportation. If a student is arrested for less than a major felony (not an issue for her) the city police turn the student over to campus police so the student won’t be assaulted in the city jail. For her safety I had to tell her that one out of three young black men in Baltimore is currently under supervision of the justice system and that means there are yet more criminals: the uncaught, and those who’ve served their sentence, and the first timers. So don’t think it’s racist to be cautious of all black men, or black girls and women. Keep your long hair tied up. She didn’t want to listen to me - it took a only a couple months of local news, of older students’ warnings, to open her eyes, although none of them ever put it as baldly as I did.
I grew up in Baltimore, three blocks east of York Road. Now when I go back to visit - still have a lot of family in the immediate area, Timonium, Perry Hall, Columbia - trips into the city consist of either Little Italy or Camden Yards or Ravens Stadium. That’s it! It breaks my heart to see how the city has declined.