The population of the
Baltimore metropolitan area is about a million people, using a fairly conservative definition that leaves out, for instance, the
Maryland suburbs of
DC. And yet, everyone I know who lives here keeps running into people they know from here--not just in Baltimore or Maryland, but
everywhere. One example that stuck with me happened when I was about 14 or 15. I was with my family in
Florida, watching an exhibition
baseball game. The announcer said that he would summon a spectator to engage in a pitching contest on the field. He called a kid I knew from my
school.
We have posited the existance of a
Baltimore Inseperability Factor to account for this.