City Envy

Last week, my family and I went to San Antonio to visit some of my wife's cousins, and to eat our collective weight in Tex-Mex food. I had been there once before, but on this visit, I was again struck by what an underrated city it is - at least by us East Coasters. We underestimate its sheer size: as of 2016, its population was close to 1.4 million, which was good for seventh in the nation, just behind Phoenix. That's more than double the population of Baltimore, my home city. Unlike Baltimore, and every other East Coast city for that matter, San Antonio has had virtually unrestricted room to sprawl, and sprawl it has. Its downtown is relatively small - the eye test  tells me that it's smaller than Baltimore's - but its strip malls and housing developments seem to go on forever.

We east coasters underrate San Antonio's main draws too. I'm actually not talking about the Alamo, its most iconic sight, which I would argue is actually overrated. A key battle was fought there, but I imagine the average American doesn't know what it was for, and certainly doesn't realize it ended in Texans being basically massacred by Mexican troops. Besides, I'm told that only one of its four walls is original. I'm not saying it isn't historically interesting and worth a visit. I'm just saying it seems like one of those place, like the Liberty Bell or the Leaning Tower of Pisa, whose fame outstrips its actual historical importance.

The River Walk and the Mexican Market Square, though? They're awesome, and if a random Thursday is March was any indication, vibrant and festive. (The entire city was on spring break and it was two days before St. Patrick's Day, so maybe the date wasn't as random as I originally though. But still.) A walk through crowded and lively San Antonio triggered in me a nagging sense of City Envy. Not that we're keeping score, but if we were, I could maybe argue that Fort McHenry is objectively superior to the Alamo, even if it lacks the same renown. But it's hard to argue that Baltimore's central tourist area, the Inner Harbor, ranks anywhere close to the River Walk. I like the Inner Harbor, too. I like climbing to the top of the hill in Federal Hill Park and drinking in an excellent view of the whole harbor and skyline. But if you had focused a video camera on the Inner Harbor at the exact time I was on the River Walk (about 9 CST/10 EST), you would have seen an almost laughable difference between the sizes of their respective crowds. The Inner Harbor is a ghost town at that hour.

I'm a little jealous of San Antonio's food scene too. We have crab cakes - they have tacos and barbecue. Don't make me choose between the two: they're both great. But crab cakes are expensive. You're probably dropping $20 to $30 for a top shelf one. That'll get you a lot of tacos. What single-handedly tips the scales in San Antonio's favor is Mi Tierra, a 24-hour Mexican restaurant and bakery, which, for my money is The Happiest Place on Earth. As you would expect, it attracts a lot of tourists, but locals concede that the food lives up to the hype. Until Baltimore gets a 24-hour crab cake emporium, nothing here comes close.

I love Baltimore, but it's hard not to be a little jealous of a city that has this.

So I was impressed with San Antonio. But when I asked my wife just out of curiosity if she could ever live there, she answered negatively without a second though - and I agreed with her. Too hot, too far away from family and friends on the east coast, too isolated from other cities, too devoid of culture. (That last one may not actually be true, but it's the impression I get.) We're here in Baltimore for the long haul, or at least for the foreseeable future. But trips to other cities tend to make me wonder, at least in passing, what I see in this place. It would be nice, I have to admit, to be able to walk around my city's downtown after hours without constantly looking over my shoulder. It would be nice to have drinks at a unique, festive, centrally located bar on the water, popular with locals and tourists alike. It would be nice to live in a place where a 2 AM empanada craving could always be addressed. And it would be nice if people knew my city for more than just The Wire, the HBO show about how messed up my city is.

But there's a lot to like about this place too: the cobblestone streets in Fell's Point, Camden Yards, Faidley's Crab Cakes, the fact that I get to walk by Edgar Allan Poe's grave on a semi-regular basis. And we've got the intangibles on our side too. More than other big cities on the east coast, Baltimore has a little chip on its shoulder. It has a ton of dirty, yet friendly corner dive bars that haven't yet been gentrified. It has more local color than D.C. And it's cozier than Philadelphia and New York. Plus there's that lovable way that Baltimoreans pronounce their O's and call each other "hon." I'm still holding out for that 24-hour crab cake emporium, but even if it never opens, I don't think I'll be going anywhere for a while.