THE STATE OF THE BALTIMORE REGION A Baseline Report for a New Century CUERE Center for Urban Environmental Research and Education MIPAR Maryland Institute for Policy Analysis Research University of Maryland, Baltimore County 1000 Hilltop Circle Baltimore, MD 21250 www.umbc.edu/cuere Research for this project was supported by a grant from The Morris Goldseker Foundation Grant No. RI92001129 October 2002 The following CUERE staff contributed to this report: Stephen Coleman, Bernadette Hanlon, Royce Hanson, Anastasia Kolendo, Michael McGuire, Amy Rynes, Tudor Rus, Jonathan Russell-Anelli, Judy Unger. MIPAR Staff: Joseph Kirchner THE STATE OF THE BALTIMORE REGION: A BASELINE FOR A NEW CENTURY INTRODUCTION AND EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: The Baltimore Region changed dramatically during the last three decades of the 20th century. Its economy, population, and landscape have been transformed, with profound consequences for the environment and the quality of life. The driving force of these changes has been a massive shift in the regional economy from manufacturing to services as the engine of employment growth. This structural shift was accompanied by a shift from concentration of economic activity in Baltimore City to new employment centers dispersed across the Region. The result has been a major change in what the Region does, where it does it, and who does it. The population and labor force have changed with the economy. They are older and more diverse. The populations of all counties in the Region grew, but the highest rates of growth were in the outlying counties. In contrast to the counties, the City lost almost a third of its population, and was continuing to experience a net loss of residents as the new century began. With depopulation of the City and dispersion of residential development throughout the Region, the urbanized area grew substantially, but its average density declined. The degree of racial segregation has declined slightly, but economic segregation has increased, and with it a growing spatial mismatch between moderate and low-income housing and employment opportunities. The diffusion of homes and jobs contributed to increased traffic and longer commuting times in a Region that had a decline in the small percentage of its commuters that use public transportation in the 1990s. Traffic congestion and growth in the number of vehicle miles traveled increased air pollution faster than improvements in technology could reduce it. High levels of impervious surfaces associated with urbanization degraded water quality in the Region's streams and complicate the interstate effort to restore the Chesapeake Bay. These changes stress the Region's quality of life and its public services as its jurisdictions and the State cope with needs in education, health, and safety and with the management and distribution of economic and physical growth. The changes and shifts have impacted each jurisdiction in different ways. There is considerable variation between Baltimore City and the counties of the Region in income, employment rates, wages, and many of the quality of life indicators explored in this Report. The nation's other metropolitan areas share most of the Baltimore Region's problems. In some respects conditions in the Baltimore Region are better than comparable areas; in others they are worse. What is unique to Baltimore is its assets and how they are used to address the issues that change generates. These assets include the Port of Baltimore and Baltimore-Washington International Airport, both of which are among the busiest in the United States. They also include its location in the east coast urban corridor, strong governmental, health care, higher education, research, and cultural institutions, and a natural environment that, even with its problems, remains one of the most pleasant and attractive in the nation. Its work force remains better-educated than many comparable areas, and its housing stock is still reasonably affordable. The indicators presented in this report raise issues about how the Baltimore Region can expand the mainstream of its new economy to include more of its residents and workers and reduce the number of places and people that are left behind, and do it in a way that respects and enhances the environment. 1 PURPOSE OF THE REPORT: As the brief introduction suggests, it is important for the Baltimore Region to know where it stands as it enters a new century in order to chart its future. This State of the Region Report: Provides a baseline against which future changes can be assessed by looking at key indicators that can be revisited every three to five years to measure progress and establish trends. In this report, indicators are presented primarily at the regional and county level to provide a broad view of conditions. They were selected for their strategic importance in making policy and investment decisions. They are designed to stimulate further inquiry into conditions at smaller scales, such as the community or census tract. Indicators are provided that measure conditions and changes in the economy, population, landscape and environment, and the quality of life and public services of the Region. Compares conditions in the Baltimore Region with seven other regions are also provided, where data are available. The other regions selected either perform functions similar to those of the Baltimore Region in the global economy, compete directly with Baltimore in the mid- Atlantic Region, or offer a contrasting economic history. The seven regions are: Atlanta, Boston, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Philadelphia, St. Louis, and Washington D.C. Cincinnati, Cleveland, and St. Louis fall into the same population class as the Baltimore Region and perform some of the same regional and international functions. Boston, Philadelphia, and Washington are larger regions, but the first two have similar functions, and the Washington and Philadelphia Regions overlap and compete with the Baltimore Region for economic and population growth. Finally, the Atlanta Region was added to the comparison group because it is one of the nation's most rapidly growing regions and is in many ways a prototype "new economy" region, in contrast with the other "old economy" regions of the industrial northeast, of which Baltimore was a prime example. All of these regions are major regional diversified service centers and have undergone significant economic transformations in the last 30 years. All have central cities that have experienced substantial population and employment shifts or losses. SUMMARY OF FINDINGS: The report is organized as follows: The Changing Economy The Changing Population The Landscape and Environment The Quality of Life and Public Services Though the Report is organized in this way, the findings do not exist in isolation. As the economy changed, so did the population and the landscape and environment. The quality of life was affected by the ways in which the Region addressed and adapted to economic, demographic, and landscape change. THE CHANGING ECONOMY: The center of economic gravity of the Baltimore Region has shifted from manufacturing to services. All eight regions exhibit a similar pattern. Almost one out of every five workers in the Baltimore Region now works in a service occupation, compared to only 5 percent in production occupations. Employment has shifted to the suburbs. In 1960, seven of the ten largest employment centers were in Baltimore City. Today only three are in the City are and the Region has taken a more multi-centered form. However, more of the Baltimore Region's jobs are located within a ten- mile radius of the center than any comparable region except Cincinnati. Although the regional economy has grown over the last few decades, there is wide variation in the rate of employment growth among the Region's jurisdiction. During the 1990s employment in Howard County grew by 48 percent but declined by 4.5 per cent in the City 2 The fastest-growing industry within the Baltimore Region is Business Services and is expected to employ more people than Health Services within the next few years. The average weekly wage for service jobs varies across the Region. The weekly wage for Business Service workers in Baltimore City is $536, compared to $907 in Howard County Major disparities remain between races and sexes in the major occupational categories. Whites continue to dominate managerial, official and professional positions. Blacks make up almost half of all service workers and 45 percent of laborers in the Region. A higher percent age of black women are employed in the Baltimore Region than are black men. THE CHANGING POPULATION: The Baltimore Region's population grew in the past decade but its growth was not evenly distributed. The Region's population grew 7 percent from 1990 to 2000 but Baltimore City lost 11.5 percent of its population while Howard County's grew 32.3 percent. Almost the entire net increase in the Baltimore Region's population between 1990 and 2000 results from increases in the non-white population. With increased diversity, there is less racial segregation in the Baltimore Region now than in the past decade. Baltimore City remains the most racially segregated jurisdiction, even though it has experienced a substantial reduction since 1990. Baltimore County ranks second, followed by Harford, Anne Arundel, Howard and Carroll Counties. Howard and Anne Arundel Counties have become slightly more segregated during the last 10 years. There was substantial population mobility throughout the Baltimore Region as newcomers entered and some residents left. Every jurisdiction in the Region attracted new residents and each lost some to other places during the last half of the 1990s. All except Baltimore City had net gains, as more people entered than left. The City experienced a net loss of about 7000 people a year as more than four left for every three that came. Although the Baltimore Region is no longer a strong magnet for immigrants when compared to the other seven metropolitan regions, there was a considerable increase in the foreign- born population in the 1990s.