Baltimore - A Dirty City?

My hometown's trend of making the lists for all the wrong reasons continues as Baltimore was recently ranked as the third dirtiest city in America. This dubious honor comes via a recent survey conducted by Travel & Leisure magazine. And it comes after Baltimore was recently rated the second ugliest city and the third worst dressed in the country. Not surprising, Baltimore also cracked the top 100 most angry cities. This shouldn't really come as a surprise. If you're dirty, ugly and don't know how to dress, I would think that you would have a reason to be be pissed off most of the time.

So, is it fair to say that Charm City is a filthy city and out-ranked by only two others (New York and New Orleans)? Let's take a look.....

First off, from what I've read, part of the reason that Baltimore ranks so high on the dirty list is due to a serious rat problem, especially in the inner city. I guess there's some truth there. I've seen plenty of rats in downtown Baltimore, and I'm not just talking about the politicians. I was at the Inner Harbor eating lunch one day, when a large rat waddled near the outside table where I was sitting. He seemed to have no fear of humans as he just sat there and stared me down. I actually got up and moved to another table because the rat was making me feel guilty for eating in front of him.

Another time, I was driving along Key Highway when I saw a humongous rat in the road ahead. I'm not kidding you, I actually thought that it was someone dressed up as the Chuck E. Cheese mascot! If I hit this thing, it would have probably totaled my car. So, I flashed my high beams a few times and blew my horn in an attempt to scare it out of my path. Although, I don't really think that the rat was intimidated by any of this, he did scurry off to the side of the road and I was able to pass without incident.

I'm assuming the reason for so many of the city rats can be blamed, at least partially, on the amount of trash on the streets. On numerous occasions, I have been sitting at a red light and watched the driver in front of me roll down the window and toss a bag of trash right onto the street. In most cases, it's usually a fast food bag. But I've also seen people empty out their butt-filled ashtrays onto the street as well as half eaten food, beer cans and in one extra special episode, a baby's used diaper. I never understood why people do stuff like this.  There are trash cans everywhere. Is it really asking too much to hold your garbage until the nest time you pass one? People just don't seem to have any community pride in much of the inner city....

Back in the 1970's, city officials introduced a clean-up campaign known as Trash Ball. Community trash cans were painted white and topped off with an orange rim in attempt to make them look like a large basketball net. Attached to each can was a metal sign that said things like Slam It, Dunk It, Hook it, etc. This was supposed to encourage residents to "shoot" their trash into the can instead of tossing in onto the street. Well, I guess Mayor Schaefer and company had good intentions, but they put a little too much faith the the basketball skills of Baltimoreans. People would attempt to shoot their trash into the can, but more times than not, they missed. And as a result, it was common to see a large collection of "missed shots" lying on the sidewalk next to the can. So, in effect, it turned decent people into unsuspecting litterbugs.

And what is it with people in the city throwing trash into the sewers and storm drains? No wonder there's flooding every time we have a thunderstorm. The sewers are all clogged up with garbage!

And then there's the graffiti problem. You'll see incoherent words and symbols spray painted over bridges, buildings and bus stops. I remember one downtown building where the property owners would whitewash all of the graffiti one day only to have new graffiti appear the next day. Most of these spray-painters like to call themselves grafitti "artists", but I never saw them for anything except vandals. I remember the scene in the movie "Colors" where the two cops (played by Sean Penn and Robert Duvall) catch a graffiti "artist" in action. They take away his can of paint and spray it in his face. Of course, if Baltimore City cops did that, someone would videotape it and post it on You Tube. This, of course, would ultimately end up with the cop losing his job and the graffiti "artist" getting an undisclosed settlement from the city.

Now, I don't know if Baltimore is the third dirtiest city in the entire country. But, I do think that there's plenty of room for improvement. Come on people, pick up your damn trash!

kw