CITIES: Chaos in Charm City

All over the city, there are signs saying "Smile, you're in Baltimore." Last week the Baltimore Promotion Council launched a campaign to further enhance the city's image by declaring that Baltimore (pop. 900,000) would henceforth be known as "Charm City, U.S.A." The gesture was spectacularly ill-timed. Next day, Baltimore, which was already mired in a ten-day-old strike by 3,000 garbage collectors, zookeepers, jail guards and sewage workers, was hit with a police walkout that brought on sporadic looting and arson.

For ordinary citizens as well as for inmates in their cells and lions...