actors struggle to accommodate. Reporting from the front lines of the war on drugs taught Simon everything he needed to know about that system. "How can you report on a place like Baltimore, where one of every two black males is without work," he said, "and in any way regard the economic structure as being viable?" A 'Rule for the New Millennium' The outline of Baltimore's decline can be seen in the numbers. Over the last thirty years or so, the city lost 28 percent of its population, and manufacturing jobs declined from 20 percent of available work to 8 percent. In 2006, 19.5 percent of Baltimoreans lived in poverty, and, as of 2000, 43.4 of blacks were absent from the labor force (the city is 64.4 percent black). Poverty is a fact of life for 22.9 percent of blacks, 30.6 percent of black children, and almost half of all female-headed black households with children five years old and younger. Only 35 percent of Baltimore students graduate high school within four years. It has the nation's second highest increase in new aids cases. A massive drug economy serves an estimated 50,000 addicts, and there are roughly that number of vacant housing units. And Baltimore's 2006 homicide rate of 43.3 per 100,000 residents was one of the highest in the country, behind only five cities, including New Orleans and Detroit. The difference between, say, west Baltimore's Boyd-Booth neighborhood and Roland Park in leafy north Baltimore is shocking. According to the Baltimore