I hit some conflicting information right out the bat, with the founding of Baltimore listed as 1706, 1729,1796 and even 1851. That takes some digging, and what I can basically put together is that the port itself was founded in 1706, and at the time, many areas around the bay were called Baltimore. The town was chartered in 1729 (as a tobacco port), incorporated as the city of Baltimore in 1796 and separated from the county in 1851. All that seems kind of later than I originally expected, but a little digging reveals that Maryland of the colonial period simply didn't have the kind of population and industry that required a port of substantial size. Baltimore's growth, in fact, corresponded with the rise of the Revolution, and that's kind of cool.

Is there a theme in there? Something about growth and being a truly American city? Doesn't really ring well. Growth hints at something, but if I really wanted the American Experience as a theme, I probably would have gone with Philadelphia.

So back to the history, I run through and dig up a variety of interesting nuggets. Some ties into the early telegraph and railroad development in the country (It's the B in B&O, after all). Occupied by federal troops during the Civil war because it's loyalties were pretty much in question. Pirates, including Blackbeard, sailed the Bay and there are tales of buried treasure aplenty.

My attention is caught by a great flood in 1868 (Killed 100 people) and a great fire in 1904 (Burned most of the city but, miraculously, killed no one, and spared Fell's Point). The fire in particular seems like it could be part of the magical history. More importantly, I feel like I'm on the edge of a theme. Baltimore seems to lie in the middle of things as the crux of conflict, rather than a point of balance. Fire and water (even land and water - as ports go, it's fairly far inland), north an south. I don't have it yet, but it really seems like the theme needs to revolve around some amount of conflict.

The other thing that does is draw attention to Fell's point. Fell's point is a neighborhood on Baltimore's inner harbor, probably the most colorful of neighborhoods in the city, both in history and in present-day culture. Most of the City's ghost stories center around Fell's point, and it's where Poe did his drinking. Today, it's the neighborhood where's you're likely to find the artsy, funky and weird. It seems very much like the city is grabbing me by the lapels to say "Epicenter of weirdness HERE". That, however, is meat for a whole other post.

As we go forward, the history of Baltimore is full of boom and bust. Shipyards boom for war, and bust when it's done. Neighborhoods flourish, and rot. Every city has patterns of growth and decay, but Baltimore always seems like it's about to emerge from its troubles or is about to slip away forever, and it never quite makes it all the way either way.

And that's what finally clicks. It's not jut a conflict, it's a cycle, a cycle of growth and decay. The theme of the city is about that constantly moving stasis. It gives us the vibrant energy of a Mencken, and the dark depths of a Poe without ever leaving the city limits. Better yet, this is a theme that is _very_ easy to translate into something concrete in the dresdenverse. This seems an excellent expression of the the conflict between the Winter and Summer courts, so a tale of Baltimore will probably hang on assumption of a lot of Fae activity.

This also works on a personal level. I got to Baltimore often enough to recognize it but rarely enough that changes jump out at me, and this cycle is written in its streets. See, the battle against Baltimore's decay has always been a clever, almost heroic one. If nothing else, it's been a personal one - in Baltimore, reclamation tends to take place one block at a time, and happens because some people are stubborn, desperate or greedy enough to take a bad block and make it into a good block by force of will alone. Hearing stories about the dollar houses, and the people who joined together to buy a block of houses, there's just something visceral about it.

Also, I'm a country boy, so I'm always a little leery goings into cities, but I go someplace like New York or DC and there's at least some logic to where I go or don't go. In Baltimore, it's startlingly haphazard. Course, as the joke goes, if you're driving in Baltimore, you can go two places: the harbor, or the cemetery.

That seems eminently workable, and I now have a theme, and enough of a backdrop to start filling in some other gaps.