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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]If my husband would do it, I would move to Roland Park in a hot second.  We have three kids and I am over the constant competitiveness/rat race in the DC area and the transient people.  Places like Baltimore are more affordable and people have a real sense of place.  I'd like to raise my kids somewhere where their friends don't move every three years and where people are more down to earth.

Don't get stuck on the lack of home appreciation.  It's part of the package--that's why it is affordable to live there.  Make investments in something other than your home.  Also, real cities have crime.  Just be aware of it and no where not to go.  No one here in DC is driving around the bad parts of NE or SE for fun...you wouldn't do that in Baltimore, Cleveland or Detroit either.

Good luck to you. [/quote]

I know someone who lives in Roland Park and you are way off in your assessment of it being low key. A lot of very wealthy people live there, and just like wealthy people everywhere, they are committed to keeping their money and influence. It's not a particularly diverse neighborhood.  [/quote]

In my personal experience, the relevant of which is basically the fact I went to one of the big Baltimore prep schools and knew a ton of families from Roland Park and now have friends that own there as well as the fact that I live in DC and have a very stereotypical DC career...the stress levels and competitiveness of even the most “driven” Baltimore person (for lack of a better word) still pales in comparison to those of most DC people I know. There are definitely obnoxious folks in Baltimore—but just totally different levels. I think it has to do with the difference in the industries within the two cities. [/quote]

This. No matter how well educated you are or how high powered your job (and yes, they exist here), it’s just not cool to be a striver. The ceo of my husband’s company is super low key in person, doesn’t even live in a “super fancy” house and makes 8 figures. We have multiple Nobel prize winners in our neighborhood and they are 100% normal people. It took me about a year to get used to it when we moved from DC. PEople are humble, polite, and not overly showy about status, skills, or money. People don’t brag, it’s a huge social no no. [/quote]

I’ve has the same experience. The whole hyper competitive parenting culture which is way too prevalent in DC is extremely frowned upon in Baltimore as well. People are very humble and laid back, even if their kids are all stars. Totally different culture up there among middle class and UMC people.[/quote]

I'd wonder how both PPs respond to the charge that Baltimore is 'laid back' essentially because it's stuck. A lot of folks I know who come there from other places say this. There's a lot of sorting people out by which schools you attended and your country club memberships. I get that DC striver culture can be insufferable, but it's also a powerful black hole that draws people into from all over galaxy (slight exaggeration) and makes them part of the whole, often by incorporating what uniqueness they bring. Baltimore, by contrast, is a place that whimpers along on the reputation of being one of antebellum America's top cities and fairly major port/manufacturing town until roughly 50 years ago, and has since become something of a museum for those ages. [/quote]

I’m one of the PPs. I think you may have written this (based on your use of the word whimpers) in a way designed to get a rise out of me, but none of this really resonated to me. I consider a lot of towns a lot more laid back than DC, Baltimore one of them—and the one being discussed here.

In regard to the whole “antebellum” thing, it may help you to know neither I (or anyone I know from the city) is really fixated on the pre-Civil War history of the city. If we’re hanging onto anything, it’s mostly the culture represented in the musical Hairspray. [/quote]

I'm almost positive any answer could be better here. What you need to do is tell me what the next act is. Laid back to many of us is an obvious cover for resting on its laurels. And don't give me this B.S. about Hairspray. Waters himself said ten years ago he wasn't going to Hunfest since everyone with an actual beehive in Baltimore was now in a nursing home. I imagine most of those folks are in the ground by now.

And it's funny you dismiss the fact that there was a real antebellum glory here and that it, like other successes, cripples the place. Do Faulkner's writings vaporize if they arrive within half-a-mile of Northern Parkway? Past really is present, bub. If you were even a little surprised by the recent public revelations about the city's big Quaker philanthropist being a slaveholder, I'd say you've missed a lot. And perhaps if you really need to sort this out, we can discuss it at The Alex Brown or perhaps Robert E. Lee Park, you know, the recently re-named Lake Roland Park?[/quote]

The irony to your post is that antebellum Baltimore had the largest free black population in America (about 25k free blacks versus 2k slaves out of a city population of 200k). The mercantile Baltimore of 1860 was pretty much gone by 1900, replaced by an industrial city where the vast majority had little in common with antebellum Baltimore, due to the large waves of immigration and internal migration. And most black Baltimoreans are descendants of migrants from the South that started arriving in large numbers during WWII to work in the war industries. Those industries have now long since faded away, transforming Baltimore once more. The historical weight on Baltimore is not Faulkerian for the antebellum world you might be thinking of never really existed in Baltimore, it was no Richmond nor Charleston. It is the late Victorian to 1950s heavy industry and manufacturing era that left the greatest mark on Baltimore and its decline is what had the strongest psychological impact. And Baltimore is not unique to this, for the same decline marked many American cities.

The city did have a strong pro southern flavor for a long time but people too often forget that was never the majority. Just as people too quickly ignore that Hopkins' wealth didn't derive from slavery (he may have owned, maybe, up to five male slaves at any given point) or that he himself made clear his new hospital was to serve all people, not just whites. The rush to judge while turning a blind eye to the parts of the past that doesn't fit the narrative is too often a hallmark of today's angry woke world.

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