A couple weeks ago, we learned that Baltimore’s population grew in 2024. The news felt like the sun was peaking through the clouds after weeks of bad weather. All of Baltimore’s biggest challenges are directly impacted by eight decades — yes, eight decades — of population decline. Accordingly, our subsequent celebration was appropriate: Everything that helps a neighborhood or city thrive is undermined by population decline. Conversely, when we both retain existing residents and attract new ones, our neighborhoods and our city win.

Why? A growing population means better-lit and more active blocks that help produce public safety through vibrancy, a better-funded public school system, more reliable transit and better-maintained roads, more attractive main streets and more walkable access to grocery stores and pharmacies, more responsive city government, and lower property taxes and water bills. In short, more Baltimoreans means a better Baltimore.

Vibrant main streets communicate that a neighborhood is a nice place, to visitors and to residents. Residents play a critical role in sustaining main streets. Indeed, the 2008 book “Sustainable Urbanism” estimates that “small commercial clusters” need 6-8,000 nearby households to support themselves. Population is even more critical for attracting grocery stores, which could require 20-25,000 people within their catchment areas to be sustainable. Local businesses depend on local residents — and the more residents, the better.

Of course, the most obvious neighborhood sign of Baltimore’s population loss is not challenged main streets but abandoned rowhouses. Abandoned homes worsen population decline because they make neighborhoods feel unloved, unsafe and disinvested — and thus encourage people to leave. A growing population doesn’t just increase housing demand, it increases optimism and thus encourages investment to maintain older homes and rehab blighted ones.

Maintaining city infrastructure is even harder than maintaining vibrant neighborhoods in the face of sustained population loss. Baltimore City has two key ways to generate local revenue: property taxes and income taxes. Thus, we primarily get our money from residents, not businesses, commuters, tourists or visitors. Whether we have a million Baltimoreans or 500,000, we’re paying for roughly the same amount of water pipes, roads, and parks. A growing population creates the opportunity to improve our infrastructure while lightening our property tax burden.

On the other hand, a long-term-declining population makes it nearly impossible to keep our infrastructure in a good state of repair – indeed, the Planning Department estimates the city currently has a $9 billion deferred maintenance backlog (roughly double our annual budget!). Our population decline is a direct and indisputable contributor to potholes, water main breaks and poorly kept parks. The best way for our maintenance backlogs to stop growing is for our population to start growing.

Beyond infrastructure, a growing population has a positive impact on bread-and-butter local priorities like schools, public safety and transit.

Declining population means declining enrollment and declining school budgets, which lead to both school closures and educational underfunding. Growing neighborhoods remove the need for school closures and increase the money available to invest in our education system.

Declining population means fewer eyes on the street, and more of the blight that begets both violent and nuisance crime. Growing population helps create safety through vibrancy, which plays a critical role in both actual safety and perceived safety.

Declining population decreases ridership and makes public transit routes less cost-effective. Growing population means more riders on the same number of buses, trains or water taxis, and makes it easier to justify transformative investments like the Red Line.

Improvements in one of these areas positively impact the others: Better transit means better school attendance; stronger schools better engage and prepare our young people, thus enhancing public safety; safer neighborhoods benefit businesses and keep residents in the city.

75 years ago, Baltimore’s population peaked at just under 950,000 people. We need a long-term, intentional strategy to return to that number. We have to seriously consider reforms — permitting reform, zoning reform, lower property taxes, etc. — that directly help us retain existing residents and attract new ones. Achieving the best version of our neighborhoods and our city depends on it.