Case history: the de-moralization of Baltimore.

A casual observer might believe Baltimore a city in the midst of an urban renaissance: A waterfront mall full of restaurants and shops, two new sports stadiums, some lively ethnic neighborhoods, and a bevy of new hotels give the city a patina of prosperity. Beneath the surface, however, something has gone seriously wrong in what local boosters call "Charm City." In the 1990s, Baltimore lost over a tenth of its population--nearly as many people as live in Hartford, Connecticut, and a bigger loss (in absolute numbers) than suffered by any other American metropolitan center. None among America's 50 largest cities, Baltimore saw its rate of population loss accelerate in the 1990s. Even as other American cities were becoming safer, crime rose in Baltimore: Among the nation's 25 largest cities only fast-growing Phoenix experienced as fast a rise in crime.

Many of the city's deep problems stem from its vast rates of drug addiction: Nearly one in ten adults in the city is a drug user, by far the highest rate of any city in the country. "The drug problem in Baltimore is just incredible, almost impossible for a lot of people, even long-time police officers, to comprehend," says Gary McLhinney, a former narcotics lieutenant in Baltimore. Heroin use in particular is enormous in Baltimore. Even in the lively Little Italy neighborhood, a tourist mecca, a visitor might see addicts shooting up in the corner of a parking garage. Methamphetamine, which remains largely a drug used by poor whites in the South and West, has become increasingly popular among Baltimore's inner-city black population.

Part of the problem in Baltimore is that it missed the pro-business, deregulatory, tough-management message that sunk in in so many other cities over the last two decades. The city has long had corruption problems. And "Baltimore is about the only major city where the political culture is still centered around getting money from Washington," summarizes Fred Siegel, a fellow at the Progressive Policy Institute in Washington.

But cities like Chicago and Providence dealt with higher levels of corruption and misgovernance, and actually gained population and vitality in the 1990s. Baltimore's deep problems seem to have a moral component that has made them harder to reverse.

It appears that one huge negative influence was former longtime mayor Kurt Schmoke's morally neutral attitude toward drugs. In a profile in the Yale Alumni Magazine, ...