A robust economy, foreign immigration and a continuing exodus of city residents accelerated population growth in Baltimore's suburbs from 1998 to 1999, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
The five counties near the city gained more than 22,000 people in the latest reporting period, compared with 17,525 the year before. Baltimore, which had slowed its population decline for a couple years, lost nearly 13,000 people.
The statistics, compiled before the 2000 census began, quantify what most area residents know: Suburban congestion with its traffic jams and overcrowded schools is worsening, while the city is struggling to retain residents.
"The outer suburban counties still have the largest growth," said Michel Lettre, assistant director of the Maryland Office of Planning, though each of the five localities near the city -- Anne Arundel, Baltimore, Carroll, Harford and Howard counties -- showed an increase in population.
Overall, Maryland's population grew by about 41,600 from mid-1998 to mid-1999 -- the largest increase in five years. Several factors contributed to the growth, including births, which increased for the first time during the decade, foreign immigration and a decline in the number of residents leaving.
"Maryland was losing population to other states, but that trend has dampened," said Lettre. With job growth in Maryland outpacing the national average, the state could start to see more people coming in from other states than leaving, Lettre said. For most of the 1990s, Maryland lost more residents to other states than it gained.
Foreign immigrants helped make up that loss, adding more than 17,000 people to the state in the latest year and more than 130,000 during the decade.
The state's most populous localities as of July were Montgomery County with about 852,000 residents, Prince George's County with about 782,000 and Baltimore County with about 724,000.
The numbers released this month are the last population estimates from the Census Bureau before it issues a count based on the 2000 census.
The estimates are based on 1990 census data as well as more recent income tax returns, Medicare information and data from the Immigration and Naturalization Service.
The loss of city residents was more severe than expected, but city Planning Director Charles Graves said he did not dispute the figures.
"Our view is that although we have seen the continuing decline, the city is putting things in place to make people feel more comfortable living in the city," he said.
