Letter from Baltimore
A letter from Insurgent Notes #5, January 2012. Anyone taking the south-bound night train into Baltimore glimpses a memorable vista as the train comes into the city, passing blocks of boarded up row houses and desolate streets on the city’s working class east side.
Stretching across the horizon as far as the eye can see is an arc of flashing blue lights, like those on a police car. The lights are portable police cameras mounted on lamp posts throughout the inner city, designed to dissuade drug dealing.
“Blue light Baltimore” is more than a metaphor, however; it’s a lived reality for much of the city and a sign of the depth of social crisis already embedded here before the collapse of the 2008 spun into recession without end.
Author's summary: Baltimore faces social crisis.