Downtown Rebound: Baltimore attracts more tourists than other cities after COVID-19

sopas ej · #1 Posted **Mar 8, 2023, 9:03 PM**

From CBS Baltimore:

Downtown Rebound: Baltimore attracts more tourists than other cities after COVID-19

BY PAUL GESSLER
MARCH 7, 2023 / 11:24 PM / CBS BALTIMORE

BALTIMORE – Research pulled from cell phone data shows Baltimore is faring better than many other cities in attracting people downtown.

"I'm just thinking that Baltimore is on the rise," New Jersey visitor Rosetta Shaw said.

CBS' Innovation Lab studied the cell phone data from dozens of cities. Researchers from UC Berkeley and the University of Toronto analyzed changes in cell phone use before and throughout the pandemic, dating back to 2019. (Data: Recovery Rankings (downtownrecovery.com))

It showed Baltimore at 95% pre-pandemic activity during the Fall of 2022, which is between September and November.

"We know that once people come to Baltimore—and there's research to prove it—they fall in love with it. And, so part of it is getting them here," Downtown Partnership President Shelonda Stokes said. "If you look at our eds, our meds, and our feds, that's where we're strong."

Stokes points to a diversified job market downtown, with a variety of hospitals, schools, and government jobs, many of which rely on in-person work. She says events bring back people who may not live or work downtown.

"When they're here, we want to give them an experience, to come out and go to the restaurant and the ecosystem—take in a show and all of those things to help feed the economy," Stokes said.

Visitors in town last month for the CIAA basketball tournament told WJZ their first impression with Baltimore was not favorable, citing the city's vacant housing crisis.

"There's so many abandoned houses," Shaw said. "So, when you come downtown around the university and everything, it might be a ray of hope."

Stokes said Baltimore's narrative of crime and blight is tough to counter, but its downtown assets are unrivaled.

"There is no thriving city in America with a failing downtown," Stokes said, paraphrasing Gov. Wes Moore. "We know Baltimore City is the economic engine for the state of Maryland."

Downtown Partnership officials say public safety will be critical in attracting and bringing people back to Baltimore.

"There's no story where we'll talk about now at Downtown Partnership that security is not going to be part of our narrative," Stokes said.

Link: https://www.cbsnews.com/baltimore/ne...-other-cities/

• Video Link

citywatch · #2 Posted **Mar 8, 2023, 9:12 PM**

I lump together Baltimore with Washington DC, so hope springs eternal. Even a city like Detroit over the past 10 yrs has had some good trends, so never say never. Probably no major city's center in the US or world was as desolate as downtown LA was over 20 yrs ago, so that's another good test case of how far a place can fall down & then slowly recover.

sopas ej · #3 Posted **Mar 8, 2023, 9:36 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by citywatch

I lump together Baltimore with Washington DC, so hope springs eternal. Even a city like Detroit over the past 10 yrs has had some good trends, so never say never. Probably no major city's center in the US or world was as desolate as downtown LA was over 20 yrs ago, so that's another good test case of how far a place can fall down & then slowly recover.

I've never been to Baltimore, and yeah, decades ago I did a road trip through the northeast, and we decided to skip Baltimore, because DC was just down the freeway. I wish we hadn't skipped it. It would've been cool just to see what was there.

Regarding downtown LA, I know I keep reiterating this, but in my lifetime (I turn 53 this year), I don't consider it ever having been completely desolate. Broadway was always bustling, just the demographics were different back in the 1970s-1980s. Some of the movie theaters were still even showing movies, albeit with Spanish subtitles or Spanish-language fare. DTLA was the first place I ever had churros, when I was a child. My family and I would sometimes go to the Grand Central Market, to the discount store in the basement. I don't know if Chinatown counts as downtown, but I'd go there with my family occasionally to get rice cakes or a box of those sesame balls, and it was always bustling. In the 1980s, the fashion district was bustling with shoppers getting wholesale/cheap clothing---myself included, when I was a teen, and getting clothes that I know you couldn't get anywhere else. Downtown LA definitely had "dead" zones back in the 1980s, like Union Station, back when it only had a few Amtrak trains running; of course now Union Station is a big rail and bus transit hub. But even back when Union Station was sleepy, right next to it, Olvera Street was always bustling.

20 years ago was 2003, the year the Metro Gold Line opened... and interestingly, it was back when Broadway "began to change" to what it's becoming now, that Broadway seemed somewhat dead---because the leases were up on those Hispanic businesses and many of them started closing/becoming vacant.

But enough of that; this thread is about Baltimore.

citywatch · #4 Posted **Mar 8, 2023, 10:32 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by sopas ej

I don't consider it ever having been completely desolate.

Maybe a better word would have been shabby or rundown. However, many of the bldgs along broadway or Spring St from above the ground level were largely or mostly abandoned. Cities like NYC over 40 yrs ago were quite grim in their own way too.

This thread & the one you did recently about LA are good at getting ppl...at least me....to look more closely at cities in general. Of their culture, economics, history & politics. Also, their weather. If over 40 yrs ago I had to predict the future in 2023, I would have often guessed wrong. I would have been either too optimistic or too pessimistic.

LA21st · #5 Posted **Mar 8, 2023, 11:09 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by sopas ej

I've never been to Baltimore, and yeah, decades ago I did a road trip through the northeast, and we decided to skip Baltimore, because DC was just down the freeway. I wish we hadn't skipped it. It would've been cool just to see what was there.

Regarding downtown LA, I know I keep reiterating this, but in my lifetime (I turn 53 this year), I don't consider it ever having been completely desolate. Broadway was always bustling, just the demographics were different back in the 1970s-1980s. Some of the movie theaters were still even showing movies, albeit with Spanish subtitles or Spanish-language fare. DTLA was the first place I ever had churros, when I was a child. My family and I would sometimes go to the Grand Central Market, to the discount store in the basement. I don't know if Chinatown counts as downtown, but I'd go there with my family occasionally to get rice cakes or a box of those sesame balls, and it was always bustling. In the 1980s, the fashion district was bustling with shoppers getting wholesale/cheap clothing---myself included, when I was a teen, and getting clothes that I know you couldn't get anywhere else. Downtown LA definitely had "dead" zones back in the 1980s, like Union Station, back when it only had a few Amtrak trains running; of course now Union Station is a big rail and bus transit hub. But even back when Union Station was sleepy, right next to it, Olvera Street was always bustling.

20 years ago was 2003, the year the Metro Gold Line opened... and interestingly, it was back when Broadway "began to change" to what it's becoming now, that Broadway seemed somewhat dead---because the leases were up on those Hispanic businesses and many of them started closing/becoming vacant.

But enough of that; this thread is about Baltimore.

this dude is trying to crap on la on every part of this forum now. Its honestly absurd. The other guy brought up LA in the San Diego thread lmao.

Good for Baltimore though.

lio45 · #6 Posted **Mar 9, 2023, 1:21 AM**

Wow. Quite cheap for what you're getting:

https://www.realtor.com/realestatean...7_M98740-97298

Five bathrooms, and one elevator.

Neighborhood looks fantastic architecturally too. No wonder some people would want to leave the priciest cities of the BosWash Corridor and move there instead.

citywatch · #7 Posted **Mar 9, 2023, 1:38 AM**

Anyone who browses through the other thread started by the OP, the one titled 'California Dreaming", & somehow thinks I've got a campaign against LA reminds me of folks in cults....the ones who say you're either with them or you're against them.

LA21st · #8 Posted **Mar 9, 2023, 2:20 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by citywatch

Anyone who browses through the other thread started by the OP, the one titled 'California Dreaming", & somehow thinks I've got a campaign against LA reminds me of folks in cults....the ones who say you're either with them or you're against them.

You mean when you posted videos about miracle mile vacancies in a thread about downtown san Diego?

I don't know another city on here where posters constantly try to say something bad , even in threads that have nothing to do with it.

pj3000 · #9 Posted **Mar 9, 2023, 4:42 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by sopas ej

I've never been to Baltimore, and yeah, decades ago I did a road trip through the northeast, and we decided to skip Baltimore, because DC was just down the freeway. I wish we hadn't skipped it. It would've been cool just to see what was there.

I think Baltimore is a really cool city. Like Philadelphia, but more of a slightly southern feel, even though it's only just down the road. And like DC, but grittier, with a more "local" flavor. Baltimore's central core definitely has a much rougher edge than either. Great architecture, historical sites, and neighborhoods throughout.

I really like how the city is highly connected to the water... much more so than Philly or DC is. Baltimore has kind of a more southern Boston-ish feel in that way to me.

strongbad635 · #10 Posted **Mar 9, 2023, 1:08 PM**

As a Baltimore native, this feels so great. Of all the East Coast metro areas, Baltimore and Philly are the two that are slept on the most. Boston gets (rightfully so) a lot of praise for its urban fabric and history, New York is obviously the big kid on the block, DC has everything that comes with being the US capital, Hampton Roads has a very meh character to it, then there's Charleston and Savannah, which are beloved for very good reasons even though they're some of the smallest urban areas on the coast.

This should also put to rest any of these notions going around over the last 2 years about COVID destroying American's desire to be in cities and especially downtown areas.

citywatch · #11 Posted **Mar 9, 2023, 4:28 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by LA21st

I don't know another city on here where posters constantly try to say something bad , even in threads that have nothing to do with it.

Before understanding....& rating....any city, it helps knowing the full context to place cities in. Baltimore through the yrs, even before Covid, hasn't given me the impression of being exactly the safest, most culturally & politically reassuring town out there. But things do change, & every city goes through up & down trends.

Images like this...in this case, about Portland....probably do affect the mood of a city. At least to an outsider like me, they've affected my impression of it, either wrongly or fairly.

https://youtu.be/12fiToDMZP0

^ btw, versions of that are happening throughout the country. My local supermarket has put one of its sections behind security gates & locks it after a certain hour.

I saw a vid similar to this several months ago...not sure if this is the exact same one.....but it did affect my impression of baltimore...

• Video Link

These scenes don't seem too bad...I'm sure the youtuber's screen shot has been made partly as click bait & to also promote a narrative. The weather plays a part too in giving a more gloomy look to the city. However, Baltimore doesn't look as sad as a Tijuana, with a different, sunnier climate, does.

• Video Link

This is over 150 miles east of baltimore, Atlantic city. Checking it more closely for the 1st time on a map makes me realize (I'm not a whiz at geography

) .it's generally east of baltimore, not north of it. The city along the Atlantic, as opposed to being on a inland bay as baltimore is, also would be affected if its climate were different....or more like a San diego's or the areas of southern europe. But the town in Mexico not too far south of San Diego also proves that weather isn't everything.

• Video Link

TempleGuy1000 · #12 Posted **Mar 9, 2023, 4:42 PM**

Probably the #1 thing Baltimore will always have going for it is it's in Maryland, the wealthiest state in the entire country.

It's job growth over the last several years has been better IN the city which is an important factor too.

I won't lie though, it's somewhat mind-boggling to me B'more's crime rates are double that of Philly/DC/Chicago/etc. Baltimore's image took a devastating blow after the Freddy Gray riot. The 2020 riots "leveled" the playing field a bit in terms of perceptions, but those videos outside of Camden Yards were terrible and stopped a lot of people from visiting years before Covid.

iheartthed · #13 Posted **Mar 9, 2023, 4:58 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by TempleGuy1000

Probably the #1 thing Baltimore will always have going for it is it's in Maryland, the wealthiest state in the entire country.

It's job growth over the last several years has been better IN the city which is an important factor too.

I won't lie though, it's somewhat mind-boggling to me B'more's crime rates are double that of Philly/DC/Chicago/etc. Baltimore's image took a devastating blow after the Freddy Gray riot. The 2020 riots "leveled" the playing field a bit in terms of perceptions, but those videos outside of Camden Yards were terrible and stopped a lot of people from visiting years before Covid.

Baltimore's situation seems more like Detroit's (and maybe a Cleveland or St. Louis), where the problems of poverty get concentrated into the city while the regional prosperity gets concentrated in the suburbs. Maryland's income is also derived mostly from its proximity to Washington, so there's no real urgency to address the decline of Baltimore like there was in NYC and Boston.

galleyfox · #14 Posted **Mar 9, 2023, 5:41 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by iheartthed

Baltimore's situation seems more like Detroit's (and maybe a Cleveland or St. Louis), where the problems of poverty get concentrated into the city while the regional prosperity gets concentrated in the suburbs. Maryland's income is also derived mostly from its proximity to Washington, so there's no real urgency to address the decline of Baltimore like there was in NYC and Boston.

I like Baltimore more than D.C. but I don’t know…
These cell phone studies are very dubious measures.

I would think a lot of tourists would show up somewhere as hard data. Commercial hotel sales, extra sales tax, or something. But current available data doesn’t really show it.

UrbanImpact · #15 Posted **Mar 9, 2023, 6:29 PM**

I first got to explore Baltimore last year when a good friend of mine moved up there. Since then, I've been 3 times. All I can say is that it's a city of two faces....the abandoned sketchy side and the super awesome urban side downtown/fells point, and Hampden areas. The city is super charming, non-pretentious, and architecturally beautiful in the non-abandoned areas.

Crawford · #16 Posted **Mar 9, 2023, 6:30 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by citywatch

I lump together Baltimore with Washington DC, so hope springs eternal. Even a city like Detroit over the past 10 yrs has had some good trends, so never say never. Probably no major city's center in the US or world was as desolate as downtown LA was over 20 yrs ago, so that's another good test case of how far a place can fall down & then slowly recover.

Downtown LA was never desolate. The Broadway corridor was always a very busy shopping strip, and the Flower Street area was a busy corporate corridor since they leveled Bunker Hill in the postwar years.

Broadway was probably busier in the 1980's/1990's than now. The area is nicer now, more gentrified, but almost certainly less busy. Same phenomenon in lots of American city centers, where the old downscale commercial corridor was largely replaced by lofts, fancy restaurants and the like, but foot traffic is much less.

Re. Baltimore, the old downtown core is in pretty bad shape, and the main commercial street is basically vacant. The waterfront areas have been nice and growing for decades, and there are nice, gentrified rowhouse neighborhoods, but most of the city is very gritty, high crime and intimidating looking. Of course the density and urban form is very high quality, so there are very good bones. But a lot of the rowhouse neighborhoods just aren't the type appealing to gentrifiers.

citywatch · #17 Posted **Mar 9, 2023, 7:12 PM**

^ I guess a word like 'sketchy'....using some of europe's classic cities as context....would have been closer to what I meant. Although compared with today, this does give me a sense of tired or desolate.

• Video Link

I get some of the same mood when seeing images of NYC around the same time...

• Video Link

^ vids like those are good in showing that all cities, including baltimore, go through ups & downs. I've read about a city like London over the past 100 yrs, & during some eras...forgetting even WWII...it sounded like portions of it were fairly bleak or grim too.

mhays · #18 Posted **Mar 9, 2023, 7:43 PM**

That sales tax table might be about changing tax rates more than actual sales volume.

The "commercial sales" table is about commercial real estate sales. That tends to be skewed by tiny quarterly sample sizes...a single major sale can cause a spike. Seattle's big reduction was due to Q4 2019 being a huge spike ($7b in CRE sales)...excise taxes were about to go way up.

TempleGuy1000 · #19 Posted **Mar 9, 2023, 7:44 PM**

The real irony of Baltimore is that it "gentrified" a good deal earlier than the other east coast cities besides maybe Boston.

Quote:

With the success of the Inner Harbor in the 1970s and 1980s, Baltimore became a worldwide tourist destination and model of urban planning and development. It influenced more than 100 other cities and won more than 40 national or international awards, including a citation by the American Institute of Architects in 1984 as "one of the supreme achievements of large-scale urban design and development in U.S. history".[9]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inner_Harbor

iheartthed · #20 Posted **Mar 9, 2023, 7:58 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by TempleGuy1000

The real irony of Baltimore is that it "gentrified" a good deal earlier than the other east coast cities besides maybe Boston.

I've pointed this out in other threads, but Baltimore's population decline was fairly average between 1950 and 1980 for the Northeast Corridor. By 1980 Boston was in the worst shape of the Northeast Corridor cities, by far. But unlike the other cities, Baltimore has not been able to stop the population slide.

Decline from peak:
New York 11%
Baltimore 17%
Philadelphia 18%
Washington 21%
Boston 30%