I too live between Bolton Hill and Mt. Vernon and also work in Timonium. 15 minutes by car, ~40 minutes for the light rail, or ~12 hilly miles on a bike. orig. from oklahoma, so the cost of living seems high, but definitely not too bad compared to other cities out here... downtown is where its at if you've no school-aged children. Seems like there are quite a few bike cliques rolling around, a handful of good LBSs. A bunch of schools in the area act as a sort of dialysis machine for the city, lots of new people coming through, some staying, others moving on. One good thing (and it always sounds like an extra-lame reason to be somewhere) is that its close to a bunch of different cities with their own things going on... unlike TX where depending on where you are, you could hit Dallas/FtW, Austin or Houston and thats about it without ~10hrs of drive time. I really like it here.