Washington Post travel writer holds nose, visits Baltimore

“This author is the epitome of why I hate DC – the people. They are snobby wanna-be socialites with no character. Their only contribution is making folks from Columbia (MD) seem tolerable by comparison.”
– glsever

“I moved here over two years ago from DC and quit commuting to work in DC six months ago. Houses are cheaper in Baltimore, but that’s it. My taxes are higher (Balt. has state and city tax), energy cost is twice as high (BGE rips people off), internet, tv, transportation, healthcare, food and everything else cost about the same as DC. It ain’t cheaper and services are not better.”
– Michelle Yvette Jackson

“Marc Fisher can shut his pie hole, get his panini to go and keep driving. . .”
– Sheila Ebelein

“I would say that DC has given Americans maybe 2 or 3 things of note – ‘straight-edge’ white hardcore punk (although LA probably has a better claim), Go-Go music (nice, but not exactly Detroit Techno or the Kansas City blues), and Color-Field painting (remember that boring crap from the 70s by Kenneth Noland, etc.?)”
– RickFromBmore

“I’ve been just about everywhere and there ain’t NO place like my home town Baltimore. Luv it or leave it!!!”
– trueheart4life

“Both cities have their charm. Washington is marvelous. I love its gardens, the lovely blooms even at the beginning of winter they wreath the plants and uplift the spirit. . . And Baltimore–I love her too.  She is a city like a small town. Her museums are treasures and they are free on certain days. She hides quirky characters. She hosts a marvelous film festival. . . But Baltimore and DC have their crime and grime problems. Not easy to live in either city. And that detracts from their appeal. But what city is perfect? I can take a city’s blotches with its beauty spots.”
– ushanellore

“I will still visit DC on occasion even though the parking sucks. Love that Metro, but I wouldn’t want to live there. Baltimore isn’t superior, it’s just more audacious.”
– Gordon Steen

“F him & the Post. Is that Baltimore enough for him?”
– Sergio Vitale, via Facebook
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Bye bye, “vinegar tank”!

“Love the bye-bye bunny in the photo.”
– Teresa

“Not coincidentally, there’s also a development plan for the area. There darn well should be – this is one of the best and most strategically located sites in all of Baltimore.”
– Gerald Neily

“I hope the city got their pound of flesh from them – both for the labor involved in closing the roads, security, for causing all the disruption and for the delightful new coat of lead paint dust. I wonder how far the dust travels.”
– bmorepanic

“Obviously, such demolitions are dangerous and should be banned before anyone is killed.”
– Chris
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Mayor calls municipal workforce “unhealthy”

“Baltimore mayor SRB sings the blues and turns on her own workforce. Pays $.6M to get talking points.”
-Peter Sabonis, via Twitter

“Working for the city will make anyone sick.”
– Leonard Manz, via Facebook

“The reason no one attended [mayor’s presentation] is because we have heard it all before. This city hasn’t grown since the 1950’s as a result of poor policies from City Hall that have pushed the middle class out of Baltimore. With Mayor Blake all we are getting is more of the same tired old policy that more taxes and fee’s are the answer. EVERY independent study of how to grow Baltimore City begins with the same thought – ‘cutting city property taxes and fee’s that are double that of surrounding counties is step one.’ So far the only thing that has grown since her politically driven ‘doomsday study’ is her own bureaucracy.”
– William Hudson

“It is a good plan and I support it. Not all of it, but a great majority of it. It shifts city revenues away from being an employer towards building and maintaining infrastructure the city needs to grow.”
– BmoreFree

“I think the point of the Mayors plan/message is getting lost in the sound bite that the article is sensationalizing. Generally business productivity and in turn profitability is affected by workers’ health. The City savings would be ultimately passed on to the citizens via lower taxes or redistributed to make other substantive changes. It is just common sense to provide incentives for employees to improve health, for making changes across the spectrum to improve the City as the place to live, work and play.”
– dollarsandsense1

“I wonder how many of the health problems of half the city employees are MENTAL health problems?. . . Or is it environmental factors? The city tries to recruit city residents, and studies already show that living in much of the city is hazardous to one’s health.”
– Gerald Neily

“Living in the city is not hazardous to your health – Poverty is hazardous to your health. The study you are referencing (incorrectly) did a comparison of life expectancy and neighborhoods and found that many low-income city neighborhood had lower life expectancy than the national average, but the more affluent ones such as Roland Park and Little Italy were actually substantially higher.”
– Joe Six-Pac
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Book on Hopkins redevelopment by a leader of the opposition

“That is an insane price for a book that deserves wide readership in Baltimore. Who thought that was a good idea???”
– Chris Merriam

“So I’ve always wondered, was the $200K per house paid to the owner of the property, or the tenant? If I recall that area had abysmal home-ownership rates, something just shy of 10%, so if the owners were the ones getting paid then this group mainly acted as a lobbying arm for the slumlords who ruined that section of town via decades of disinvestment. Way to stand up for the little guy. . .”
– Joe Six-Pac

“The $250,000 each was for homeowners (the price of selling an East Baltimore home, paying for moving costs and to purchase a new home elsewhere.) Low income tenants received federal Sec. 8 vouchers for new rental homes. The city spent about $8 million for 151 rental vouchers. As for the price the city paid for of each home (whether from a landlord or a homeowner), I randomly selected 50 rowhouses in EBDI’s second phase and found the city paid $2.5 million, an average of $50,000 a house.”
– Joan Jacobson

“RE the title [of my book], the point is that this is exactly what we call ‘rebuilding in America’ and it challenges the reader to decide if that is okay. . . The book attempts to teach the truth for a change about what urban planning and community development is really about. . . Come to a symposium on March 9 at Sojourner-Douglass to participate in developing and implementing more equitable ways to rebuild our communities.”
-mbgomez
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USW locks out rank and file, media

“Fern, please let me appolgize for the treatment that you received at the sub-district office. As you can see our International Union does not believe in freedom of speech!!!”
– LV5491

“Steelworkers need to assemble at Local 9477 for a peaceful rally to discuss our issue’s and perhaps start a fund to retain a attorney who would be willing to get to the bottom of all these ‘closed door’ meetings.”
– Doyoutrustrg

“By not placing the recent events at Sparrows Point in the context of what happens legally to treasuries and real estate holdings when local unions lose their membership, you are feeding the most negative, self-serving section of the USW membership.”
– reasonabill

“The international is not at fault? Are you flipping kidding me? If they cared about local 9477 they would have not threw our BLA out the window when the company went bankrupt….They would have at least got us some sort of severance pay….We wouldnt have lost vacation time….The international got paid off and did what was best for them….point blank.”
– Byrns

“2Cents you are right that the steel market is flooded with cheaply priced steel and too few customers. This is a fact brought up on the Brew and trade journals over and over again during past years. We must give credit to 9477 for keeping Sparrows Point limping along for as long as they did. . . I could give a rat’s ass about those out-dated 1950 era buildings on Dundalk Ave. Those building are just as big a white elephant as the mill became.”
– IronworkerSP

“The [hearing] lockout is just another reality check, but this is no time for the local to shut down. Why? The economic development departments and the new owners of SP are working at this very minute to bring heavy industry back to SP. I cannot think of one reason why the steelworkers union cannot be involved in representing the workers needed to build and operate these new industries.”
– OxygenMaskedMan
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Advocates: retail giants can handle hike increasing $7.25/hour minimum wage

“Fern Shen wrote: ‘A 31-year-old Walmart employee from Laurel, Michael Mensah, told the crowd he makes $10 an hour,  can’t afford a car and lives at home with his mother.’ So, how exactly does raising the minimum wage to $10 improve this guy’s situation? Won’t everything he needs to buy cost more as a result of these higher wages? Tried to find an answer by hitting the link to the EPI report, but that proved to be an airy nothing-burgers filled with assertions and charts but not much in the way of data.”
– James Hunt