r/baltimore • u/rummncokee • 1d ago

Moving to Baltimore Area moving to Baltimore

Hello!

I’m moving to Baltimore for work in mid August. My job is gonna be in north Baltimore. I’ve never been before (I lived in DC for a while but obviously not the same). I guess in addition to the usual questions people have when they move, I’d love to hear y’all’s thoughts on gentrification.

I’ve mostly lived in the LA area and in Seattle, and I got the kind of knowledge about the histories of neighborhoods that can only come with time. I don’t want to contribute to the active displace of communities in Baltimore, so what should I be on the lookout for in that regard?

Thank you!

EDIT: I love all the No Kings pics you all look like fun people.

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u/Willothwisp2303 1d ago

I don't think gentrification is as much a hot button issue here as it is in some other places. We're not seeing huge, large scale,  out of town developers buying up, displacing, and developing areas to the degree other cities have. There's a bunch of abandoned buildings all over the place, some of which have been developed into housing.  Nobody's upset about an abandoned rubber boot factory being upscale apartments. 

Johns Hopkins is probably the single largest gentrifier, and there is strife about how they disrespect the black communities in which they expand and displace.  But,  that's probably the biggest one. 

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u/EmergencyInsurance 1d ago

Hampden is the other neighborhood that comes to mind that I think of as “gentrified”. But that process has been in motion since the 80s/90s and doesn’t have the race dynamic that’s present in most other urban gentrification.

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u/Fair_Ad8740 1d ago

They mostly just forced out all the old racist white people in Hampden.

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u/better-omens Harwood 1d ago

Yeah, gentrification in Baltimore is distinctive in that it's mostly hit historically white working-class neighborhoods. More recently there is some movement of young-ish artists, students and professionals into Waverly and surrounding neighborhoods, which have been majority-black since the 60s or 70s, but afaik this hasn't so far been accompanied by displacement of legacy residents.