Of the four cities whose football teams played for league championships yesterday, Baltimore was the only one to steadily lose population through the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s. Boston, New York and San Francisco all lost thousands of residents in the three decades after World War II, but they began to grow again after 1980, say Steve Hanke, professor of applied economics at Johns Hopkins, and Steve Walters, a fellow at JHU's Institute for Applied Economics, Global Health, and Study of Business Enterprise. (This WSJ op ed piece is behind a paywall.)
The key variable, they say, was a substantial decline in property taxes. Real estate taxes fell in Boston, New York and San Francisco thanks to tax revolts or other factors. But not in Baltimore. Say Hanke and Walters:
"The results leave no doubt about which strategy is more effective. Baltimore's real, median household income has been stagnant for the last three decades. New York's has risen 22% while Boston's and San Francisco's have soared by half. Baltimore's 2009 homicide rate was 4.7 times Boston's and 6.7 times New York's and San Francisco's."