Puzzling Development
April 5, 2017
The Daily Record
by Joe Nathanson
Daily Record 2017 04-05 Puzzling Development
“Some folks are scratching their heads around Baltimore. They – and I include myself among them – were getting used to the notion that the city’s decades-long population decline had finally abated. Indeed, we had seen a few glimmers of a slight uptick since the 2010 census.
Then we were jolted by a recent headline in the Baltimore Sun: “Baltimore population falls, nearing a 100-year low, U.S. Census says.” According to the latest census estimates, the city had experienced a population loss of 6,700 in the 12-month period ending July 2016.
Hadn’t we been hearing, all through the years that Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake was our city’s chief executive and cheerleader, that Baltimore would be adding 10,000 new families in the course of a decade? Perhaps that was always intended to be aspirational, but there were signs of renewed growth in many parts of the city. The Census Bureau itself had been reporting growth, showing the city’s population of just under 621,000 in 2010 rising to 622,454 in 2015…”