From a Wall Street Journal review by Matthew Hennessey of the book by Mark Bowden titled “Life Sentence: The Brief and Tragic Career of Baltimore’s Deadliest Gang Leader”:

Baltimore, like most of America’s large cities, fell to pieces in the late 1960s. Crime and disorder skyrocketed, forcing businesses and middle-class residents to flee to the suburbs. Anyone who stayed, either by choice or by necessity, learned to live under a cloud of menace.