Getting Back into the Groove of Blogging about Baltimore
I took a four-year hiatus from posting anything here on the Baltimore Skyline blog for a lot of reasons. Part of it was pure laziness; I decided to post some things directly to the Facebook page instead, but even then I sort of just stopped doing that in 2017.
A big part of it was that I no longer worked in Baltimore starting in 2013, and I honestly did not get the chance to get out and take photos of what was going on around town. The family grew, work changed, etc., so the hours in the day seemed to be mostly full. Little time to dive into news, development projects, openings and closings. The funny thing is that with a growing family, I actually did get out to a lot of fun kid-friend events - trips to the Zoo, Science Center, Patterson Park, B&O museum, and so on - but I was more invested in who I was there with than anything else. When I wrote less about Baltimore, it became harder and harder to get back into it. After blogging for, at that point, over 7 years I found it challenging to keep up an interest.
Lastly, looking back on it, I was really pissed and jaded about the state of Baltimore. Before writing this, I went back at some of the posts I wrote in 2014 and 2015 and it looked like things were really pumping for our city. Population decline had apparently leveled off (in 2012 it actually went up slightly), development was chugging along especially with Harbor East, Harbor Point, Canton. Westport and Port Covington were the next things on the horizon. Helping to tie a lot of this together was the be the Red Line which was finally heading toward approval and construction. Then 2015 happened. The bad news started to overtake the good, and the Red Line was axed thanks to a new governor who called it a boondoggle, anemic and passionless leadership in the Mayor's office, violence, and so on. It was really hard to get interested when everything seemed to be terrible. It was probably a good time to take a break.
Now it's 2019. In that 4 years a lot of great things have happened. Sure we don't have a new light rail under construction, but we've added buildings to the skyline (remember the name of the blog?), a new complete streets ordinance was put into effect, there are good things happening in neighborhoods removed from the waterfront, and breweries (can we talk about how many breweries there are now?). This is what gets me excited about living in Baltimore. This is why I want to continue to write about it. Sure everything sounds bad on the local news, but honestly I don't waste time with it, there is so much more that needs to be done to share what good is going on in our city.
I called this blog Baltimore Skyline at the beginning because I have always been enthralled by how urban architecture draws the eye up, and in a city there are a lot of tall buildings clustered together to look at. My dad used to tell me as a kid "don't walk with with your head down, or you won't see where you're going" Naturally I took that advice a little too far, because I always find myself straining to look up at all the buildings in any city, but especially ours. There's hope in looking up.
A big part of it was that I no longer worked in Baltimore starting in 2013, and I honestly did not get the chance to get out and take photos of what was going on around town. The family grew, work changed, etc., so the hours in the day seemed to be mostly full. Little time to dive into news, development projects, openings and closings. The funny thing is that with a growing family, I actually did get out to a lot of fun kid-friend events - trips to the Zoo, Science Center, Patterson Park, B&O museum, and so on - but I was more invested in who I was there with than anything else. When I wrote less about Baltimore, it became harder and harder to get back into it. After blogging for, at that point, over 7 years I found it challenging to keep up an interest.
Lastly, looking back on it, I was really pissed and jaded about the state of Baltimore. Before writing this, I went back at some of the posts I wrote in 2014 and 2015 and it looked like things were really pumping for our city. Population decline had apparently leveled off (in 2012 it actually went up slightly), development was chugging along especially with Harbor East, Harbor Point, Canton. Westport and Port Covington were the next things on the horizon. Helping to tie a lot of this together was the be the Red Line which was finally heading toward approval and construction. Then 2015 happened. The bad news started to overtake the good, and the Red Line was axed thanks to a new governor who called it a boondoggle, anemic and passionless leadership in the Mayor's office, violence, and so on. It was really hard to get interested when everything seemed to be terrible. It was probably a good time to take a break.
Now it's 2019. In that 4 years a lot of great things have happened. Sure we don't have a new light rail under construction, but we've added buildings to the skyline (remember the name of the blog?), a new complete streets ordinance was put into effect, there are good things happening in neighborhoods removed from the waterfront, and breweries (can we talk about how many breweries there are now?). This is what gets me excited about living in Baltimore. This is why I want to continue to write about it. Sure everything sounds bad on the local news, but honestly I don't waste time with it, there is so much more that needs to be done to share what good is going on in our city.
I called this blog Baltimore Skyline at the beginning because I have always been enthralled by how urban architecture draws the eye up, and in a city there are a lot of tall buildings clustered together to look at. My dad used to tell me as a kid "don't walk with with your head down, or you won't see where you're going" Naturally I took that advice a little too far, because I always find myself straining to look up at all the buildings in any city, but especially ours. There's hope in looking up.
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