I’ve been in SE baltimore for about 8 years, mostly on the NE end of patterson park. have drunkenly walked, biked, and scootered home from just about everywhere in the city at all hours. One of my finer moments was a walk from soundstage in the harbor to Charles village at 1am on foot solo. Hypothetically speaking also may have napped in a bush or two along Boston street coming from fells in my post college years. Scariest thing to happen to me occurred just last week when I went to throw my dogs poop bag into a dumpster and a black cat jumped out of it and ran away. scared the crap out of me lol.

Not that things don’t happen here, but nobody posts on social media that they walked home safely at night, made it to and from work without getting carjacked, or walked the dog/went running with headphones in. There’s like 20,000 people in the neighborhoods surrounding the park, multiply that by daily commutes, walks, etc. the odds of an altercation are quite low (but never zero).

In all seriousness though, as others have said…. Just be aware of your surroundings, trust your gut, and don’t feel bad about crossing streets as people are coming the other the way, especially when walking late at night. if something seems really off or it’s super late I’ll walk in the middle of the street to reduce the chance someone is hiding around a corner or something.

The only other things I’d add would be that:

1. you can’t put a price on a comfortable living situation. Especially when moving to a new city and particularly one like Baltimore that is very block by block. a bad spot can break you. choose a safe bet over a good deal and after a few months you’ll have a much better sense of the area, where and what you are comfortable with. A common piece of advice on here is to visit the area you are considering multiple days and times. We joke in this thread about people asking the safety question again and again but people will also help you if you have questions about a spot. Feel free to DM me as well.

2. Don’t escalate things, even if you are in the right. When details come out about these incidents, so many of them are a minor, drunken altercation that escalated. Better to just end the encounter and leave the area. In any large city environment you never know who’s carrying what nowadays.

3. I’ve fortunately never been the victim of a robbery, mugging, carjacking etc. but my rule of thumb is that I’d leave somewhere butt naked before I fought back over a material possession of mine. I don’t mean to sound victim blamey for 2&3, minor altercations shouldn’t escalate to life altering violence, and not fighting back doesn’t always work, but the reality is not fighting back won’t make things worse for you.