Just over the Patapsco, once you leave Baltimore county and enter Howard, hope grows.
With rich schools, high property values, and dazzling new stores, there’s little not to love here. The Columbia Mall has everything anyone could ever want; AMC Theatres, Shake Shack, Abercrombie & Fitch, Apple, Lovesac, Brookstone – Any type of product, from cheap clothes to expensive new tech, can be found here. It makes sense, then, that this one mall has become the “town center” of the area – people from all over the county flock there on the weekend to shop their hearts out. Once they’re done shopping, they may go outside of the mall to find local restaurants, boba shops, and other places to buy even more things from. Want to celebrate getting accepted to the University of Maryland? Maggianos, a chain of tasty Italian restaurants, is right around the corner. Want to get to the University of Maryland? The university offers a free coach bus to campus for students in the city, right by a bowling alley.
I know, too, that many people from the other side of the Patapsco drive here to witness the true pride and glory of Columbia. The Security Square mall on their end is failing to make ends meet, and the adjacent Seoul Plaza is a dead limb they are struggling to cut off. It has become an attraction in its own right; “dead mall” vloggers often visit Seoul Plaza and tour its remnants, amazed that something so eerie avoids being demolished.
(Pictured below is the O’s Place formerly run by a good friend of my dad. We would often come here to eat for free, and the chefs would make us anything we could ask for. A floor below this, there is a wedding parlor where my aunt was married.
The general consensus from people who live in Columbia is that this place will soon meet the fate of the demolished Owings Mills mall, and maybe afterwards be revitalized and reinvested to be propped up as a proper mall, like the one those who have always lived here are used to.
Columbians know full well the desolation that can be seen when looking eastward to Baltimore. Like us, many moved out of the city due to the general and gradual decline of it. Crime, poverty, and other dirty things which people wanted to get away from became distant memories once they crossed over the Patapsco. When Freddie Grey was murdered, I remember many in Columbia supporting Larry Hogan for sending in the national guard to deal with protests. Non-Hispanic Whites make up 50% of the city’s demographics.
We moved over the Patapsco eight years ago, and never looked back. Our aunts and uncles moved too, resettling in Columbia and Ellicott City. By now, everyone in my extended family lives within Howard County, and none regret it.
Part of why we never looked back was due to one word: education. The value of education in Howard County brings awe and jealousy to the whole state of Maryland. Public high schools in the county are consistently top-ranked statewide, largely due to affluence gained through the high property taxes in the area. Our home here cost twice as much as our old one, even with a 30-year mortgage.
Another reason was due to the struggle of my dad's pharmacy, near the Security Square mall. Customers were often going to big-box chains, such as Rite-Aid and Walmart, which he simply was unable to compete with. Alongside this, a string of robberies (one, where he was held at gunpoint while at the register) convinced him that it was probably no longer as safe to raise a family here as he had once believed. We grew anxious, paranoid, and eager to live on the other side.
Sometimes, when we occasionally see the green metal bridge and I observe the fishermen on the banks of the river just below the train tracks, I wonder about my past life on the other side. I love Columbia, and seeing the trite and vain things people fantasize about it. One step inside the mall, an apartment building, or a fancy house and the facade of luxury sweeps through you. All I can recall about Baltimore are the metal-gated windows, failing public schools, and maybe the aquarium in the only "safe" area.
When I hear people discuss why suburbia’s growth needs to be curtailed, I think back to that bridge which means so much for us now. I think back to the plight of the American city, and how many choose to flee rather than fight off the challenges they endure. Because to many people, just over the Patapsco, once you leave Baltimore county and enter Howard, hope grows.
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