"No, that will not be in the plan," Gosson, president of Sagesse Inc., said by phone recently. "No, no, no, no, no," she added, for good measure. "But I would say if people from Maryland are thinking about getting out and moving to Pennsylvania, definitely get them to look at York."

York, she said, struggles with the same aren't-the-'burbs-better reputation that Baltimore has. But she insists it's low-crime and the worst part of town is nothing more than "some trash on the street, some boarded-up houses." ("I was like, 'That's it?'" she said.) She said the city is, on a smaller scale, seeing some of the same development and redevelopment activity that Baltimore has enjoyed in recent years.

The typical home sales prices in York: Not quite $70,000 in the first nine months of last year, up 14 percent from a year earlier, according to the Realtors Association of York & Adams Counties. (Sales are up, too.)

So perhaps the question should be: Any plans to recruit people from Baltimore (typical price: $145,000) to York?

"I don't know," Gosson said, laughing. She thought about it, noted that homes cost a lot more in Baltimore than they did five years ago, and added: "You've got people now in Baltimore that are getting priced out of the market."