Baltimore is situated in a very strategic business location.  It’s got an excellent transportation and shipping infrastructure already built in and around the city itself.  There are also many new biotech and medical research firms that have headquarters in the Baltimore area, since the Human Genome Project’s headquarters are found here as well.  Baltimore is home to a diverse set of employment fields ranging from the healthcare industry to government and financial sectors.  Recently Baltimore has added extensive shopping and tourist attractions to its downtown area and has refurbished and rebuilt much of the older parts of town.  This urban renewal, which was started in earnest in the late 1990’s, has played out well for the city, drawing many tourists and shoppers alike.  Currently, with American consumers less and less willing to spend money, this shopping mecca has been hit hard.  But I would be willing to bet it will continue to stay afloat and thrive once the economy is successfully turned around.

Since Baltimore was one of the busiest shipping and rail ports in the recent past, it is no surprise that given a new direction and the old infrastructure that Baltimore possess, it has had both great successes and great failures in trying to reinvent itself.  Currently, the city is growing and there are many new opportunities in the science and research field.  Many companies in these fields have businesses in Baltimore, making the city one of the most high tech and diverse in the nation.  In terms of employment, Baltimore has struggled a bit, especially the northern part of the city which remains a gritty, manufacturing-centered economy.  As the recession has drawn on, this part of the economy has taken a real hit, and Baltimore is no exception.

It has been shown time and time again that investment in diversifying a city’s economy can have huge payoffs.  Baltimore is a place where this has certainly occurred, but the job opportunities are fairly scarce still, pending a real economic turnaround.  Maryland’s unemployment rate in September was just above 7%.  This is actually better than the national average and can be attributed to the diversification and modernization of the city’s growth plans and employment opportunities.  The city should really take off once the recession is on its way out, and I would expect the unemployment rate to be less than the national average until that happens.

So for those in the medical, biotech, and other high tech fields, Baltimore is a great place to go to set up shop or look for a job.  Baltimore’s manufacturing sector has taken quite a hit, as have the rest of the US’s major manufacturing sectors, but like all things diverse and healthy, the manufacturing sector will likely rebound in due time, as long as a real economic recovery is underway nation wide.  Look to Baltimore to be a real bright spot in terms of US job and economic recovery.  It should be at the leading edge of the recession’s demise, and will certainly be on the leading edge of a very aggressive economic recovery once a sustainable path away from the economic doldrums can be navigated.