Post travel story reminds us why we hate DC

I don’t want to mellow your harsh, but at the very least he admits and tries to overcome his biases rather than the typical “Baltimore? Yes, it’s a shithole” that I’m confronted with from many others down the DC way. It doesn’t capture Baltimore but it seems way more out of touch in a genial way rather than a slam on the city.

I don’t hate DC. However, I do have a strong disdain for people from DC like this author who are quick to throw shade on Baltimore without looking in their own backyard and without having a real POV of this city. DC much like Baltimore is multifaceted. We’ve got good, bad and ugly and so does DC but I don’t find that Baltimoreans feel the need to talk shit about DC to prop up their own city.

If people based their perceptions of Washington on D.C. Cab, they’d think way too highly of that undrained swamp.

This whole blog post was a Baltimorean shit-talking D.C.

Typical. My comment got deleted. God forbid anyone having a different opinion. Censorship is awesome, yall.

Ah yes, that fucking policy. Maybe Mr. T can pick me up then.

I live in Baltimore…work in DC…Lived in Baltimore all my life…30 years…love and know both very well..every city has its ups and downs…but I don’t think the badmouthing is necessary…smh

Uh, no. Read it again. It’s a blog post where a Baltimorean shit-talks a guy from DC who shit-talked Baltimore. At no point does this article shit-talk DC itself.

yes.
#Evolve

One of the commenters below said it best: Baltimore folks are really talking about DC transplants, not DC natives. As a DC native, I grew up going to the aquarium, the submarine, Orioles games, etc in Baltimore. It was always a nice day trip. I have nothing against Baltimore, nor do most real DC natives. In fact, I think most of us look to Baltimore as a little brother. As an adult, I enjoy visiting my friends who live there and love the bar scene.

I think Baltimore has much bigger problems than DC though. I’ve driven through entirely abandoned neighborhoods, which simply doesn’t exist in DC. Also, my friends who live in Baltimore have a bigger fear of crime (since there is more of it than DC). That’s unfortunate, and I hope it changes. DC has its issues, too, primarily municipal corruption.

Overall, native DC people have no animosity towards Baltimore. If anything, we can agree many DC transplants and transients are the true stain on our region :)

Way to reciprocate the generalized hatred. Fan the flames of animosity some more asshole.

I think the article’s emphasis on Baltimore’s ‘authenticity’ is silly and is a nod to an imagined artists’ escape or slum tourism destination. It is also telling that Baltimore is a neighborhood city where people live…they celebrate, struggle, grow up, and grow old. Not to say that DC does not have neighborhoods with unique culture, but I can see how Baltimore would seem refreshing in opposition to a place over-run with power thirsty interns and political commuters.

How is it any less douchey to judge every person in dc based on one person than it is to judge a whole city on a limited experience? A douche for a douche makes the world smell like a summer’s eve…

We recently moved to Baltimore after 20 years in Mount Pleasant and Columbia Heights in DC and are glad and grateful. A comparison of cities is way less interesting to us than why the Washington Post continuously runs stories about DC’s superiority to everywhere else on the planet. One of the more recent even turned the attack on Washington State. It’s getting weird and quite tiresome.

maybe the two citypapers should do a week long reporter exchange…you can’t “get” baltimore in a weekend (or a week really) and the Baltimore reporter would gain an understanding of how mentally taxing living in DC is.

This all reminds me of the thrill of packing up and leaving DC for my first job away from “home.”
Oddly enough, I finally made it to New Orleans, the town that writer/producer David Simon calls the sister city of Baltimore. Don’t take no mess, people.

Geez, generalize much? You do realize DC is a city of 600,000+. The interns/politicos maybe make up 2-3000 of that number at most, and a large majority of those people live in NoVa or MoCo, not the District proper?

Seems like there’s a lot of blanket generalization on both sides.

This should have a sub-head: Because most people in DC are actually from somewhere else.

DC may be a city of transplants, but every city has its own culture and attitude that permeates into its residents’ lives. Most of the “DC attitude” is probably more accurately described as “Beltway attitude”, because those who are most egregious are probably those who commute from the suburbs but fancy themselves “DC residents”. Northern Virginia is full of uptight pricks who say they’re from DC to divorce themselves from the rest of Virginia, which is seen as a crappy backwards Southern redneck state, whose only virtue is that it is blessed with Northern Virginia to redeem it. Northern Virginia produces nothing, yet is one of the richest areas of the country. Loudoun County is THE richest county in the country. It’s where K Street parks its Bentleys. I should know. I grew up in Northern Virginia, moved to Baltimore for 10 years, and am staying in Northern Virginia for a stint and hating life. These people are some of the most stuck-up entitled jerks I’ve ever come in contact with. The only redeeming quality is that everyone else has nicer stuff than I do, so nobody’s going to break into my car or smash it in the parking lot. Baltimore is a crap town, but everyone knows it’s crappy and we’re all cool with it. There’s a local pride unmatched anywhere else. You’re also forgetting that Baltimore has a decent number of colleges, thus many transplants as well. Where do you think all those hipsters come from?

Aside from the chip on his shoulder, the Fisher piece is just an example of terrible travel journalism. How ridiculous and facile would Fisher sound if he was writing a piece about say, Ulan Bator, Mongolia, and he said “well, wouldn’t want to live there, but what a place to explore!” Amateurish stuff, at best.

You gotta catch the light rail to BWI, the B30 bus to Greenbelt, and then the Red Line Union Station. Takes 3-5 hours!