The 10 Most Dangerous And Worst Neighborhoods In Baltimore, MD

The 10 Most Dangerous Neighborhoods In Baltimore For 2024

There’s an independent suburb of Baltimore called Dundalk, named after a town in Ireland. Just inside the city limits, you’ll find something akin to its evil twin: Dundalk Cityside, the number 1 worst neighborhood in Baltimore for 2024.

One of Baltimore’s main charms comes from its seaside location. Tourists flock from surrounding areas to spend an evening near the harbor, enjoying the beautiful view.

Theoretically, you get your fair share of that appeal in Dundalk. Even the cityside version has its water access. What it doesn’t have is much access to good jobs. Low wages and high unemployment make this an unattractive part of the city.

Transportation provides the dominant theme for the Fairfield Area. It sits just along I-895, near the Patapsco River, in the southeastern part of the city. A series of railroad exchanges mark part of its western boundary. Meanwhile, trucking firms pepper the area. Basic idea: Fairfield is a fine place if you’re passing through.

Living there, though? Much less hospitable. Despite the industrial nature of the neighborhood, good jobs are hard to find. The median income sits around $30,000. Beyond that, the unemployment rate reaches 8.8%.

North of Fairfield, you’ll find the Shoreline district. You can even get a little marine education at the Masonville Cove Environmental Education Center.

It’s pretty easy to find the Monument Street Area. Head to East Monument Street. Look around. It’s the area there.

Located northeast of downtown, this section of the city has its fair share of amenities. East Monument Street itself provides an important commercial artery. It’s lined with stores and restaurant, giving the impression of a thriving neighborhood.

Look a little deeper, though, and you’ll find serious problems. As with most spots on this list, you’ll discover deep-rooted financial trouble. These manifest themselves as a sub-$30,000 median income and an unemployment rate of 10.8%.

This is sometimes known as the “Pulaski Industrial Area.” That gives you an idea of the underlying character. The name itself comes from the Pulaski Highway, which cuts through the center of the neighborhood. It’s also bounded by a number of other major thruways. You’ve got I-895 on the western side and I-95 on the east.

So, you’ve got an area dominated by long strips of asphalt, with the word “industrial” often specifically included in the name. Not exactly a land of prim gardens and elegant promenades. But the issues are more than cosmetic.

Far from the center of the city, Pulaski lacks many nearby amenities. Meanwhile, the economy underperforms. The unemployment rate stands at a healthy 4.2% and the median comes in at $36,631.

Greenmount sounds nice enough. Like a green mountain, a lush grass-carpeted hill high above the urban sprawl below. Well, don’t get your hopes up. In this case, “Green Mount” refers to the Green Mount Cemetery, home of the grave of John Wilkes Booth. On the west side of the graveyard, you’ll find Greenmount West. On the east side, you’ll find Greenmount East.

So much for filling your lungs with crisp mountain air. And so much for getting out of the urban sprawl. When you’re main access to green space comes in the form of a cemetery, you know you’re in trouble. Meanwhile, Greenmount East doesn’t offer much solace for the living. You’ve got an unemployment rate of 12.6% and a median income of $28,740.

Here’s another entry on this list where a large cemetery counts as the neighborhood’s most obvious feature. In this case, Baltimore Cemetery takes up a large chunk of the Berea Area. The rest of the area is often just as depressing, coming in at number 6 on this rundown of the worst spots in Baltimore for 2024.

Located in the northeast portion of town, Berea once represented a middle-class enclave. However, the deindustrialization of the last 50 years or so has undermined the area’s economic base. The median income is still relatively strong, especially compared to some of its “worst of Baltimore” competition. However, the unemployment rate remains at frightening levels, coming in at 9.3%.

Ever see the TV show The Wire? It takes place in West Baltimore. It centers on a community overwhelmed by drugs and crime, as civic institutions fail to serve the area’s residents. It’s a good show…you should check it out.

But should you check out the real-life neighborhood as well? Sorry, can’t recommended it. Unfortunately, many of the problems depicted in the TV version continue to drag the community down. This includes significant economic shortfalls. These take the form of a 10.0% unemployment rate and a median income of $28,589.

At least housing is cheap in Madison-Eastend. The median home value reaches just $66,250. Of course, there’s a reason for this. There’s not a lot of demand to live in the number 8 worst neighborhood in Baltimore for 2024.

Still, this low-cost housing gives residents a break. And they need it. With a median income of just $30,643, every bit helps. And then there are the people who can’t find jobs at all. The unemployment rate runs 14.3%.

E. Monument St. forms the southern boundary of Madison-Eastend. Head a little down the road and you’ll find a string of shops and restaurants. Or you can head over to Frank C. Bocek Park.

In New York City, you’ll find Brooklyn across the river from Manhattan. There, you can enjoy one of the hippest cities in America. The setup here is relatively similar. This Brooklyn sits across the Patapsco River from the main part of Baltimore, right next to its sister neighborhood, Curtis Bay.

So, same setup. Same result? Not quite. There certainly are draws, like Reed Bird Island Park by the river. But things here fall short of the NYC Brooklyn experience. Mainly, locals face a struggling economy. This includes a 11.8% unemployment rate and a $40,238 median income.

Methodology: How we determined the most dangerous Baltimore neighborhoods in 2024

To figure out how bad a place is to live in, we only needed to know what kinds of things people like and then decide what places have the least amount of those things. We plugged the following criteria into Saturday Night Science to get the worst neighborhoods in Baltimore:

• High crime (Estimated)
• High unemployment (Less jobs)
• Low median income (Less pay)
• Low population density (No things to do)
• Low home values (No one’s willing to pay to live here)

Then, we ranked each neighborhood in Baltimore, Maryland for each of these criteria from worst to best.

Next, we averaged the individual rankings for each criterion into a “Worst Score.”

The neighborhood with the lowest “Worst Score” ranks as the most dangerous neighborhood of Baltimore.

The article is an opinion based on facts and is meant as infotainment. We updated this article for 2024. This report is our time ranking the worst neighborhoods to live in Baltimore.

Skip to the end to see the list of all 54 neighborhoods ranked from worst to best.