GET ME RWRITE: Drug overdoses accelerate Baltimore's population loss

 

Since its 1950 peak of 949,708, Baltimore's population has decreased 40%.  The city now has fewer residents than it did in the early 1910s, more than a century ago. 

According to 2023 U.S. Census Bureau estimates, it has lost 20,359 residents since 2020.

Population:  Wikipedia, U.S. Census Bureau

Headline:  New York Times, 5/23/2024

For nearly all of the past three decades, Baltimore has had one of the highest fatal overdose rates of any large U.S. city. But for most of that period, even as the HBO series “The Wire” helped cement the city’s reputation as the U.S. heroin capital, the death rate was much closer to the national average than it is today. 

Officials have long tried to solve the city’s drug problem with arrests and aggressive policing. Baltimore was also at the forefront of innovative public health strategies to address addiction. In 1994, the city’s Health Department was among the first in the nation to start a legal syringe exchange to stop the spread of H.I.V. and other blood-borne illnesses.

Related posts:

May 2024

U.S. Census Bureau 2023 population estimates for Wisconsin's 10 most populous counties.  (5/20)

Waukee is Des Moines' fastest-growing suburb.  (5/17)

After decades of decline, Detroit's population finally turns a corner.  (5/17)

Jacksonville, Illinois, desperately tries to reverse its decades-long population decline.  (5/17)

Residents in Warren County Pennsylvania continue to fight over organization of school district. (5/8)

April 2024

BIG PICTURE:  Rural population loss in Illinois is rampant.  (4/2)

BIG PICTURE:   Rural Kansas counties continue to lose population.  (4/2)

BIG PICTURE:  Alabama and the long decline of rural population.  (4/2)

Population loss:  Northern and western rural counties lead the way in Pennsylvania.  (4/2)

BIG PICTURE:  Then there's rural Valley County, Montana, where the population has dropped 56% since its 1960 peak of 17,080.  (4/2)

March 2024

Residents of fastest growing county in Arkansas aren't big fans of Donald Trump.  (3/23)

Population loss along U.S. highway 6 in Pennsylvania.  (3/19)

14 of Wisconsin's 72 counties have experienced population gain of at least 1% since 2020.  (3/18)

One-third of Wisconsin's 72 counties have lost population since 2020.  (3/18)