On one level, it's a serious uphill battle just because of the hard line drawn between city and county.

Many other cities would also look awful statistically if they had never been able to annex their inner suburbs.

In many other locations, a metropolitan area like Baltimore's would also have some of its higher-crime areas located in a completely different jurisdiction (think Philly/Camden, NYC/Newark, DC/crappy parts of PG, etc.)

Instead, they're all grouped together in one municipality, with little statistical counterbalance from inner suburbs.