What neighborhood is this, anyway?
Baltimore has more than 225 neighborhoods packed into 81 square miles. Darn hard to remember them all, let alone know with certainty which one an address falls into.
But it's easy once you've discovered Baltimore City iMap. Just plug in the address, hit "locate" and it'll spit out the neighborhood name -- along with the council district, trash pickup days, zoning and other useful information.
I was reminded of this yesterday when a reader asked if a property was actually in Hollins Market (it was), and I couldn't think of why I hadn't passed this tidbit along earlier.
Other places offer neighborhood details, including this city government page and Live Baltimore. And you can see how all the neighborhoods fit together if you check out this map. But sometimes you just want to know if that "stunning FEDERAL HILL home!!" is really in Riverside, or if the apartment you're renting is in Mount Vernon or Midtown Belvedere, and that's where a site like iMap comes in handy.
On that note: Do you know what neighborhood you live in (city or suburb)? Do you name it when people ask where you live, or do you go for something broader ("I'm in Northeast Baltimore") or squishier ("I'm near the airport")?
Do you think your neighborhood is a selling point?
Categories: Neighborhood and neighbors
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Comments
I tell people I live in Del Boca Vista, Phase V Baltimore.
Posted by: Robert of Cross Keys | May 28, 2010 12:56 PM
The neighborhoods in Baltimore are too confusing. I live in the Waltherson neighborhood, member of the neighborhoods of greater Lauraville, which contains the Hamilton Post Office, which is governed by the Lauraville urban renewal plan. I just tell people I'm in Hamilton because that's what my grandmother called it when she grew up here.
Posted by: Rob Walshe | May 28, 2010 1:18 PM
This is pretty neat, but you need to be very careful how you enter numbered streets. On this site "25th" works. "Twenty fifth" "Twenty-fifth" or "25" don't work.
Other city websites do like you to spell it out though. It's a little confusing.
Posted by: The Baltimore Chop | May 28, 2010 2:11 PM
FWIW I transcribed all of Baltimore's neighborhoods into Google Maps once upon a time - google's annoying limit on how many things can be displayed at once makes it break up into pages, but if you view it in Google Earth (my favorite program ever) it's cohesive and super useful!
link
Posted by: Evan | May 28, 2010 2:39 PM
Robert, great Seinfeld reference. :-)
Thanks for the heads up, Baltimore Chop, and Evan -- very cool!
Posted by: Jamie Smith Hopkins | May 28, 2010 2:50 PM
It depends on how familiar the person is with Baltimore, these are terms I've used in the past:
"Downtown"
"Downtown... well... technically it's MIDtown."
"North of the Harbor"
"Mount Vernon" (This is what most residents in the area say anyway.)
"Mount Vernon... well... technically just outside Mount Vernon."
"Midtown"
"Midtown-Belvedere" - "Where's that?" - "Near the Belvedere Hotel." - "Oh... You mean that's not Mount Vernon?" - "Technically? Nope."
Most often, I just default to, "Near Penn Station."
It doesn't help that they now have signs along Preston St. proclaiming anything south as "Historic Mount Vernon" while the map shows the border at Eager St.
Posted by: Mike D | May 28, 2010 3:04 PM
Interesting. My house is in definitely in Guilford, which is how I identify it. It's near Greenmount Ave, but Zillow misclassifies it and so gets all the comps wrong and their "create your own comp" function only lets you choose from "similar" homes in the neighborhood they've misassigned the house to. They've never replied to an email I sent about it. Grrrr.
Posted by: lisa | May 28, 2010 3:13 PM
I technically live in the neighborhood that the City calls Linwood-Baltimore.
But i actually heard a new neighbor refer to it as "North Canton".
The funny thing was that they were actually serious. They claimed that this was what their real-estate agent claimed that it was called
Posted by: Pete from Highlandtown | June 6, 2010 5:52 PM