Prof. Nix: Among Baltimore's Many Neighborhoods, Hampden is Different
March 27, 2017
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Interviewed by The New York Times, Elizabeth M. Nix, associate professor in the University of Baltimore's Division of Legal, Ethical and Historical Studies and director of its undergraduate program in history, says that Baltimore's Hampden neighborhood has a different identity than many other locations in the city—and this may prove crucial as the community deals with issues of race.
The Times article describes a vigil held in Hampden on March 25 to mark the murder of a New York City man, who New York police say was killed by a man from Hampden.
"Residents say they were attracted to Hampden by the stores and restaurants within walking distance, as well as its access to nature," the article reads. "The wave of newcomers has driven up real estate prices and is changing the face of what had long been an insular and almost entirely white blue-collar enclave.
"Baltimore has a history of being a Balkanized city, with neighborhoods often cleaving along ethnic and religious lines, said Elizabeth M. Nix, a history professor at the University of Baltimore. Hampden, she said, has always been slightly different, its identity forged by the workers drawn from the South and Appalachia to the jobs in nearby mills and factories, and its geographic isolation from the rest of the city, with a river, a highway, park space and the campus of Johns Hopkins University hemming it in.
"'It was very much a place of its own,' Professor Nix said."
Read the article.
Learn more about Prof. Nix.