On weekday mornings, Diandra Taylor steps out of her home near the Johns Hopkins medical complex in East Baltimore and into her Nissan Sentra for her commute to work - in Owings Mills.
Across town, Keith Fritz wends his way from his rowhouse in Ridgely's Delight near the Ravens and Orioles stadiums to the Jones Falls Expressway for his daily drive to his job - in Hunt Valley.
They are part of a trend: a sharp increase in the percentage of Baltimore residents employed elsewhere as jobs in the city declined and those in the suburbs grew. In 2000, about 38 of every 100 employed residents worked outside the city, compared with 24 of 100 in 1980, according to U.S. Census Bureau figures.
The rise in so-called reverse commuting, also evident in several other metropolitan areas, might seem at first glance to be another sign of suburbs sapping strength from cities.
But some urban scholars suggest that something more subtle is going on: a growing role for cities as appealing regional bedroom communities.
Taylor, for example, continued to live in the city even after seeing her job at T. Rowe Price and Associates move from downtown to Owings Mills. Fritz was working for a firm in Baltimore County when he and his wife, Linda Hansen, decided to buy a house downtown.
"We're always kind of looking for things to do to stay busy and we're both pretty big sports fans," said Fritz. "We're in a good location for friends stopping over and going to games."
Edward L. Glaeser, an economist at Harvard University, helped coin the term "consumer city" to refer to the potential of urban cores to attract rich and mobile workers by offering distinctive amenities, from cultural and sports events to concentrations of ethnic restaurants.
"Cities don't have a competitive advantage in manufacturing anymore," Glaeser said in an interview. "Where they do have an advantage is in providing an interesting, high-density lifestyle."
The trend toward two-career couples also is a factor, says Matthew E. Kahn of Tufts University, because if the city is convenient to one spouse's job, that would discourage moving. So is the trend toward smaller families among affluent, dual-career couples, which translates into less demand for large, suburban-style homes.
"With one child, there's less demand for space," said Kahn, an associate professor of international economics. "People can afford to live downtown."
Local planners and advocates of controlled growth applaud the phenomenon of residents who resist following their jobs: It acts as a brake on suburban sprawl, while helping the city in its efforts to reverse a half-century of population decline.
"It's part of the rebirth of the city," said Dru Schmidt-Perkins, executive director of 1000 Friends of Maryland, a Smart Growth advocacy group. "It's a new role and one that's really sort of critical in returning the city to its once-vibrant status."
Despite substantial growth in reverse commuters, the city still has a far lower proportion of residents who work outside its boundaries than any of the traditional or emerging suburban bedroom communities.
About 60 percent of working residents in Howard, Calvert, Charles, Prince George's and Queen Anne's counties hold jobs elsewhere. In Carroll County, 55 percent do. And in Baltimore, Anne Arundel, Frederick, Harford and Montgomery counties the number is between 40 percent and 50 percent.
Of those city residents who are employed outside Baltimore, about 63 percent work in Baltimore County; the percentages decline as distances from the city grow.
At the Owings Mills campus of T. Rowe Price, which provides administrative and support services for the city-based investment giant, 212 of the 1,735 employees commute to their jobs from Baltimore, according to the company.
Among them is Diandra Taylor, 29, a staffing supervisor.
Taylor started working for the company downtown after graduating from college in 1997 and was part of the first group of employees to move to Owings Mills when the first phase of the campus opened that year.
She was told before she took the job that her department might be moving. Although that would mean a longer commute from her mother's East Baltimore rowhouse, it did not keep her from taking her job. "I was looking for the best employer," she said.
Tiring of commuting after five years, and having saved money for a down payment on a house, Taylor is considering moving to Owings Mills.
Even so, she said, "I'm waffling back and forth on it."
Some of her reverse-commuting colleagues do not share her ambivalence.
David Miller, a human resources manager at T. Rowe Price, has no intention of leaving his Bolton Hill rowhouse to live closer to Owings Mills, where he began working a little more than a year ago.
Miller, who is 39 and single, calls his reverse commute "very easy," adding, "I prefer living in the city."
"The neighborhood I live in has a tremendous amount to offer," he said. "It's a diverse neighborhood, with nice architecture and a lot of history."
