Sewage disasters have become cultural here. Everyone I know has a horror story about a sewer line collapsing or their basement flooding.

>Imagine if you went to a zoo and they sold all their mammals. It's still a zoo. But you can still be bummed there aren't lions and elephants and stuff.

I've been living here for 20 years. I think people enjoy living here is because it's generally pretty useful. There are two grocery stores, three mechanic shops, a solid hardware store, and a nice nightlife. It's very walkable and the parking's really not terrible when you remember that you are in the middle of a large city.

These are all practical concerns. The nightlife is practical in that it helps people bond which can help build a sense of community which, in turn, maintains the safety and livability of this neighborhood.

It only took a couple years to get annoyed at the 34th street lights thing. Are you trying to go somewhere in Hampden on a Sunday in December after the Ravens pound the shit out of the Steelers? Forget it. My aunt and uncle lived on Keswick and it was bad back in the 80's too. Some years are worse than others.

Maybe the knee-jerk reaction is "Well, don't go there if you don't like it" but I live here. What's the alternative? I go over to the Waverly Giant to buy groceries?

If 36th street was a wall of bars and foofy restaurants, that means I'd have to go elsewhere for practical things. I gave up drinking years ago, so why stay in a neighborhood geared towards entertainment?

To paraphrase the Wu-Tang, Hampden has diversified its bonds. If we had all our eggs in the drinking/dining basket, we'd go bust every time the economy tanks. The population would be far more transient. But because we have a lot to offer to different kinds of people, it's pretty stable, which makes it a place you'd like to hang out in.

I hate this "purity" thing you're talking about because what I'm talking about is SO far from some hipster hangup about "authenticity" or whatever. I just want this place to serve its residents well so that it can stay nice.

Check out The Death and Life of Great American Cities by Jane Jacobs. Cities exist primarily to serve their residents and when they fail to do that, they begin to fail in other ways.

At the corner of Druid Park Drive and Clipper Mill?

>Black Midi

Superb band.

Studies have shown they kinda don't. Overall, they tend to reduce side-impact collisions and can actually increase rear-end collisions.

https://www.roads.maryland.gov/OPR_Research/MD-18-SHA-UM-4-37_Red-Light-Camera_Report.pdf

An overall increase in wealth for whom, exactly?

The people who get priced out of neighborhoods have to go somewhere and the problems that devalued their homes don't really get solved. If one of the residents is a convicted felon in that neighborhood, he's a convicted felon somewhere else too. If they were on Suboxone in Reservoir Hill, they're on Suboxone in Landsdowne.

Not only that but just because you think a neighborhood is terrible and the people don't really want you there doesn't mean it's not someone's home. It's functional for them. Maybe they won't be able to function as well elsewhere. Maybe they won't be so welcome.

The other longer term problem is that it's investors, often out-of-towners, who buy these properties and rent them out. The people who live there tend to live where it's trendy and will move onto the next big thing in a few leases. You really don't want investors owning chunks of a city. That's how Baltimore got into this mess in the first place.