Hello to everyone in the Steemit community! For my first post I want to actually take attention off of myself and put more attention on the city I'm in. I live in Baltimore City and I've lived here for about fifteen years. In that time, from my early adolescence, to the adult I've become today, I feel I'm seeing a once better city with great people from many backgrounds slowly decaying into what seems an inevitable end. The one thing I've noticed, amongst many, is that the root to a lot of the problems in Baltimore stems from the dilapidation of the city itself.
The last decade has not been kind to Baltimore with record high homicide rates, increase in incarceration, gang violence, illicit drug markets and distribution, illegal prostitution, etc. All this along a highly questionable judicial system and police force. The communities have morphed and decayed exposing opportunities for crime. There are almost seventeen thousand vacant homes in Baltimore City. Even in cities outside of Baltimore, impoverished inner cities look as if their almost achieving third world levels when blocks of abandoned and dilapidated houses become a normal site. So I feel a good way to start is to show people these conditions and I've started with some pictures I took from around my community.