Baltimore is a probably the cheapest big city on the East Coast. At one point in American history more immigrants were coming through Baltimore than NYC. I thin

Baltimore is a probably the cheapest big city on the East Coast. At one point in American history more immigrants were coming through Baltimore than NYC. I think Baltimore suffered because of it's proximity to DC - most major cities are more than 40 miles apart. Part of Baltimore's cheapness is that it has one of the highest crime rates per capita. In addition, the dangerous areas are much more interspersed and distributed - at one moment you can be walking down a nice block and the very next block is all boarded up. I've lived in both Baltimore and NYC and definitely never felt unsafe in NYC, whereas there have been multiple times that I had a sudden sense of danger in Baltimore. The Johns Hopkins medical school would routinely post security bulletins about people being mugged a few blocks from campus in the middle of the day. If it wasn't for Johns Hopkins University and the University of Maryland Medical school there wouldn't be much to Baltimore.