In South Africa, citizens learned to do without mismanaged public services or developed workarounds, something Baltimore residents haven’t learned yet.
It only took seven months after my family and I moved to Baltimore in January for us to move out. We’re hardly the only ones leaving — in 2020, Baltimore lost more residents than did any other major U.S. city. At one point, my Brazilian husband remarked, “I thought America was a developed country.”
His observation is particularly telling because, before coming to Baltimore, we spent five years living abroad in two of the most dangerous places in the world – Brazil and South Africa. In many ways, life in those countries was easier than life in Charm City.
The residents of Baltimore pay some of the highest taxes in the country for some of the worst public services. Crime is a constant threat, even though the neighborhood where we lived is usually labeled “gentrifying.” A professional exterminator warned us never to buy second-hand furniture due to the prevalence of bed bugs. Everyone on our block kept a cat – often two or three – to combat the rodents.
After we fled to the suburbs, I was left pondering why life in Brazil and South Africa was easier — particularly South Africa, which has many parallels with America because it reached a fairly high level of development, but ruinous government policies are now driving it backward. Public services in South Africa have been so deeply riddled with corruption and mismanagement for so long, citizens have learned to do without or developed workarounds, something the residents of Baltimore haven’t learned yet.
Ballooning Crime and Ill-Equipped Police
Baltimore and South Africa are both infamous for high crime rates. In South Africa, police are helpless and incompetent. For example, a few years ago, the police cybercrimes unit had to drop hundreds of cases because they forgot to pay for their software licenses. They can also be corrupt; South Africans told me stories about police officers demanding bribes to do routine tasks like writing up a car accident report.
As a result, everyone from the lower middle class and upward pays for private security. In the small city where we lived, a local security firm patrolled the streets like a private police force. Even the police sometimes hire private security to guard their precincts.
Demorats in charge!!
guess you never been to salisbury!
Look at who runs Baltimore. Enuf said!