Charles Village (Baltimore, Maryland)

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Charles Village is a middle-class area with many single-family homes. Though there are a number of apartment buildings, much of Charles Village's housing stock consists of two- and three-story rowhouses. The area was developed as a streetcar suburb in the early 20th century, and is thought to be the first community to employ tract housing tactics. Various builders constructed home exteriors, leaving the interiors to be custom built according to buyer specifications. At the time, the area was known as Peabody Heights; the moniker Charles Village, derived from Charles Street, the area's major north-south corridor, was coined in the 1970s as the beginning of a process of conceptually grouping a large and somewhat heterogeneous area.

One of the Charles Village's defining features is its proximity to Johns Hopkins Homewood Campus. Many of the university's staff and students live in the neighborhood, particularly in the areas immediately adjacent to the campus. Perhaps as a result, Charles Village has for the past several decades attracted a large population of artists and bohemians. The neighborhood includes several small commercial districts, however, there are few large-scale retail areas.