Urban Discoveries Baltimore

So our beloved Baltimore isn’t quite perfect.  Oh, we tend to go on about its merits ad nauseum, true, but there are some things that we still desire.  A little less crime would be nice.  And a city government that didn’t have corruption oozing out of its pores would be just swell.  And while we take the bus to work every day and use the light rail when we can, we’d like to see some further progress on public transportation (Red Line, please!).  Baltimore, for better or worse, is a city that relies primarily on cars.

But to every cloud a silver lining.  In this case the good news comes on the heels of a recently released survey by the Nielsen Corporation (the same folks who figure out what T.V. shows you’ve been watching), which found that Baltimore is among the top ten U.S. cities with the “Greenest Automotive Potential.” “Greenest Automotive Potential” is a measure of the ownership rates of high-mileage cars.  We’re not just talking about gas-electric hybrids here, but other cars too, like the Mini Cooper and the Honda Fit.  And by taking ownership rates and comparing them to the potential ownership rates of city and market segmentation, a city’s “Green Automotive Potential” was determined (or at least that’s our understanding).  Baltimore, as a coastal city with a high population density, was typical, demographically speaking, of the other top ten cities.

This survey gives us some reassurance about Baltimore’s flaws.  “Greenest Automotive Potential” didn’t tell us much at first glance – we’re not really sure if it meant to – but we dug a little deeper and a realization came to us: these kinds of statistics can’t really be initiated by laws or government action, but rather they have to come about gradually, through community action, through the people who live here.  What this survey ultimately tells us is that the city we live in is the city we make it.  Which is just what we wanted to hear all along.

Posted in: City Living, TransportationNo Comments