<p>I can't count the number of times I've heard someone talk about Baltimore as a filthy, slum-infested, industrial city where crime activity consistently ranks number one or two in the U.S.</p>
<p>As a natural skeptic, I refused to believe them. </p>
<p>Then the other day I was watching Chris Rock on comedy central, and one of his jokes were along the lines of...</p>
<p>"Yo, Saddam Hussein's regime was so weak that it took our armed forces only 2 weeks to take over his entire F---ing country. TWO FREGGIN' WEEKS! Man, they can't even take over BALTIMORE in that amount of time!"</p>
<p>So I decided to visit JHU. As it turned out, what I saw was something of a compromise between what I've heard about Baltimore all my life on the one hand, and Chris Rock's exaggerated description on the other hand. I am very worried about the next 4 years of my life.</p>
<p>Well... I live in Baltimore, go to an inner city public school, and will probably attend JHU.</p>
<p>And I'm looking forward to it.</p>
<p>There is some bad stuff that goes down, levels of addiction, incarceration and infection with HIV and AIDS are rediculous, but in charles villiage, mount washington, roland park, towson and downtown you'll be mostly fine.</p>
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[quote]
that stigma of the balt-dc area is from the crime wave in the early nineties.......i think baltimore has had a slight renaissance since then???
<p>When I was there over the summer, they had crab statues on just about every street corner, each with its own artistic decorations/style. It was really neat, and for some reason really uplifting. I'm pretty sure it was a city-wide attempt to advocate greater spirit/livelihood in the city, and to promote a sort of "renaissance" in Baltimore.</p>
<p>I could be a bit off on the crabs, but nonetheless, it's obvious that there are growing attempts to make Baltimore a better city. After all, the city's homepage claims it is "The Greatest City in America".</p>
<p>I stay in Baltimore every summer for a convention that's in town, and as far as the reputation goes, well, you need to keep your head on your shoulders. If you're used to big cities, you know that you should be alert on the streets.</p>
<p>JHU is rather unusual because when you're on campus it doesn't really feel like you're in Baltimore. In my opinion, the level of safety on JHU grounds is significantly higher, and when you leave they do advise that you remember to keep safe (especially at night; I heard you can also call campus security if you're in a bad situation like stuck downtown, late at night, alone, with no money for a taxi ride). I would also agree with Jimp that in the past years there have been attempts at improvement, and the crabs in particular were quite amusing :)</p>
<p>I went to visit JHU back in October, and being from Canada, I already have this sort of preconception about safety when visiting the States.
The campus is beautiful, and the hospital area has security every 10 feet, but the surrounding slums are really terrible. Asking for directions (which probably wasn't a good idea) was really scary.
On campus, I probably wouldn't worry, but I wouldn't go out by myself at night either.</p>
<p>nahh i don't think you should be too worried. it is in a city and all so obviously you have to use common sense and never wander at night, explore by yourself, and yadda yadda but the area around the campus isn't too bad compared to other places. i have a couple of friends at hopkins right now and they say they feel pretty safe.</p>
<p>I've lived in Baltimore pretty much all my life, and I can safely say that if you exercise common sense, you should be okay. Baltimore is a large city, so of course, it possesses the dangers of such. However, most of the crime is situated in areas that you probably won't be visiting too often (i.e. West Baltimore). Around the Hopkins campus and the Inner Harbor, it's pretty safe (during the Otakon convention last August, my friends and I walked back to our hotel room around 2 am...and we're still living!).</p>