Wednesday, August 09, 2006
THE URBANITE
I really like The Urbanite, Baltimore’s free monthly city-boosting periodical. It’s full of articles about the city, as well as event announcements and reader letters. What it’s full of more, though, are ads. Mostly for boutiques and restaurants, which is fine because those are the ads I prefer to see. I feel like if I know where the shops and restaurants are, I can find my way around the city better. (I’ve been here fifteen years, but it’s only been this century that I’ve really started exploring the city.)
One little blurb included in the latest issue was for a “Twilight Canoe Escape” in Middle Branch Park. It’s advertising a short canoe trip in the Inner Harbor for a modest fee. It sounded like fun, so I looked up the address and found out that that park is five minutes from my house! I had no idea it even existed, and that’s what I love about the Urbanite.
I also read Baltimore’s City Paper on a weekly basis. Unlike the Urbanite, it’s full of in-depth journalism and tries to walk off the beaten path in both its approach and subject matter. It has a rep as an underground periodical, and it wants to hold on to that image with both hands. The Urbanite is more like a magazine, and tries to focus on life in the city itself. What it really tries to do is show off how nice it is to live in the city. It’s not a bad endeavor in and of itself, and the articles seem well-researched; I’d be hard pressed to label it as “fluff”, which a project of this kind could easily become. I understand there are other local publications whose reputation has become exactly that…
The Urbanite requests non-fiction stories on given topics each month, and I cut out the list at the beginning of the year in the hopes that I could come up with something to submit. The next topic up for submission is “Duplicity”. With any luck, I can come up with something to write about, but given that particular subject, I don’t think I’ll feel too bad if I don’t.
I really like The Urbanite, Baltimore’s free monthly city-boosting periodical. It’s full of articles about the city, as well as event announcements and reader letters. What it’s full of more, though, are ads. Mostly for boutiques and restaurants, which is fine because those are the ads I prefer to see. I feel like if I know where the shops and restaurants are, I can find my way around the city better. (I’ve been here fifteen years, but it’s only been this century that I’ve really started exploring the city.)
One little blurb included in the latest issue was for a “Twilight Canoe Escape” in Middle Branch Park. It’s advertising a short canoe trip in the Inner Harbor for a modest fee. It sounded like fun, so I looked up the address and found out that that park is five minutes from my house! I had no idea it even existed, and that’s what I love about the Urbanite.
I also read Baltimore’s City Paper on a weekly basis. Unlike the Urbanite, it’s full of in-depth journalism and tries to walk off the beaten path in both its approach and subject matter. It has a rep as an underground periodical, and it wants to hold on to that image with both hands. The Urbanite is more like a magazine, and tries to focus on life in the city itself. What it really tries to do is show off how nice it is to live in the city. It’s not a bad endeavor in and of itself, and the articles seem well-researched; I’d be hard pressed to label it as “fluff”, which a project of this kind could easily become. I understand there are other local publications whose reputation has become exactly that…
The Urbanite requests non-fiction stories on given topics each month, and I cut out the list at the beginning of the year in the hopes that I could come up with something to submit. The next topic up for submission is “Duplicity”. With any luck, I can come up with something to write about, but given that particular subject, I don’t think I’ll feel too bad if I don’t.
# posted by Renfield @ 11:20 AM 
