Living in and around Baltimore

If living in the city is for you, you may be attracted like so many others to the Waterfront. Revitalized Fells Point is highly desirable and is in the National Register of Historic Places. On the water in the city’s southeast area, it has cobblestone streets, bars, restaurants, music clubs and boutique shopping. You’ll find restored historic homes and row houses. And as Angelenos like to say, it’s also freeway close. Federal Hill is close to the harbor, and is considered family-friendly. A somewhat more gentrified location with many third-generation residents, you’ll find restored red-brick homes, condominiums and row houses.

Close to downtown, Charles Village has a reputation for being a tight neighborhood of eccentrics who like their historic homes and local businesses. The neighborhood is close to Johns Hopkins University and the Baltimore Museum of Art. Urban and hip Mount Vernon is also listed as National Register of Historic Places and is a cultural center.

Patterson Park is called a small town in the heart of the city. The actual park itself covers 115 acres. The neighborhood’s history is blue collar, it has a very social and diverse vibe, and is a tight community. Washington Village in South Baltimore is an affordable location whose name was upgraded in the 1970s from the more colorful Pigtown. But people still insist on calling it by its original name, especially community groups. College students, young marrieds and pensioners like this racially, socially and economically diverse neighborhood. It’s also near downtown, I-95 and public transit.

If a suburban lifestyle calls your name, you have options that also give you good access to the city when you want it. Inside the Beltway and north of the city is Towson. Originally a farming community, Towson is desirable for its proximity to Baltimore and its good public schools. Towson is also home to Baltimore County’s largest indoor mall. Rodgers Forge is a quaint community of rowhouses, apartments and single-family homes founded in 1923. It also has good public schools and is near the Beltway, and is noted for being the home of Olympic swimming champ Michael Phelps. Suburban Pikesville is home to one Baltimore’s larger Jewish communities as well as the Maryland State Police, once placed #5 in the COMBOS America’s Manliest Cities rankings, and is where Robin Quivers of the Howard Stern Show was born and raised.