Around the Inner Harbor is kind of nice, but it really starts getting seedy a few hours before dusk, when the homeless have crawled out from under the bushes. If you park more than a few blocks from the main street (Eutaw?) it can get pretty dicey.
And then there’s the Ravens fans!!!!!
I was in Baltimore for four days last September for a convention and had a very good time. I was in the Inner Harbor area, which I was told is the only good part of the city.
“While Baltimore is a mess, downtown is not sad if you stay out of the bad areas. The food options are fun; but then I try to leave once it gets dark.”
The federal hill area, the inner harbor, fells point, canton, and joppa road in the north, and around Johns Hopkins Homewood campus, and Hopkins hospital, and Bolton Hill, are all pretty liveable.