As many outsiders tried to explain Baltimore a few weeks ago, one of the topics that appeared to slip through the cracks was suburban migration. That’s because it took an organization like the New Geography to dig into IRS statistics to find out just how many people actually left.
The 1950s, ’60s and ’70s are often most closely associated with moves to the suburbs nationwide, but Aaron M. Renn’s article paints a picture that shows a more contemporary period in which people left the city. Using IRS stats, Renn found that the pattern of people leaving the City for the suburbs spiked in the mid-1990s. The net loss was 151,000 people who left the city from 1993-2011, but 1995-1999 saw more than 8,000-10,000 people leave each year.
Renn points out that the loss people means a loss in money. The people who left meant a loss of annual income of $2.75 billion for the City.
