The vast, vast, majority of the murders are drug and gang related and are confined to the bad parts of town on the east and west sides of the city. It looks like a large swath on the map because Baltimore used to be the third largest city in the country and is currently at half the population it was at it's height. The good areas are around the inner harbor, Fells Point, Canton, Federal Hill, as well as from the harbor running north to the JHU undergrad campus area, around Charles Village and Hampden. Personally I've lived here 10 years now and never felt unsafe. Another positive is that unlike SF single women outnumber single men by a large margin.

http://www.baltimoresun.com/features/baltimore-insider-blog/...