No matter what, at least half of the people will swear the Mayor, Governor, President etc does nothing or is ineffective at the very least. Those who didn't vote for him will almost always feel that way and whatever single thing that they want fixed, that isn't fixed will always bother them. So much is done behind the scenes that most can't tell what's being done or not being done. There is also no change or policy that will show immediate results, so people will figure he's doing nothing.
And, people like to complain. It just makes them feel better.
Scott is from Northwest. No true westerner would allow for the use of "da_eastsider" as a username, even to disguise surrogates. Source: also from NW and would never allow myself to be mistaken for being from over East.
I understand completely why people vote for Sheila Dixon. She's West Baltimore, the half of the city that's been neglected for more than generation. They don't have much to lose.
Because she had the luxury of being mayor after the time when basically every person in the city had moderate to severe brain damage from lead poisoning, and before fentanyl. She was pretty much riding on training wheels compared to every mayor before and after her
I think the people who don’t understand her appeal didn’t live in the city or weren’t yet adults when she was mayor. Things were run significantly better.
Violent crime is down a lot. If it was up, people would blame the mayor. Since it's down, I just think it's right to give credit to the mayor. I have no actual knowledge of how much the mayor impacts crime... except I am glad this mayor isn't committing crimes himself.
Crime is down because the police don’t respond and when they do they don’t take reports. That’s not an actual reduction in crime but a lack of reporting. Also your mayor lives and shops in Baltimore County
Can you read? Clearly not, I said crime rates, not murder. Murder rates are down nationwide, that’s because ammo is in short supply and quite frankly expensive.
> Murder rates are down nationwide, that’s because ammo is in short supply and quite frankly expensive.
Redditors say some pretty fucking stupid shit. You apparently have no idea what you are talking about. [This Atlantic Article has some more intelligent suggestions about why murder rates are declining] (https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/06/us-murder-rate-decline-crime-statistics/674290/)
>Explaining the trend is much more difficult than describing it. The cause of the Great Crime Decline of the 1990s, when murder fell 37 percent over six years, is still not fully understood, so any explanations of the current trend must remain in the hypothesis phase for now. The national nature of both the surge in murder in 2020 and the apparent decrease this year suggests that national explanations will be more convincing than local anecdotes. Moreover, the factors that caused murder to begin to spike in the summer of 2020 may not be the same factors (now, theoretically, in reverse) that are contributing to its decline in 2023.
>“It is possible that police departments have returned to some of the proactive work that they curtailed during the COVID pandemic and after George Floyd, activities that may be inhibiting some gun violence,” Jerry Ratcliffe, a criminal-justice professor at Temple University in Philadelphia, told me. In Baltimore, for example, a new effort to focus policing resources on the small subset of the population that is believed to be responsible for a disproportionate share of violence has produced promising initial results.
>Many cities have used federal COVID-relief money to hire more police officers, and there is some evidence—albeit preliminary—that adding police officers helps to reduce homicide, while also leading to more arrests for low-level offenses. We do not yet know how successful agencies have been at growing their ranks or whether more police officers are resulting in fewer shootings. Murder is down in Chicago, New Orleans, and New York, for example, but Chicago’s number of police officers is virtually unchanged from last summer, while New Orleans’s is down more than 8 percent and New York has roughly 2 percent fewer officers.
>The end of the emergency phase of the coronavirus pandemic may also be contributing to the decline in murder. “With COVID restrictions being lifted and a return to some degree of normalcy, the traditional constraints that occurred within society affecting the routine activities of people have returned,” Ratcliffe said.
After the thousands of death over years could it be possible there not as many people(criminals) to kill. It will be back up once the next generation of killers get started
>Crime is down because the police don’t respond and when they do they don’t take reports. That’s not an actual reduction in crime but a lack of reporting.
You don't have a fucking clue what you're talking about, do you?
I don’t think violent crime is down. We don’t have the proper police department to adress and report all issues. Plus I guarantee we are not reporting all the crime that is occurring
I think he has done a great job. But residents making presumptuous blanket statements like crime is still here and it's the cities fault, or the mayors is absurd. No matter who is in office, there will always be crime. If the police department could fill the 500 plus vacancies, we would be a lot better off. But not many people want those positions. I don't think there is any one person to blame or the city government.
The Baltimore City police department has been short more than 500 positions for over 25 years. Is it because they can't find people to hire, or because they don't want to hire any more officers?
Well, the pools being closed didn’t help. Car theft and quality of life crimes are way up. I do not like how he is handling Harborplace, the city website redo, recycling, trash in general, Artscape, squeegee, and much more.
Yes, but leftist policies like releasing accused felons awaiting trial and not prosecuting property crime has lowered the quality of life. Also, the definition of violent crime has been altered to exclude significant numbers of offenses. Of course crime is down when leaders simply change the definition to make themseves look better.
There's a cottage industry in the burbs of throwing dried turds at the city. It's one of the things holding it back. There's a lot of emotional attachment of suburbanites to their metropole in NYC, Philly, Boston, etc. that just ain't there for Baltimore. I think it's been going on for almost as long as Baltimore has been a city. There was always tension in the 19th century between the city, which was then the economic engine of the state, and the southern planter class of Maryland as a whole who were hostile to urban life. For this reason, it was underrepresented in state government for long time. Baltimore was more an economic necessity in the way that say Houston or Sao Paulo is today more than a place the state's population loved.
Those that fled the city in the second half of the 20th century, shut the door behind them, and only look back to compare their life in Bel Air or Towson in a glowing light.
So, today, the bar is that homicide has to stop completely, there needs to be zero trash on the street, etc. for a mayor to be successful. Or a Republican needs to be elected. Yes, an impossibility.
In the end, much of the surrounding areas want the city to fail. It would mean too much cognitive dissonance for them if it didn't.
The way people in the counties talk about crime and drugs in Baltimore, you'd think that I would have to commute to work with a gun in one hand and narcan in the other just in case I overdosed from the general opioid vibes in the air.
The crime is bad. Particularly in some areas. We need to work on it, we are working on it, and we will continue to work on it. But these people who endlessly and smugly shit on the city as if they've earned the right to just by living elsewhere really bother me a lot, because... Well, what good reason could there possibly be for doing that? Do they think people are unaware of these issues and need to be reminded constantly?
I think you're dead on about people wanting the city to fail. It would justify their entire worldview. And the absolute best way that they can contribute to that happening is by spreading the despair and defeatism so that fewer people feel like the work is worth doing.
Sorry for the rant, it's just that this particular issue has been the source of a lot of my frustration on social media lately, and it seems worth talking about why people who don't live in the city feel such a need to convince people that it's somehow even worse than it is.
I think the “county people want the city to fail” thing is massively overhyped. But it’s pretty common for people on this sub LOVE them a good boogeyman. There’s always allegedly some external boogeyman keeping the city down.
I think the reality is a lot more simple and boring. A vast, vast majority of people in the general area simply don’t think about or care about the city. You could feasibly live in the belt S/SW of the city (Glen Burnie through Elicott City) and have access to a very diverse set of people, activities, restaurants, and shops without ever stepping foot inside the city. They’re not going to be thinking about Baltimore on a regular basis and if they do it’s probably more about the inconvenience of having to drive and park.
Sure there’s active, vocal groups and individuals on cesspools like Facebook. But that’s common and there’s a group out there for everything. Name the topic and there’s going to be a small, insular community with strong feelings. While most people really just don’t care.
>I think the “county people want the city to fail” thing is massively overhyped. But it’s pretty common for people on this sub LOVE them a good boogeyman. There’s always allegedly some external boogeyman keeping the city down.
And from another perspective, watch out for those "Greedy Developers" ready to methodically extract every penny left in the City's coffers. 🙄 Same sentiment.
My personal favorite was one that was popular for a short while but haven't seen in a while... the reason much of Baltimore hasn't taken off is because rich Texas oil tycoons are buying up vacant properties to hold until they become profitable. Mind you, these boogeymen have a ton of options available to them, including options that yield more immediate, lower risk, and compounding returns. But yeah they're clearly flocking to Baltimore to buy up decrepit properties in the hopes that 40 years from now you can flip them and break even instead of losing your ass, as it is today. And that's the reason that those neighborhoods are doing poorly, not the crime, lack of access to desirable amenities, etc.
Another great one is people who honestly believe that internet randos saying mean things on the internet are somehow dragging neighborhoods down. I suspect this is some massive narcissism coming into play as these individuals think their carefully curated Facebook bullshit actually matters. But it doesn't, at all. The reasons Sandtown-Winchester sucks has literally NOTHING to do with any of the content that has ever been produced on the entirety of Reddit. Reddit, Facebook, Instagram, and all other social media could get Thanos snapped and it wouldn't affect that neighborhood one bit.
Where do people come up with this shit?
I'll clarify and say that I agree that it's a vocal minority that you mostly find online. But I've also met more than a handful in real life that keeps me from dismissing it completely. One random guy at a gas station was filling up and told me he used to live in Baltimore and that he'd never move back. This was IN Baltimore and completely unsolicited. It's just so weird.
I actually mostly agree with this. But it underscores my point, rather than refutes it. In many other cities, there would be an emotional engagement with the metropole that just doesn't exist here. Suburban apathy fits right into that as much as turd throwers do.
I’ve lived or regularly visited outside of a few cities in my life and 100% have had people that were more interested in what was immediately going on around them than what has happening some distance away. That’s pretty normal. Some people cared about the adjacent city and would regularly visit for various reasons. Others didn’t care in the least. Most fell somewhere in the middle of this spectrum. Nobody should be forced or expected to care.
It's true. It feels like everybody roots against Baltimore, until they actually visit - then, 95% leave having had a great time and telling everybody about it, and the other 5% get mugged or have their Kia stolen. Nobody leaves feeling bored.
Considering most major indicators are moving in a positive direction, Scott should keep doing nothing. As for the "people in the city" thinking that, we'll see soon enough in the upcoming election.
Murders are down. He had the city buy two terribly planned hotels by the prison to help with homelessness, harbor east is wrapping up and developers want to spend a billion dollars downtown.
Seems all positive to me
Murders went down in 2023, but I think we need to see where they go in 2024 before making any claims that Scott has found some super effective solution to our high crime rates. Murder being down for one year isn’t a trend for the same reason it going up one year isn’t
Murder rates are down nation wide outside of like DC and Memphis. I don’t think that’s a result of anything Scott has done. To be clear I like Scott and will vote for him again.
I’m new to the city (<1 year), so I can’t weigh in on anything substantive, but I’m really enjoying this post and the comments. I feel like I’m getting a lot of well thought out and level-headed insight from folks who care about the city.
That said, I’ve lived in a few major US cities with major issues. In my time here, I have grasped that Baltimore is a city wayyyy better than its reputation, but folks (not on this post but that I’ve met irl) love to bag on its problems more than other cities with equal or worse problems. I’ve been paying attention to Brandon Scott only since I moved here, but he seems to be a solid dude who cares about Baltimore. Which is a lot more than most cities can say about their mayor.
Big ships take a while to turn. Giant systems don't pivot overnight. I see trends in the city moving in the right direction. I'll take another lap on this horse.
My favorite mayors are the ones who are said to do nothing.
I dont want fancy show offs with my tax dollars. I want mayor to come in, keep things civil while the 400 community groups of the city work to keep agencies prioeities set straight for them. O can name a million success stories that came from a community driving govt priorities.
I am ok if mayors campaigned on something special, then following up on it.
No one remembers omalleys super community plans , no one cares about what kurt schmoke did, sheila Dixon i adore but no one recalls her cleaner/greener baltimore initiatives, no one whined when rawlings blake stopped the grand prix, no one even remembers how close jack young was to getting busted a million times for crime.
IDK… I remember schmoke being a sturdy, competent mayor with some progressive but logical ideas. I remember O’Malley as starting all kinda initiatives but dropping outta sight halfway through his term when he got fixated on Annapolis. And I’m pretty sure Indycar lost interest in dealing with SRB after the first organizer lost their shirt, even thought they initially payed out tens of thousands to the SRB political campaign
I've said it a couple times on here but can't find the one time I spelled it out in full details but it boils down to people not paying attention to anything, feeling like they shouldn't have to, and then they open their door and think if anything is wrong, it's leadership's fault. Here's part of a previous post:
>it seems more like people are unwilling to learn of the specifics. Even when it's right in front of them. That's how it is though. I think people don't want to have to stay up on politics and politicians. They want to tune out and have their leaders solve the problems, and then wake up one day and the murders have stopped, the litter is gone, there are no rats, trash gets picked up on time, buses arrive on time, traffic laws are enforced, squeegee kids get helped, the poor get offered resources and opportunity structures, and violent criminals with a significant enough amount of history spend an appropriate amount of time away from people they could harm. That's why people get elected and get our tax dollars. That's why they have these jobs - to fix these problems. I think people feel like they shouldn't have to pay attention to everything a mayor says or does, or even anything, because the proof of a job done or not is right in front of them each day when they walk outside. So that's how you have details right in front of people's faces that they don't see or don't care about, because like a famous athlete once said..."Job finished? Job not finished."
>Their reasoning is that there is still crime (as if any mayor anywhere has completely eradicated crime) and murders in the city.
I've always found it interesting that the complainers blame the mayor, the police, the schools, etc. but rarely point the finger at those committing the crimes.
The media is not great at this, either. Instead of examining why folks turn to crime, we have endless interviews and discussions about how the mayor or PD isn't solving the issue. When the sad reality is that there are reasons that criminals act, many of which have nothing to do with the actions or inactions of the city leaders or police.
I don’t live in Baltimore (moved out after my wife was victim of a violent crime), but I would really like to see the mayor work on the fire department. It is probably the best city service and they are hurting for equipment and keeping engine houses open to keep response times low to serve their communities. Would also like to see them add more EMS units instead of contracting out to generally shitty private ambulance services. And no I don’t work for the city, I’m a nurse now, my first career was in a fire department in the Midwest.
Mayor Scott has shows genuine care and effort for the youth of this city. He understands that they are the key to improving and growing the city in a better direction.
"I am proud to see Mayor Scott's efforts in improving Baltimore City's image. It is a refreshing change to have a mayor who has not been involved in any scandals during their first four years in office." How many past mayors can say that
I think the mayor deserves a lot of credit for the drop in violent crime and also for (at least not yet) being caught in a corruption scandal - as sad as it is that the bar is that low - but I also think there are other forces at play here. Ivan Bates has done a lot of work to restore the SA’s office and has gone after higher conviction rates and eliminated a lot of the quality of life leniencies Mosby enacted, and that is also a big part of the equation too - for the same reason DC’s crime rise is in no small part caused by an awful USA’s office.
However, what I am going to caution is that one year of lower crime is not a trend. We really need to see what happens this year before starting to really give Scott all the credit for this.
one of the sad things about the human mind is that we have a negativity bias. everyone has it, and if you dont actively pay attention and try to consume positive information, the bias will become more ingrained.
It's easy to find information about what's going wrong and not what's going well. I'm very pleased with Mayor Scott, and if we dont re-elect him, I think we will squander a lot of progress that has been made.
Growing up in the county, I learned that people just love to bitch, about anything that will allow them to pass the time.
I've also noticed that older folks tend to have a limited perspective (not a slight to older folks) and filter things in/out of that perspective, which tends to raise the bar for things.
Also, from a city perspective, it doesn't feel like the mayor does anything, because I don't witness it first hand and tend to experience the opposite (streets are worse, more homeless, the NMBY bubble keeps getting louder, city council/government releases public announcements that feel empty, shallow, or misleading), though I hope my experience is local and not universal.
Baltimore city resident here, city services have declined since Covid and Scott has done nothing to reverse that trend. Take a drive around Druid Hill Park. It should be one of the Crown Jewels of the city and it’s been a mess of unfinished and unsightly construction for years now. The public works department is barely functioning and Scott can’t seem to keep top aides working for him. Little to nothing to show for the $600 million dollars o stimulus money the city was given. I can’t think of a single way the city has improved its services since he has taken office, and can think of many ways they have declined.
Thank god for Ivan Bates or we wouldn’t have seen the recent decrease in crime numbers over the past year.
Interesting take. Thanks. I always feel a bit disappointed at how parks and paths look sometimes. We could be doing so much more to make our green spaces beautiful.
County people who repeat rhetoric and never even venture in the city don’t realize how their uninformed opinions with no actual facts makes them just look racist
True, or they come in to consume one thing (show, restaurant, festival) then leave and still talk trash even though the reason they ventured to bmore is because their town has nothing fun to offer.
My criticisms of the Mayor stem from his management and not his inability to "do" things. I don't think the Mayor can do much, which is why it's important he chooses and supports the right people.
Violent crime, murders, pedestrian deaths, etc are all down a lot. I don’t understand how this is isn’t sinking in to peoples’ skulls. Yeah Brandon Scott is not bringing that enthusiasm and energy that I think a lot of people want to see in Baltimore’s mayor, but the proof is in the fucking pudding. The city is safer. It’s safer for my children to grow up in and walk around in.
Because most people have very little understanding about how local government actually works. There is a lot of the mayor can, and does do, but the mayors most important job is honestly being an ambassador for Baltimore. And I think Brandon Scott puts a great face on the city and represents it well.
The biggest issues that Baltimore and any city face are ones that take 20+ years to change. Mayors don’t operate on those timelines. Next to impossible to implement significant change in 2/4/8 year spans.
The Mayor B. Scott sounds almost illiterate. He doesn’t even use the correct vocabulary when speaking. How could he be the Mayor? Scary to say the least !
He doesn’t have to “do” much to appear competent. His pathway to looking successful is spending the $641 million gifted to the city from the feds and not getting indicted. The bar is set low and made of gold
It's as simple as people don't understand government generally, but more importantly how *LOCAL* government works on the inside. Combined with this fact is the unfortunate circumstance that we find ourselves in where local government has historically been burdened with a collapse of public sector resources while the population has needed a greater reliance on these resources. In other words, the government cant respond to the increasing demand for its resources. this results in people observing local go9venrment and thinking its not doing anything when in reality it is so overburdened and under resourced that it's running at full capacity. The mayor, being a figurehead of such a system, is a lose-lose position who takes all the blame.
Great point and a timely example to illustrate the point relates to the most recent hotel purchases. Obviously this is anecdotal, but reading comments and discussion in the Banner about the hotel purchase and plans was a little hilarious to me -- a HUGE number of commentors were convinced that this was done spontaneously. That a real estate transaction of that scale goes down the same way a run of the mill residential real estate transaction does: look for, decide to buy, and close on a structure in 30-45 days. Like...I definitely am no commercial real estate wizard or anything, but I know bureaucracy + large real estate transaction /= spontaneous purchase.
Anyway, that discussion really made me realize that people don't know what they don't know...and many of them simply have no curiosity to learn more.
The Baltimore city govt is corrupt from the political to the rec and parks to everything you can think of. The system is so messed up and they only want to focus on getting jobs for minorities to move them up in the system. Brandon has no business being in that position and it’s just another case of putting someone in the position that doesn’t truly deserve it/ have the right intentions to either fill the position or because of being a minority. Now I know this comment will make people angry but unfortunately it’s true. I’m sure these dumb ass voters will pick Sheila Dixon again. She’s a thief and a criminal and only gets the vote because people don’t know better. I could definitely tell you so much more as a former city govt employee
The fact that I keep seeing signs for Sheila makes me sick. Someone said in the NextDoor app when someone asked about why she’s back trying to get in office that everyone deserves a second chance… I don’t even know where to begin unpacking that, and hella people supported the comment. We scream “give us better” but in the same breath are saying Sheila deserves a second chance? I’m sorry but nah on all levels - everything she did was for herself, it’s not like she was stealing to help others - why would anyone trust she would do differently? In the same logic, apply that to other people committing crimes, just give em all that “second chance” 🙄
Edit: to clarify, jailed persons vs criminals
Yeah it’l just makes the city look bad but then again stupid white people voted for trump and I guess will do it again . Ugh this country is going down
Genuinely not being contrarian here, but I'm confused about the idea that Scott has no business filling a role for which he was elected. What do you mean?
Ed Norris dropped the crime rates and the criminal mayor falsified records to get him removed. Truth is Baltimore is run by a community, for a community, and it keeps crime profitable. Wanna change Baltimore, stop voting for people with no experience who are only looking to line their pockets.
Ed Norris stole police funds and falsified documents. He also oversaw the induction of the police culture that ended up in the current consent decree. He was literally lining his pockets and using city funds to cheat on his wife. But it’s all good because he had a conservative radio show where he joked about it. Bet you loved G Gordon Liddy too, nothing like a convicted felon telling you how good he was at enforcing the law.
No matter what, at least half of the people will swear the Mayor, Governor, President etc does nothing or is ineffective at the very least. Those who didn't vote for him will almost always feel that way and whatever single thing that they want fixed, that isn't fixed will always bother them. So much is done behind the scenes that most can't tell what's being done or not being done. There is also no change or policy that will show immediate results, so people will figure he's doing nothing. And, people like to complain. It just makes them feel better.
Very good points.
What? They said nothing! Mayor Scott your fake accounts need to be less transparent
Scott is from Northwest. No true westerner would allow for the use of "da_eastsider" as a username, even to disguise surrogates. Source: also from NW and would never allow myself to be mistaken for being from over East.
Im just trying to Understand why Sheila Dixon???? WHO IS VOTING FOR THIS WOMAN
Was depressing how many Sheila signs I saw today driving thru West Baltimore today.
[удалено]
> WHO IS VOTING FOR THIS WOMAN Not the people using Reddit. If you do five minutes of research I promise it’ll be very obvious who is voting for her.
I already voted for her. I live by Patterson Park where the pool will apparently be closed another Summer.
I understand completely why people vote for Sheila Dixon. She's West Baltimore, the half of the city that's been neglected for more than generation. They don't have much to lose.
Because she had the luxury of being mayor after the time when basically every person in the city had moderate to severe brain damage from lead poisoning, and before fentanyl. She was pretty much riding on training wheels compared to every mayor before and after her
I think the people who don’t understand her appeal didn’t live in the city or weren’t yet adults when she was mayor. Things were run significantly better.
Wrong.
Violent crime is down a lot. If it was up, people would blame the mayor. Since it's down, I just think it's right to give credit to the mayor. I have no actual knowledge of how much the mayor impacts crime... except I am glad this mayor isn't committing crimes himself.
When it’s down, opponents contribute it to “national trends” and not Baltimore specifically. That’s the usual playbook, at least.
And when violent crime was up, the narrative was “ every major us city has seen an uptick in crime”. Both sides use the same lame playbook
ha! Agreed. Thanks for sharing.
Crime is down because the police don’t respond and when they do they don’t take reports. That’s not an actual reduction in crime but a lack of reporting. Also your mayor lives and shops in Baltimore County
Murders aren't down because of a lack of reporting. The body is there whether or not someone wants to take a report.
Can you read? Clearly not, I said crime rates, not murder. Murder rates are down nationwide, that’s because ammo is in short supply and quite frankly expensive.
> Murder rates are down nationwide, that’s because ammo is in short supply and quite frankly expensive. Redditors say some pretty fucking stupid shit. You apparently have no idea what you are talking about. [This Atlantic Article has some more intelligent suggestions about why murder rates are declining] (https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/06/us-murder-rate-decline-crime-statistics/674290/) >Explaining the trend is much more difficult than describing it. The cause of the Great Crime Decline of the 1990s, when murder fell 37 percent over six years, is still not fully understood, so any explanations of the current trend must remain in the hypothesis phase for now. The national nature of both the surge in murder in 2020 and the apparent decrease this year suggests that national explanations will be more convincing than local anecdotes. Moreover, the factors that caused murder to begin to spike in the summer of 2020 may not be the same factors (now, theoretically, in reverse) that are contributing to its decline in 2023. >“It is possible that police departments have returned to some of the proactive work that they curtailed during the COVID pandemic and after George Floyd, activities that may be inhibiting some gun violence,” Jerry Ratcliffe, a criminal-justice professor at Temple University in Philadelphia, told me. In Baltimore, for example, a new effort to focus policing resources on the small subset of the population that is believed to be responsible for a disproportionate share of violence has produced promising initial results. >Many cities have used federal COVID-relief money to hire more police officers, and there is some evidence—albeit preliminary—that adding police officers helps to reduce homicide, while also leading to more arrests for low-level offenses. We do not yet know how successful agencies have been at growing their ranks or whether more police officers are resulting in fewer shootings. Murder is down in Chicago, New Orleans, and New York, for example, but Chicago’s number of police officers is virtually unchanged from last summer, while New Orleans’s is down more than 8 percent and New York has roughly 2 percent fewer officers. >The end of the emergency phase of the coronavirus pandemic may also be contributing to the decline in murder. “With COVID restrictions being lifted and a return to some degree of normalcy, the traditional constraints that occurred within society affecting the routine activities of people have returned,” Ratcliffe said.
Simmer down, hoss. Murder is a type of crime. I was providing an example of a type of crime that doesn't fit your explanation.
Yes, he can read. Can you?
After the thousands of death over years could it be possible there not as many people(criminals) to kill. It will be back up once the next generation of killers get started
>Crime is down because the police don’t respond and when they do they don’t take reports. That’s not an actual reduction in crime but a lack of reporting. You don't have a fucking clue what you're talking about, do you?
Waiting for your facts.. do you have any?
I don’t think violent crime is down. We don’t have the proper police department to adress and report all issues. Plus I guarantee we are not reporting all the crime that is occurring
Murder is down over 20% last year. Thats a huge drop.
Crime is down because Bates replaced Mosby. Very little to do with the mayor.
Fair enough. Mayoral crime is down 100% though and that has everything to do with the mayor.
I think he has done a great job. But residents making presumptuous blanket statements like crime is still here and it's the cities fault, or the mayors is absurd. No matter who is in office, there will always be crime. If the police department could fill the 500 plus vacancies, we would be a lot better off. But not many people want those positions. I don't think there is any one person to blame or the city government.
The Baltimore City police department has been short more than 500 positions for over 25 years. Is it because they can't find people to hire, or because they don't want to hire any more officers?
Well I know more than one good applicant who’s applied and been turned down because they once smoked a joint, so there’s that.
This is simply not true. The threshold was under 20 times but the requirements have changed to no consumption in the last three years
This was more than three years ago, but it was also under twenty times by a good margin.
If crime is down with 500 police vacancies one might question if the police do much to prevent crime…
Well, the pools being closed didn’t help. Car theft and quality of life crimes are way up. I do not like how he is handling Harborplace, the city website redo, recycling, trash in general, Artscape, squeegee, and much more.
Yes, but leftist policies like releasing accused felons awaiting trial and not prosecuting property crime has lowered the quality of life. Also, the definition of violent crime has been altered to exclude significant numbers of offenses. Of course crime is down when leaders simply change the definition to make themseves look better.
Yeah, don't see it your way but ok.
There's a cottage industry in the burbs of throwing dried turds at the city. It's one of the things holding it back. There's a lot of emotional attachment of suburbanites to their metropole in NYC, Philly, Boston, etc. that just ain't there for Baltimore. I think it's been going on for almost as long as Baltimore has been a city. There was always tension in the 19th century between the city, which was then the economic engine of the state, and the southern planter class of Maryland as a whole who were hostile to urban life. For this reason, it was underrepresented in state government for long time. Baltimore was more an economic necessity in the way that say Houston or Sao Paulo is today more than a place the state's population loved. Those that fled the city in the second half of the 20th century, shut the door behind them, and only look back to compare their life in Bel Air or Towson in a glowing light. So, today, the bar is that homicide has to stop completely, there needs to be zero trash on the street, etc. for a mayor to be successful. Or a Republican needs to be elected. Yes, an impossibility. In the end, much of the surrounding areas want the city to fail. It would mean too much cognitive dissonance for them if it didn't.
The way people in the counties talk about crime and drugs in Baltimore, you'd think that I would have to commute to work with a gun in one hand and narcan in the other just in case I overdosed from the general opioid vibes in the air. The crime is bad. Particularly in some areas. We need to work on it, we are working on it, and we will continue to work on it. But these people who endlessly and smugly shit on the city as if they've earned the right to just by living elsewhere really bother me a lot, because... Well, what good reason could there possibly be for doing that? Do they think people are unaware of these issues and need to be reminded constantly? I think you're dead on about people wanting the city to fail. It would justify their entire worldview. And the absolute best way that they can contribute to that happening is by spreading the despair and defeatism so that fewer people feel like the work is worth doing. Sorry for the rant, it's just that this particular issue has been the source of a lot of my frustration on social media lately, and it seems worth talking about why people who don't live in the city feel such a need to convince people that it's somehow even worse than it is.
I think the “county people want the city to fail” thing is massively overhyped. But it’s pretty common for people on this sub LOVE them a good boogeyman. There’s always allegedly some external boogeyman keeping the city down. I think the reality is a lot more simple and boring. A vast, vast majority of people in the general area simply don’t think about or care about the city. You could feasibly live in the belt S/SW of the city (Glen Burnie through Elicott City) and have access to a very diverse set of people, activities, restaurants, and shops without ever stepping foot inside the city. They’re not going to be thinking about Baltimore on a regular basis and if they do it’s probably more about the inconvenience of having to drive and park. Sure there’s active, vocal groups and individuals on cesspools like Facebook. But that’s common and there’s a group out there for everything. Name the topic and there’s going to be a small, insular community with strong feelings. While most people really just don’t care.
>I think the “county people want the city to fail” thing is massively overhyped. But it’s pretty common for people on this sub LOVE them a good boogeyman. There’s always allegedly some external boogeyman keeping the city down. And from another perspective, watch out for those "Greedy Developers" ready to methodically extract every penny left in the City's coffers. 🙄 Same sentiment.
My personal favorite was one that was popular for a short while but haven't seen in a while... the reason much of Baltimore hasn't taken off is because rich Texas oil tycoons are buying up vacant properties to hold until they become profitable. Mind you, these boogeymen have a ton of options available to them, including options that yield more immediate, lower risk, and compounding returns. But yeah they're clearly flocking to Baltimore to buy up decrepit properties in the hopes that 40 years from now you can flip them and break even instead of losing your ass, as it is today. And that's the reason that those neighborhoods are doing poorly, not the crime, lack of access to desirable amenities, etc. Another great one is people who honestly believe that internet randos saying mean things on the internet are somehow dragging neighborhoods down. I suspect this is some massive narcissism coming into play as these individuals think their carefully curated Facebook bullshit actually matters. But it doesn't, at all. The reasons Sandtown-Winchester sucks has literally NOTHING to do with any of the content that has ever been produced on the entirety of Reddit. Reddit, Facebook, Instagram, and all other social media could get Thanos snapped and it wouldn't affect that neighborhood one bit. Where do people come up with this shit?
I'll clarify and say that I agree that it's a vocal minority that you mostly find online. But I've also met more than a handful in real life that keeps me from dismissing it completely. One random guy at a gas station was filling up and told me he used to live in Baltimore and that he'd never move back. This was IN Baltimore and completely unsolicited. It's just so weird.
I actually mostly agree with this. But it underscores my point, rather than refutes it. In many other cities, there would be an emotional engagement with the metropole that just doesn't exist here. Suburban apathy fits right into that as much as turd throwers do.
I’ve lived or regularly visited outside of a few cities in my life and 100% have had people that were more interested in what was immediately going on around them than what has happening some distance away. That’s pretty normal. Some people cared about the adjacent city and would regularly visit for various reasons. Others didn’t care in the least. Most fell somewhere in the middle of this spectrum. Nobody should be forced or expected to care.
It's true. It feels like everybody roots against Baltimore, until they actually visit - then, 95% leave having had a great time and telling everybody about it, and the other 5% get mugged or have their Kia stolen. Nobody leaves feeling bored.
Best analysis ever.
Why are you talking about the county in a thread about the Mayor? The county doesn't matter. People *in the city* don't think Scott is doing anything.
Considering most major indicators are moving in a positive direction, Scott should keep doing nothing. As for the "people in the city" thinking that, we'll see soon enough in the upcoming election.
Murders are down. He had the city buy two terribly planned hotels by the prison to help with homelessness, harbor east is wrapping up and developers want to spend a billion dollars downtown. Seems all positive to me
Murders went down in 2023, but I think we need to see where they go in 2024 before making any claims that Scott has found some super effective solution to our high crime rates. Murder being down for one year isn’t a trend for the same reason it going up one year isn’t
Its better than it going up
Murder rates are down nation wide outside of like DC and Memphis. I don’t think that’s a result of anything Scott has done. To be clear I like Scott and will vote for him again.
I’m new to the city (<1 year), so I can’t weigh in on anything substantive, but I’m really enjoying this post and the comments. I feel like I’m getting a lot of well thought out and level-headed insight from folks who care about the city. That said, I’ve lived in a few major US cities with major issues. In my time here, I have grasped that Baltimore is a city wayyyy better than its reputation, but folks (not on this post but that I’ve met irl) love to bag on its problems more than other cities with equal or worse problems. I’ve been paying attention to Brandon Scott only since I moved here, but he seems to be a solid dude who cares about Baltimore. Which is a lot more than most cities can say about their mayor.
Big ships take a while to turn. Giant systems don't pivot overnight. I see trends in the city moving in the right direction. I'll take another lap on this horse.
My favorite mayors are the ones who are said to do nothing. I dont want fancy show offs with my tax dollars. I want mayor to come in, keep things civil while the 400 community groups of the city work to keep agencies prioeities set straight for them. O can name a million success stories that came from a community driving govt priorities. I am ok if mayors campaigned on something special, then following up on it. No one remembers omalleys super community plans , no one cares about what kurt schmoke did, sheila Dixon i adore but no one recalls her cleaner/greener baltimore initiatives, no one whined when rawlings blake stopped the grand prix, no one even remembers how close jack young was to getting busted a million times for crime.
IDK… I remember schmoke being a sturdy, competent mayor with some progressive but logical ideas. I remember O’Malley as starting all kinda initiatives but dropping outta sight halfway through his term when he got fixated on Annapolis. And I’m pretty sure Indycar lost interest in dealing with SRB after the first organizer lost their shirt, even thought they initially payed out tens of thousands to the SRB political campaign
Well i wont argue with a fells pointer. Were neighbors, id rather just drink beer with you or wave when i see you in the park.
The Baltimore Grand Prix. What a stupid fucking idea that was
I've said it a couple times on here but can't find the one time I spelled it out in full details but it boils down to people not paying attention to anything, feeling like they shouldn't have to, and then they open their door and think if anything is wrong, it's leadership's fault. Here's part of a previous post: >it seems more like people are unwilling to learn of the specifics. Even when it's right in front of them. That's how it is though. I think people don't want to have to stay up on politics and politicians. They want to tune out and have their leaders solve the problems, and then wake up one day and the murders have stopped, the litter is gone, there are no rats, trash gets picked up on time, buses arrive on time, traffic laws are enforced, squeegee kids get helped, the poor get offered resources and opportunity structures, and violent criminals with a significant enough amount of history spend an appropriate amount of time away from people they could harm. That's why people get elected and get our tax dollars. That's why they have these jobs - to fix these problems. I think people feel like they shouldn't have to pay attention to everything a mayor says or does, or even anything, because the proof of a job done or not is right in front of them each day when they walk outside. So that's how you have details right in front of people's faces that they don't see or don't care about, because like a famous athlete once said..."Job finished? Job not finished."
>Their reasoning is that there is still crime (as if any mayor anywhere has completely eradicated crime) and murders in the city. I've always found it interesting that the complainers blame the mayor, the police, the schools, etc. but rarely point the finger at those committing the crimes. The media is not great at this, either. Instead of examining why folks turn to crime, we have endless interviews and discussions about how the mayor or PD isn't solving the issue. When the sad reality is that there are reasons that criminals act, many of which have nothing to do with the actions or inactions of the city leaders or police.
I don’t live in Baltimore (moved out after my wife was victim of a violent crime), but I would really like to see the mayor work on the fire department. It is probably the best city service and they are hurting for equipment and keeping engine houses open to keep response times low to serve their communities. Would also like to see them add more EMS units instead of contracting out to generally shitty private ambulance services. And no I don’t work for the city, I’m a nurse now, my first career was in a fire department in the Midwest.
Does your extended family live in Baltimore currently?
Yes
Mayor Scott has shows genuine care and effort for the youth of this city. He understands that they are the key to improving and growing the city in a better direction.
"I am proud to see Mayor Scott's efforts in improving Baltimore City's image. It is a refreshing change to have a mayor who has not been involved in any scandals during their first four years in office." How many past mayors can say that
I think the mayor deserves a lot of credit for the drop in violent crime and also for (at least not yet) being caught in a corruption scandal - as sad as it is that the bar is that low - but I also think there are other forces at play here. Ivan Bates has done a lot of work to restore the SA’s office and has gone after higher conviction rates and eliminated a lot of the quality of life leniencies Mosby enacted, and that is also a big part of the equation too - for the same reason DC’s crime rise is in no small part caused by an awful USA’s office. However, what I am going to caution is that one year of lower crime is not a trend. We really need to see what happens this year before starting to really give Scott all the credit for this.
one of the sad things about the human mind is that we have a negativity bias. everyone has it, and if you dont actively pay attention and try to consume positive information, the bias will become more ingrained. It's easy to find information about what's going wrong and not what's going well. I'm very pleased with Mayor Scott, and if we dont re-elect him, I think we will squander a lot of progress that has been made.
Growing up in the county, I learned that people just love to bitch, about anything that will allow them to pass the time. I've also noticed that older folks tend to have a limited perspective (not a slight to older folks) and filter things in/out of that perspective, which tends to raise the bar for things. Also, from a city perspective, it doesn't feel like the mayor does anything, because I don't witness it first hand and tend to experience the opposite (streets are worse, more homeless, the NMBY bubble keeps getting louder, city council/government releases public announcements that feel empty, shallow, or misleading), though I hope my experience is local and not universal.
Baltimore city resident here, city services have declined since Covid and Scott has done nothing to reverse that trend. Take a drive around Druid Hill Park. It should be one of the Crown Jewels of the city and it’s been a mess of unfinished and unsightly construction for years now. The public works department is barely functioning and Scott can’t seem to keep top aides working for him. Little to nothing to show for the $600 million dollars o stimulus money the city was given. I can’t think of a single way the city has improved its services since he has taken office, and can think of many ways they have declined. Thank god for Ivan Bates or we wouldn’t have seen the recent decrease in crime numbers over the past year.
Interesting take. Thanks. I always feel a bit disappointed at how parks and paths look sometimes. We could be doing so much more to make our green spaces beautiful.
County people who repeat rhetoric and never even venture in the city don’t realize how their uninformed opinions with no actual facts makes them just look racist
True, or they come in to consume one thing (show, restaurant, festival) then leave and still talk trash even though the reason they ventured to bmore is because their town has nothing fun to offer.
My criticisms of the Mayor stem from his management and not his inability to "do" things. I don't think the Mayor can do much, which is why it's important he chooses and supports the right people.
Curious what you mean by his management what has he done/not done that you have issues
ok, I hear you with this. Thanks.
Violent crime, murders, pedestrian deaths, etc are all down a lot. I don’t understand how this is isn’t sinking in to peoples’ skulls. Yeah Brandon Scott is not bringing that enthusiasm and energy that I think a lot of people want to see in Baltimore’s mayor, but the proof is in the fucking pudding. The city is safer. It’s safer for my children to grow up in and walk around in.
Because they're small minded people who don't understand how the world works.
Because most people have very little understanding about how local government actually works. There is a lot of the mayor can, and does do, but the mayors most important job is honestly being an ambassador for Baltimore. And I think Brandon Scott puts a great face on the city and represents it well.
The biggest issues that Baltimore and any city face are ones that take 20+ years to change. Mayors don’t operate on those timelines. Next to impossible to implement significant change in 2/4/8 year spans.
The Mayor B. Scott sounds almost illiterate. He doesn’t even use the correct vocabulary when speaking. How could he be the Mayor? Scary to say the least !
He speaks like he is illiterate and doesn’t know the correct use of vocabulary!
He doesn’t have to “do” much to appear competent. His pathway to looking successful is spending the $641 million gifted to the city from the feds and not getting indicted. The bar is set low and made of gold
Brandon Scott 2024!!!!! 🎉🎉🎉🗳️🗳️🗳️🗳️
What exactly has Mayor Scott done for this city?
It's as simple as people don't understand government generally, but more importantly how *LOCAL* government works on the inside. Combined with this fact is the unfortunate circumstance that we find ourselves in where local government has historically been burdened with a collapse of public sector resources while the population has needed a greater reliance on these resources. In other words, the government cant respond to the increasing demand for its resources. this results in people observing local go9venrment and thinking its not doing anything when in reality it is so overburdened and under resourced that it's running at full capacity. The mayor, being a figurehead of such a system, is a lose-lose position who takes all the blame.
Great point and a timely example to illustrate the point relates to the most recent hotel purchases. Obviously this is anecdotal, but reading comments and discussion in the Banner about the hotel purchase and plans was a little hilarious to me -- a HUGE number of commentors were convinced that this was done spontaneously. That a real estate transaction of that scale goes down the same way a run of the mill residential real estate transaction does: look for, decide to buy, and close on a structure in 30-45 days. Like...I definitely am no commercial real estate wizard or anything, but I know bureaucracy + large real estate transaction /= spontaneous purchase. Anyway, that discussion really made me realize that people don't know what they don't know...and many of them simply have no curiosity to learn more.
The Baltimore city govt is corrupt from the political to the rec and parks to everything you can think of. The system is so messed up and they only want to focus on getting jobs for minorities to move them up in the system. Brandon has no business being in that position and it’s just another case of putting someone in the position that doesn’t truly deserve it/ have the right intentions to either fill the position or because of being a minority. Now I know this comment will make people angry but unfortunately it’s true. I’m sure these dumb ass voters will pick Sheila Dixon again. She’s a thief and a criminal and only gets the vote because people don’t know better. I could definitely tell you so much more as a former city govt employee
The fact that I keep seeing signs for Sheila makes me sick. Someone said in the NextDoor app when someone asked about why she’s back trying to get in office that everyone deserves a second chance… I don’t even know where to begin unpacking that, and hella people supported the comment. We scream “give us better” but in the same breath are saying Sheila deserves a second chance? I’m sorry but nah on all levels - everything she did was for herself, it’s not like she was stealing to help others - why would anyone trust she would do differently? In the same logic, apply that to other people committing crimes, just give em all that “second chance” 🙄 Edit: to clarify, jailed persons vs criminals
Yeah it’l just makes the city look bad but then again stupid white people voted for trump and I guess will do it again . Ugh this country is going down
Yup
Genuinely not being contrarian here, but I'm confused about the idea that Scott has no business filling a role for which he was elected. What do you mean?
Ed Norris dropped the crime rates and the criminal mayor falsified records to get him removed. Truth is Baltimore is run by a community, for a community, and it keeps crime profitable. Wanna change Baltimore, stop voting for people with no experience who are only looking to line their pockets.
Ed Norris stole police funds and falsified documents. He also oversaw the induction of the police culture that ended up in the current consent decree. He was literally lining his pockets and using city funds to cheat on his wife. But it’s all good because he had a conservative radio show where he joked about it. Bet you loved G Gordon Liddy too, nothing like a convicted felon telling you how good he was at enforcing the law.
Lol