'Your Stories' Continue

We start this week's episode of The Lines Between Us by sharing listener comments and "Your Stories."

It's been nearly a year since the first episode of Lines aired, and 38 episodes later we've discussed housing, wealth, jobs and criminal justice with dozens of guests. Now, as we often like to do in the series, we pause to share some of the feedback we have received. 

We'll hear listeners discuss issues such as transportation, police and community relations, and life post-incarceration.

These listeners have called, emailed, and Tweeted at us to share their stories-and we hope you will do the same.

Visit our contact page to see all the ways you can share your story with us-and with each other.

The Middle-Class...As Seen From Hamilton

This segment originally aired on February 15, 2013.

As middle-income neighborhoods vanish from Baltimore, the northeast corner is holding on a little more tightly--just barely, though.

In February, we picked two Census tracts near the Hamilton neighborhood from our "Lines Between Us" animated neighborhood income map (see below).

As you can see to the right, one has slipped from high-middle income to poor (the one with the red dot); the other has remained low-middle income (just to the left of the one with the dot).

Maryland Morning producer Lawrence Lanahan went out to Hamilton to see what the neighborhood's middle class prospects look like to two residents.

Demetric Farmer bought a rowhouse on Century Road in 2010 when he was working for a carpet cleaning company. Last year he got a bump up in pay when the Bureau of Solid Waste hired him to work at city transfer station.

Sheila Ebelein is president of the Glenham-Belhar Community Association. She says the mix of jobs in the neighborhood hasn't changed that much, but that a middle-class income doesn't go as far these days. Her family, as she describes it, is "the struggling middle class."

Below, you can see an animated map of neighborhood income levels. It's from the US2010 research project. In an earlier segment, we spoke with one of their researchers, Sean Reardon.