UBalt Experts Weigh in on Results from Maryland Census
August 13, 2021
Contact: Office of Advancement and External Relations
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Two longtime University of Baltimore experts—Seema Iyer, associate director of the Jacob France Institute and research associate professor in the Merrick School of Business, and Roger Hartley, dean of the College Affairs—are offering analysis of the just-released results of Maryland's population count as part of the 2020 U.S. Census. The pair discussed several aspects of the census news with The Baltimore Sun.
Prof. Iyer noted that Baltimore's population loss, which shows the city having fewer than 600,000 residents for the first time in more than a century, stands in contrast with several other cities where populations rose.
"It was certainly the decade for cities, but Baltimore wasn't on that list," she said.
Iyer added that some area of Baltimore are growing, such as South Baltimore, where the population increased by 28 percent since 2010.
Dean Hartley said the city's lower number works against local efforts to present Baltimore as an attractive place to live and work.
"Whenever we see a population loss, all of us in our community are concerned that this is going to lead to impressions that the city is again losing population and is it a place that people want to live?" he said.
Hartley added that the pandemic may have led to an undercounting of the population, which may have "real financial impact and real human cost" regarding federal funding and political representation.
Read The Baltimore Sun article.
Learn more about Prof. Iyer and Dean Hartley.