Baltimore's white population dropped by almost 40,000 from 1990 to 1994 while the number of black city residents nudged upward only slightly, according to U.S. Census Bureau estimates.
The outflow of whites exceeded the relatively modest pace of the 1980s, the figures show, and approached the exodus of the 1970s, when nearly 12,000 whites a year left Baltimore.
The bulk of the city's population loss was due to whites -- $H roughly 37,000 of them -- moving elsewhere. Deaths among the city's aging whites accounted for a small fraction of the decline.
Blacks left Baltimore, too, and put down roots in the suburbs along with growing Latino and Asian minorities. Black births outpaced deaths by 19,500 in the city during 1990-1994, but Baltimore's black population grew only by 5,500. The reason: 14,000 blacks moved out.
"The out-migration seems to be at a very brisk pace once again," said Josef Nathanson, research director for the Baltimore Metropolitan Council. "There was a period in the '80s when out-migration was slowed. Interest rates were high, and people weren't making home-buying decisions."
Baltimore County's population grew slowly as the number of whites remained virtually unchanged. But the black population increased by nearly 15,000 in the four-year period, the census figures showed. About two-thirds of the increase was due to new arrivals from the city.
"Were it not for the large numbers of blacks and browns moving into the county over the past 10 to 15 years, Baltimore County would have suffered negative population growth," said Lenwood Johnson, a county planner, referring to the increase in African-Americans and Latinos.
In Maryland as a whole, a sluggish economy took its toll and slowed population growth.
The state's white population nudged upward by only 1.7 percent. The black population grew by 10.4 percent, spurred partly by African-Americans abandoning the District of Columbia for the Maryland suburbs. The Latino and Asian populations grew statewide by 30 percent and 26 percent, respectively, driven by continuing high rates of immigration.
Nathanson said the estimates showed that Hispanics and Asians are becoming a significant presence in the Baltimore area. Anne Arundel, Carroll, Harford and Howard counties all showed increases of 30 percent or more in those minority populations in 1990-1994.
The estimates represent the first time the bureau has issued breakdowns by race and Hispanic origin between the national head counts taken every 10 years.
