The 10 Most Dangerous And Worst Neighborhoods In Baltimore, MD


The most dangerous and worst Baltimore neighborhoods are Dundalk Cityside and Fairfield Area for 2024 based on Saturday Night Science.

Worst Neighborhoods In Baltimore
Source: Public domain

Baltimore’s neighborhoods conjure up too many stereotypes to count. You’ve got hipster areas, preppy places, neighborhoods where college kids thrive, and of course, ghettos.

It seems as if there’s a neighborhood for everyone in Baltimore.

And while the city consistently ranks as one of the best places to live in Maryland thanks in part to tons of entertainment and jobs, it’s not all rainbows and sunshine in Baltimore. Some neighborhoods aren’t as safe as others.

So the question arises, which Baltimore neighborhoods are the most dangerous and which are the safest?

Today, we’ll use Saturday Night Science to determine which Baltimore hoods need a little tender loving care – the sore thumbs of the Baltimore area if you will. Realistically, you can’t expect all the neighborhoods to be amazing, although Riverside ranks way above the rest.

We examined 54 of Baltimore’s neighborhoods to find out the most dangerous places to live. These places don’t quite measure up to Baltimore’s reputation.


Table Of Contents: Top 10 | Methodology | Summary | Table


The Most Dangerous Neighborhoods In Baltimore For 2024

  1. Dundalk Cityside
  2. Fairfield Area
  3. Monument Street Area
  4. Pulaski
  5. Greenmount East
  6. Berea Area
  7. West Baltimore
  8. Madison-Eastend
  9. Cherry Hill
  10. Brooklyn-Curtis Bay

So what’s the worst neighborhood to live in Baltimore for 2024? According to the most recent census data, Dundalk Cityside looks to be the worst neighborhood in Baltimore.

Read on to see how we determined the places around Baltimore that need a pick-me-up. And remember, don’t blame the messenger.

For more Maryland reading, check out:

The 10 Most Dangerous Neighborhoods In Baltimore For 2024

Overall SnackAbility

2
/10

Population: 2,359
Violent Crimes Per 100k: 2,534
Property Crime Per 100k: 7,561
Median Home Value: $60,120 (5th worst)
Median Income: $31,725 (9th worst)
More on Dundalk Cityside:  Data

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.

Overall SnackAbility

1
/10

Population: 436
Violent Crimes Per 100k: 2,974
Property Crime Per 100k: 6,898
Median Home Value: $93,400 (16th worst)
Median Income: $26,718 (2nd worst)
More on Fairfield Area:  Data

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.

Overall SnackAbility

3
/10

Population: 3,168
Violent Crimes Per 100k: 1,617
Property Crime Per 100k: 3,959
Median Home Value: $14,650 (worst)
Median Income: $28,677 (5th worst)
More on Monument Street Area:  Data

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%.

Overall SnackAbility

4
/10

Population: 475
Violent Crimes Per 100k: 2,880
Property Crime Per 100k: 6,679
Median Home Value: $41,800 (2nd worst)
Median Income: $36,631 (13th worst)
More on Pulaski:  Data

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.

Overall SnackAbility

4
/10

Population: 11,041
Violent Crimes Per 100k: 2,952
Property Crime Per 100k: 5,888
Median Home Value: $57,042 (4th worst)
Median Income: $28,740 (6th worst)
More on Greenmount East:  Data

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.

Overall SnackAbility

4
/10

Population: 5,628
Violent Crimes Per 100k: 3,102
Property Crime Per 100k: 6,023
Median Home Value: $65,593 (6th worst)
Median Income: $40,870 (22nd worst)
More on Berea Area:  Data

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%.

Overall SnackAbility

5
/10

Population: 52,160
Violent Crimes Per 100k: 3,197
Property Crime Per 100k: 7,438
Median Home Value: $78,008 (12th worst)
Median Income: $28,589 (3rd worst)
More on West Baltimore:  Data

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.

Overall SnackAbility

4
/10

Population: 4,383
Violent Crimes Per 100k: 2,687
Property Crime Per 100k: 7,251
Median Home Value: $66,250 (7th worst)
Median Income: $30,643 (7th worst)
More on Madison-Eastend:  Data

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.

Overall SnackAbility

5
/10

Population: 6,850
Violent Crimes Per 100k: 3,146
Property Crime Per 100k: 4,715
Median Home Value: $74,400 (10th worst)
Median Income: $32,463 (10th worst)
More on Cherry Hill:  Data

Brooklyn-Curtis Bay Baltimore, MD

Source: Flickr User presmd | CC BY-SA 2.0
Overall SnackAbility

5
/10

Population: 13,252
Violent Crimes Per 100k: 2,935
Property Crime Per 100k: 6,228
Median Home Value: $75,582 (11th worst)
Median Income: $40,238 (2worst)
More on Brooklyn-Curtis Bay:  Data

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.

Summary: The Worst Neighborhoods Around Baltimore

Well, there you have it — the worst of the neighborhoods in Baltimore with Dundalk Cityside landing at the bottom of the pack.

The worst neighborhoods in Baltimore are Dundalk Cityside, Fairfield Area, Monument Street Area, Pulaski, Greenmount East, Berea Area, West Baltimore, Madison-Eastend, Cherry Hill, and Brooklyn-Curtis Bay.

As mentioned earlier, the neighborhoods in Baltimore aren’t all bad. Riverside takes the cake as the best place to live in Baltimore.

The best neighborhoods in Baltimore are Riverside, Canton, Inner Harbor, Federal Hill, and Roland Parl-Homewood-Guilford.

We ranked the neighborhoods from worst to best in the chart below.

For more Maryland reading, check out:

Most Dangerous Neighborhoods To Live In Baltimore For 2024?

Rank Neighborhood Population Home Value Median Income
1 Dundalk Cityside 2,359 $60,120 $31,725
2 Fairfield Area 436 $93,400 $26,718
3 Monument Street Area 3,168 $14,650 $28,677
4 Pulaski 475 $41,800 $36,631
5 Greenmount East 11,041 $57,042 $28,740
6 Berea Area 5,628 $65,593 $40,870
7 West Baltimore 52,160 $78,008 $28,589
8 Madison-Eastend 4,383 $66,250 $30,643
9 Cherry Hill 6,850 $74,400 $32,463
10 Brooklyn-Curtis Bay 13,252 $75,582 $40,238
11 Pimlico 5,819 $103,993 $38,938
12 Hopkins-Middle East 7,746 $102,281 $28,594
13 Mondawin-Walbrook Area 11,912 $91,056 $37,432
14 Greater Rosemont 18,664 $70,600 $35,059
15 Grove Park 1,684 $160,800 $37,438
16 Morrell Park 4,180 $110,433 $49,083
17 Midway-Coldstream 10,629 $90,588 $43,227
18 Beechfielf-Irvington Area 13,570 $83,969 $41,675
19 Park Heights 33,761 $98,165 $36,783
20 Orangeville 1,174 $73,500 $53,115
21 Bayview Area 8,018 $97,525 $41,221
22 Forest Park 957 $199,367 $37,680
23 Lakeland 3,582 $107,533 $37,668
24 Old Town Area 7,411 $50,967 $15,174
25 Glen-Fallstaff Area 15,750 $124,662 $43,823
26 Jonestown 1,079 $362,900 $36,438
27 Hampden-Woodberry-Remington 6,867 $163,077 $52,030
28 Belaire-Edison 20,778 $100,676 $47,827
29 Winsor Hills 3,039 $161,550 $56,919
30 Govans 13,401 $113,594 $46,558
31 Patterson Park East 10,969 $158,167 $60,368
32 Wakefield 1,529 $295,000 $31,211
33 Reservoir Hill-Bolton Hill Area 21,594 $210,163 $37,368
34 Lower Northwood 13,686 $159,675 $59,910
35 Cedonia 2,695 $110,900 $53,446
36 Howard Park 7,017 $204,160 $69,374
37 Hamilton Area 44,527 $161,706 $60,103
38 Charles Village 7,663 $230,143 $48,928
39 Highlandtown 2,936 $248,514 $89,525
40 Upper Northwood 20,729 $140,371 $50,794
41 Hunting Ridge 1,050 $225,950 $70,294
42 Greater Mount Washington 5,164 $219,100 $73,832
43 Downtown 4,294 $327,750 $53,222
44 Westgate 2,948 $243,233 $46,459
45 Franklintown 1,125 $240,400 $62,936
46 Locust Point 298 $374,150 $152,420
47 Fells Point 4,037 $360,767 $87,578
48 Chinquapin Park-Belvedere 2,222 $187,267 $70,719
49 Cheswolde Area 12,433 $234,920 $65,849
50 Roland Parl-Homewood-Guilford 16,535 $314,367 $84,167
51 Federal Hill 2,098 $393,129 $115,681
52 Inner Harbor 3,706 $366,214 $92,413
53 Canton 10,589 $334,486 $112,407
54 Riverside 4,709 $367,771 $120,970
About Nick Johnson

Nick Johnson earned his masters in Business Administration from the Drucker School At Claremont Graduate University. He has written for 39 publications across the country and ran the media relations department at Movoto, a real estate portal based in San Francisco. He has been featured in over 500 publications as an expert in real estate and as an authority on real estate trends.

Nick's the creator of the HomeSnacks YouTube channel that now has over 260,000 subscribers and is an excellent source to learn about different parts of the country.

15 thoughts on “The 10 Most Dangerous And Worst Neighborhoods In Baltimore, MD

  1. The validity of this article is in question. West Baltimore is not a neighborhood. Park heights is not on the list but grove park is #9. This was written by someone who clearly has know real knowledge of our wonderful city.

    1. And Shel demonstrated her knowledge through her excellent utilization of the English grammar to comment upon this article. Perhaps hooked on phonics will provide you with a refund.

      1. I’m sorry, Shels is correct. If my neighborhood, Glen-Falstaff, is halfway down the list, Baltimore must be better than I thought. I have to question the data; to my knowledge, the income listed is that of the whole zip-code; the area’s income is double that. (We are involved in the neighborhood association.) I paid over $300,000 for my house, on Glen Avenue, a beautiful, tree-lined, integrated area.

  2. Shels, I just thought the same thing. “West Baltimore”??? The whole west side is bad lol I had hoped a map was attached to bring some insight but there isn’t one. Maybe park heights isn’t included because the author included that in the “West Baltimore” category 🙂

  3. Yes Baltimore is one of the worst cities to live in for 2018 and the city know it.
    The average black in the predominantly town want very little out of life. The only thing that interests them is guns, drugs, jeans, guns and killing each other. So many don’t have any education, job skills, jobs, job references, etc. A lot of them don’t even know their names if you were to show it to them on a billboard in block letters. And they could care less about betterment. But they are always ready to do someone else down under who are doing better. It is truly a sickening city to live and try to survive in.

  4. It’s funny how we the people always try to down talk one another, instead of being our brother or sisters keeper, yes these senseless crimes are becoming outrageous , west baltimore is ran down , our government officials feed us a little to say what they have done to assist the people instead schools are constantly being shut down , new development are being build for others out side the community , the community is being genocide , the rich is getting richer and the poor is becoming poorer, they put people in the welfare to work program and you still living below proverty , it’s a mental thing some people feel that they can’t do better and other are fighting to live a productive life, we have these white collar cops who have taken an oath to protect us instead they are killing us in getting away because they were trained to say we assaulted them first , wake up people this a alone give them the freedom to kill, we put our mouth on people and don’t even no their story being bias will evently kill you. Not justifying the wrong that people do , but our government that sits on the shoulders of Jesus Christ is wicked they are part of the problem a major part, whats wrong with the people is that their mines are in bondage, they are captives, we need to get back to Eden.

  5. Baltimore is screwed up. I’m an Uber driver. Last nite I was followed at least two miles by an unknown vehicle after dropping off my last passenger. The driver was tailgating and harassing me while I was trying to avoid being near or next to them, the vehicle kept creeping close to me no matter how much I tried to avoid contact. I finally dialed 911 and put it on speaker, I was lucky enough nothing else happened. This was in the Belair-Edison Neighborhood; in which a person happened to die from a gunshot wound five days ago. I am staying away from this place thank you for the article.
    If you take the time to look at the map and highlight the mentioned areas, there isn’t much left safe to drive but downtown Baltimore…that’s a shame!

  6. Baltimore city is the pits. Everyone is waiting for a handout. Stop waiting for the government to feed you and get a flipping job. Maybe then you’ll be too tired to shoot someone!!

  7. Gov’t mouth-open stooges wanting food, drugs and i-phones paid for them. You wonder why the country is soooo divided, because working taxpayers are DONE with gov’t taxing to pay social service HANDOUTS.

  8. I ve lived here all my life and am a senior now. Its upsetting to see how crime has taken over. You are not safr day or night anymore. Trash is thrown out windows as people drive by and break in s are the New Normal. Terrible city

  9. If you have any bit of ambition, but you are stuck in Baltimore city for any reason, and you happen to stumble across this article, I will encourage you to build some wealth. Get a steady job, learn about ways to invest the money you make (what they don’t teach in Baltimore’s schools because most teachers/adults aren’t financially literate either), be secretive with your earnings unless you want family and friends to turn into enemies, and save until you can afford to move somewhere better or go to the county! The county areas are much more friendly. It’s more diverse, and the population is more relaxed. People walk by you and smile in the county, black or white, whereas in the city, you try to avoid eye contact with certain people, especially as a young woman. It’s two different worlds. If you’re not familiar with the city and you are doing Uber or Postmates, then drive in the county or nearby places in Maryland like Towson, Cockeysville, etc.! You’ll have better luck with safety and tips as well.

  10. I didn’t know Baltimore is that bad city. I watched the tv series Wire. Anyway my son is moving there to study PhD in JHU. We are looking a place for him. Anyone has suggestions I would appreciate. Good neighborhood etc.

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