Fleeing Baltimore

A ringside seat at the collapse of a city

By: Jeannette Belliveau

Narrated by: Virtual Voice

During 33 years in Baltimore, author Jeannette Belliveau seemed to witness every trend first hand: neighbors who won the Mega Millions, or who died of overdoses, were killed execution style, or helped ruin Under Armour’s reputation.

And an investigative story-within-a-memoir emerged as she began tracking what she calls “Outlier homicides”: 44 killings between 1993 and 2024 of law-abiding citizens. These were cancer researchers, tech founders, a space economist, students, coaches, bartenders — people who played by the rules and died anyway. Where other cities might suffer one or two such tragedies, Baltimore has dozens.

Fleeing Baltimore is the first in-depth account of these losses and their role in the city’s population collapse. It’s also a detailed case study of her decision-making to become part of an exodus of 400,000 residents since 1950.

Belliveau’s background includes roles as business editor at the Baltimore Sun and graphics editor with the Washington Post’s Investigative Team. Her earlier book in the “insight travel” genre, An Amateur’s Guide to the Planet, was adopted in cultural geography courses and intercultural communication couses in 34 colleges. Baltimore often felt like a foreign country to her, and this book applies that outsider-insider lens to her former home.

The audience includes readers leaving violent cities for rural areas, policymakers in urban planning and criminal justice, and anyone drawn to layered, place-based storytelling. Fleeing Baltimore blends the grit of The Wire and We Own This City, the comedy of Hairspray, and the finely drawn characters of Laura Lippman and Anne Tyler. A follow-up called Arriving in Idaho — part cabin-building narrative, part meditation on in-migration to the Intermountain West — is underway.