Keep calm and carry on, Baltimoreans. Yes, our homicide rate is tragic and our city government seems corrupt and incompetent, but these discouraging trends need not be fatal to our future prospects.
If you’d like a reason to be optimistic and clear guidance about what must be done, think back a couple of decades and recall what was going on in our nation’s capital. No, things were not exactly cherry in B-More in the ‘90s, but they were far worse in D.C.
Crime D.C.’s homicide rate peaked at 81 per 100,000 residents in 1991. That was nearly double the rate prevailing in Baltimore at the time – and one-third higher than our stratospheric rate today.
Corruption In 1995, District voters gave Marion Barry – fresh out of federal prison – his fourth term as mayor. Barry’s slogan was “he may not be perfect, but he’s perfect for D.C.” In Baltimore, our mayor won a third term on the slogan “Mayor Schmoke makes us proud.”
