As the sun sets in Little Italy each day, Roy Eppard emerges from a century-old rowhouse on Albemarle Street and takes off running.
He waves to neighbors perched on stoops, breathes in fragrances from Italian restaurants and heads along President Street by the water. Jogging at a steady clip, he sidesteps tourists at the Inner Harbor, mingles with runners at Rash Field and gawks at the city skyline and dozens of yachts. Then it's on to Fort McHenry via Key Highway.
The commercial property manager and his wife, Catherine, could have chosen a big suburban house over the two-bedroom Formstone they started fixing up two years ago. Parking is tight, property taxes are highest in the state and neighbors live or run businesses just a shout away. But during his daily runs, the Washington transplant drinks in the sights and sounds at his doorstep and feels convinced he's home.
"I love it. It's really ethnic," says Mr. Eppard. "I'm a very social person, and the 'burbs don't do it for me. I don't like the open space. Here, everyone looks out for each other. Everyone knows each other."
Residents have been fleeing the city for decades, many seeking more space, better schools and less-expensive services in the suburbs. Three months ago, spurred by fears of crime and feelings that Baltimore's renaissance had stalled, a group of activists formed Citizens United for the Revitalization of Baltimore to solve neighborhood problems and improve city life.
"In the '60s and '70s and '80s, there was a real excitement about living in Baltimore," says Townes Coates, of Charles Village, the group's president. "Now, it's a matter of renewing that spirit. People are in charge of their own neighborhoods and can no longer expect government to do everything for them."
City officials are trying to lure middle-income residents back to the city by giving tax breaks to homesteaders and buyers of new and renovated homes, helping with closing costs, reducing taxes due at settlement and supporting home building in Pigtown, Coldspring and Mount Washington, among other sites.
But officials would have an easy sell to the countless people like Mr. Eppard. Whether newcomers or Baltimore-born, many in the city share a fierce loyalty. For them, there is no place else to live.
They say the city gets a bad rap. They claim other places can't compare in terms of neighborhoods and safety. They shudder at thoughts of suburbia, homogeneous shopping malls, cookie-cutter houses and beltway commutes. In their view, the city is a colorful place of tight-knit, tradition-bound neighborhoods, diverse cultures and architecture -- with shopping and jobs near public transportation or a short walk away.
At the same time, many residents complain loudly about public schools, worsening crime and high property taxes -- despite Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke's promise to cut the rate by a nickel.
Here's what some city people had to say about where they live, and why.
Check the alleys
The alleys in Belair-Edison impressed Kelley Ray. While house-hunting, she was struck by the tidiness of the brick, Northeast Baltimore rowhouses.
"Even the alleys," says the 32-year-old Johns Hopkins Hospital employee. "That tells you something about the people who live there."
Ms. Ray says her first home cost $30,000 to $40,000 less than she would have spent on a comparable townhouse in Baltimore County, where she'd grown up. Even with higher taxes, she says she has reasonable monthly payments, less than some friends pay in rent for suburban apartments. She lives near a park and just a few miles from work.
"It's a perfect neighborhood for first-time homebuyers who want to be close to downtown," she says. "The city gets a terrible rap, but we do well compared to other highly urban areas. There is a perception of extremely high crime, gangs and trash.
"The reality is there are some areas that have problems and there is middle-class flight, but a neighborhood like mine is trying retain those people."
A view of the harbor
David Naumann's rowhouse in Canton has been burglarized twice, first when he was renovating what had been a vacant, dilapidated shell nearly three years ago. After he rebuilt it and moved in, burglars broke in and left with a load of appliances.
"If crime were a little more under control, a lot more people would be staying in the city," says Mr. Naumann, 35, a Baltimore native and owner of the Bay Cafe in Canton. "It seems half the people stay until they're married with kids."
In spite of the burglaries and his complaints of the cost of taxes and auto insurance, Mr. Naumann has no plans to move. His neighbors seem like family. From his third-floor bedroom, he's got a view of the harbor from Fort McHenry to Camden Yards.
"I still think there's a lot of hope for this area and many other great areas of the city," he says. "I just wish that the mayor and a few other people would get on the ball as far as straightening out some of the crime."
'Feeling of community'
When their family outgrew a Charles Village rowhouse, Peter Griffith and Esther Fleischman looked for a house with more bedrooms and a big yard near good public schools. They headed for Columbia to find all that. But something was missing.
"The suburbs are full of houses that look the same in one spot and the same in another spot and have no interconnection," says Griffith, 37, manager of a company that operates satellites.
"I'm from a small town and like the feeling of a community you get in the city."
He and his wife, an assistant professor, fell in love with the old homes in Mount Washington and got a deal on a six-bedroom, shingled Victorian in need of remodeling.
"We looked in Howard County, and you can find old houses, but you can't find a community of them," he said. "And it's not even thinkable to be able to buy one as well-built with the attention to architectural detail without paying a whole lot."
'City person at heart' June Biller remembers another Baltimore.
Thirty-five years ago, she and her husband bought their two-story shingled cottage in Parkville with a deck and big yard. They paid $8,500.
"Baltimore City was a nice place to live," says Mrs. Biller, 59, a retired federal worker. "You walked the streets with no fear of crime. You could go to the park. It was a whole different world. I'm a city person at heart. But it's the crime that's so frightening."
She and her 62-year-old husband, a retired middle school principal, love their home and a neighborhood where they walk ** to the stores. They doubt the sale of their house would afford them a comparable home elsewhere and plan to stay "as long as the neighborhood is safe."
"I have visions of things getting worse," Mrs. Biller says. "I feel that the family structure has broken down, and we're not breeding a generation of people that are peaceable."
Look, Mom. No car!
People look at Sue Glickenstein in amazement when she says she doesn't own a car.
"They think you can't do anything. They say, 'What do you do for clothes and food?' " says the 38-year-old Mount Vernon resident, who has walked to her bank job downtown, shops and the Enoch Pratt Free Library, where she volunteers.
"For the occasional need for a mall, I get on a bus and go. It is virtually impossible to do what I'm doing in D.C."
She moved from Washington six years ago to an apartment in a converted rowhouse, cutting her rent by $100 a month.
"I like the racial and ethnic diversity," she says.
She has spent many a sunny day reading on a park bench surrounded by Gothic Revival and Italian Renaissance-style buildings. She feels it's the heart of the city, down the street from the Walters Art Gallery, up the street from Center Stage and close to Penn Station, Camden Yards and the Inner Harbor.
Taxes not that bad
When they retired, Pat and Dick Elliott moved back to the city.
In 1966, they reluctantly left their home in Ednor Gardens. They were unhappy with local schools and felt strongly about giving their four children public educations.
They settled in a Colonial-style house in Riderwood in Baltimore County but kept driving to the city to visit family and go to church, museums and symphonies. While happy with her house and neighbors, "I didn't feel that I belonged there," Mrs. Elliott says. "I felt isolated. Two years into the suburbs, I knew I couldn't wait to get back. I like to look out on the street and see people who don't look exactly like me."
Two years ago, they bought a rowhouse near the Senator Theater, similar to one they used to own, close to stores, libraries and their church.
"My husband was concerned about taxes, especially since we're older and on a fixed income," Mrs. Elliott said. But with a smaller home, the tax bill stayed about the same. And they felt no less safe in the city than in the county, where their home had been burglarized.
"We've always came into the city," she says. "People's perspectives are off because they read all these things and never come in."
A Tudor in Ten Hills
In 1970, David and Susan Hutton planned to go house-hunting in Baltimore County, "because that's what people did," recalls Mrs. Hutton, 48, an adult education teacher.
Then a real estate agent directed them to Hunting Ridge in West Baltimore. They got more house for their money in the city then, and five years later when they needed a bigger house. They moved to a brick Tudor-style, single-family home in Ten Hills -- also in West Baltimore -- an established neighborhood of big trees and houses built in the 1920s and 1930s.
At first, the Huttons thought of spending their savings on private schools. They decided to try public schools first. Their children, now ages 18 and 22, qualified for gifted and talented programs and stayed in public schools through graduation.
"The city system had what was right for them," says Mrs. Hutton, though she often felt she had to explain her choice. "When you explain to people from Towson and Cockeysville where you live, you almost feel defensive."
They've watched neighbors fearful of crime move out. But Mrs. Hutton says her family has no reason to leave. "It's a wonderful blend of eclectic people of different ages and different occupations with a real sense of community. It's successfully integrated. Everybody knows everybody."
Worried about schools
City firefighter Tom Nosek, 37, and his wife, Barbara, a nurse at St. Joseph Hospital, had hoped to stay in the brick duplex they bought six years ago in Hilltop, a neighborhood they love for its convenience and proximity to their family.
But the family eventually will look elsewhere to live, possibly Baltimore or Harford county. Mr. Nosek says they'll be forced to leave for better schools for their daughters, ages 6 and 2, and lower property taxes that will allow them to buy a bigger house. He hears much the same from neighbors.
"Baltimore City has a good chance of losing more people if they don't do something about the school systems and bringing more people back in and creating more jobs," he says.
'I knew the people'
Dale Cate's Greektown neighborhood has been just about the )) only home she has known in her 28 years. Her family moved out for a few years to care for her grandfather, and her time in a detached home in a suburban setting convinced her to stay true to her city roots.
"Everybody seems to go to sleep at 8 p.m.," she says. "Nobody's sitting out talking."
She'd been renting when her parents' neighbor moved to a nursing home. She bought the house, where she lives with her 19-month-old daughter and a roommate.
"It's not too pricey, but decent for the city and convenient," says Ms. Cate, a power plant operator for Baltimore Gas and Electric Co. "Everything you'd want is right there, and you can walk a lot of places. You have a garden, but it's not so much that you're overwhelmed by it.
"I knew the neighborhood and knew the people," she says. "It's nice to be able to walk up the street and say 'hi' to people and chat."
Taxes the big problem
For Ron Ross, 36, a sales manager for a metals company, crime isn't more of a problem in Baltimore than anywhere else. The problem, he says, is the tax rate.
"I hear so much about crime, but I don't really see it," says Mr. Ross, who grew up in Canton and bought a brick rowhouse in Eastwood in 1983.
"If you drive to Eastwood and look at the same houses in Baltimore County, some houses were built by the same builder, yet we pay double the taxes," says Mr. Ross, who says he has lost confidence in the public schools and sends an 8-year-old daughter to private school.
"The city needs to become more aware of the fact it's competing against the surrounding counties," he says. "If they don't, there will be more of an exodus. The city has to start to consider itself as a corporation. The surrounding counties are taking businesses and people and taxpayers away."