City infrastructure is very old, and much of it needs to be replaced. Because the city has an insufficient tax base, it can’t afford most of this work and needs to keep applying bandaid fixes because it can’t afford to deal with the root cause. It’s an unhelpful comparison to equate Baltimore city and county because of the many other differences, such as higher population density, lower median income, greater difficulty in establishing work areas due to traffic volumes, extent of paved/built area, occupational hazards like lead and asbestos being far more common in the city, etc. Sure, mismanagement plays a role, but it’s unhelpful to attribute everything to that.

Water treatment on the front and back end is expensive. Volume does matter, even if there’s a not a shortage of fresh water. Baltimore is in a good place wrt water quality, but that doesn’t happen or continue without sustained effort. It’s taken a concerted effort to improve Chesapeake watershed quality. You can look at cities like Seattle where inadequate infrastructure has caused some big ecological disasters over the past decade. The answer imo is to have a great governor (looking at you, Wes Moore) who can help improve things so less of the budget for public works falls on working class taxpayers rather than wealthy businesses. The city government alone can’t fix things.

Lol you basically just described everything I experienced with this area growing up in the 90s. I lived in Parkville but went to school in Towson with mostly Lutherville/Timonium people. It’s amazing how many of them grew up and never left and now have the same lack of imagination as their parents. It’s kind of the grand tradition of Baltimore county going way back to the white flight of the 60s.

Indeed. Not to mention doing the work yourself vs paying others, whether you can be patient and try to get deals on materials vs going with the fast options.

The issue is that Germany is restarting existing coal plants to move from Russian gas.

Discussion from NPR (I’m American, surely there are better sources in German media).

The plan is that they will operate through the winter and profits will be used to build more renewable generation. As an energy person, I am HIGHLY skeptical. Even with more renewables, the situation will likely be similar next winter and thereafter. They’re doing the best they can in a situation that was totally avoidable. I would say the same about my country, though the circumstances are different.

Just a frustrated nuclear engineer venting. Germany invented some of the best nuclear fuel in the 1970s. Had they not been steered away from that solution, they’d be in a very good place right now. Most likely a shining example for the rest of us with a resilient combination of renewables and nuclear.

And all they had to do was brutalize working class people and tear up farmland to mine coal.

This is a very helpful perspective imo. Thank you for taking the time to write it out for us.

In the right (or wrong) parts of town I guess that’s true. 🤷‍♀️😅

I don’t like their coffee generally and I’m too poor to buy it on the regular, but I’d still love to pay this place a visit anyway just to support the Union. Workers are people just like you and me.

I remember when the Bison attacked in Baltimore.

Not Baltimore, but I saw a fox running in the parking lot at my job in urban MoCo and thought that was pretty weird.

It did not attack [me] however.

I think a 4th bridge deck is what they really need. /s

😅🥴

MDOT is a state agency.