Baltimore, Now Sold in New Collectible Packaging

I went to the Baltimore Area Convention and Visitor's Association annual meeting this morning. I sometimes forget as I answer questions about how many stars were on the flag in 1837 or scraping gum off a 200 year old floor that I'm somehow demographically connected to all the hotel concierges and drivers of those floating duck truck tour buses in the visitor services business. We all deal with the legions of suburbanites, Shriners, high school marching bands, swimming pool sales conventioneers and Red Sox fans that strap on their fanny packs and leave behind their shopping malls to visit...... a shopping mall with dolphins and a sailing ship. Even though it was the basic ballroom meeting with round tables and lukewarm breakfast with a lot of speeches, there was an interesting re-branding process presentation (I can't wait to see what they come up with for a new slogan: "Baltimore: It's Infectious!"). They also had a motivational speaker. I have to admit I got a little excited, and then felt kind of embarrassed that I got taken in by the whole melodramatic presentation, kind of like the way I felt after watching "Driving Miss Daisy."
In the presentation about promoting Baltimore as a desitnation they made a point that really caught my attention. When they talked to ordinary non-Baltimoreans in focus groups, people said that they really had little interest in seeing the neighborhoods outside of downtown, that the quirkiness and vibrance of Baltimore's neighborhoods did little to make it stand out as a destination. Those were honest comments, not really surprising. However, the presenter followed by suggesting that this meant that promoting this part of Baltimore had little relevance to advertising Baltimore to the outside world, and that the focus should be on promoting downtown and the Inner Harbor. Now it can be easy to be cynical about the Inner Harbor alone. But my mental brakes screeched for another reason. Regardless of the difficulty of getting people there, shouldn't promoting visitorship in Baltimore's neighborhoods still be a primary or at least parallel concern for the promoters of the city? If only the pockets of the Hyatts, Marriots, Cheesecake Factories, Sunglass Huts and Aquariums are lined, how does that help the families who actually live here? How does promotion of Baltimore benefit the citizens of Baltimore if visitors aren't drawn to the small businesses the citizens themselves own? Isn't it going to be that much harder for local leaders to justify calls to improve the liveablity of their neighborhoods with infrastructure improvements if they're not part of an overarching plan for drawing outside people in? I don't think that the neighborhoods are not still part of city or even BACVA plans, but I think I heard the beginning of a dangerous new level being reached in the continuing fetishization of a certain inlet off the Patapsco River. In the meantime, I'm just starting to wrap my head around this and where I fit in the ant hill.