Baltimore Skyline

I came across this opinion piece in the Baltimore Sun today: http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/readersrespond/bs-ed-sailabration-light-rail-20120620,0,3741125.story While he gives praise to the city for putting on a fantastic event for the Sailabration, the same cannot be said for the MTA, especially the Light Rail. I for one did not ride it at all during this past weekend, but I did notice that three-car trains were running most of Saturday. Maybe something more could have been done here?

The US Census Bureau recently released its 2011 population estimates which look at the changes in demographics since the 2010 Census. What is clear is that many big cities in the US are growing, and in a recent AP piece it looks like those cities that are growing are doing so faster than their suburbs for the first time in nearly a century. All of the top 20 cities in the US have seen their population tick up over the last year. When you look at the top 30, twenty-eight of the cities have grown. The two who have not: Detroit and our fair city of Baltimore. So what's going on here? How is it that ever major city surrounding us has grown, but our city continues to shrink in size. You can easily go to the crime rate (which has been on a pretty serious decrease) or the high property taxes (which should start to make a slow move downwards starting this year), but there is somethine else missing. If you look at the AP article, it mentions what other large cities have done to make thei...

There is nothing like watching the Blue Angels streak over the Inner Harbor at low altitude. Along with the tall ships and the throngs of people packing downtown, this has been quite a weekend, and it's not over yet! The Star Spangled Sailabration kicks off Maryland's commemoration of the bicentennial of the War of 1812, which includes the defense of Baltimore, bombardment of Fort McHenry, and the penning of the Star Spangled Banner (expect to see more celebrations as everything culminates in late summer 2014). Ships, both sailing vessels and gray hulls, from 13 nations came into the Inner Harbor on Wednesday morning, to fanfare, cannon salutes, and military helicopters flying overhead. The Pride of Baltimore II , flying a massive 15-star, 15-stripe ensign escorted in the USS Fort McHenry passed by her namesake as thousands of visitors lined the water to watch and cheer. This was one of those, "Hey, I was there", moments to tell the grandkiddies about in the futur...