Although Harford County's population crossed the 250,000 mark for the first time ever between 2013 and 2014, the county's growth rate so far this decade has been so slow that it is on a pace not seen since the 1920s.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau estimates released late last week, Harford's population stood at 250,105 as of July 1, 2014, up 5,274 since the last census was completed April 1, 2010, a gain of 2.2 percent from 244,826.
Between July 1, 2013 and last July 1, the county had a net gain of 690 residents, a growth rate of 0.3 percent year over year.
"Population growth in Harford has been slow the last several years; if you go back to the start of the Great Recession [2008-09], there has been a marked change in the rate of growth versus the period before," said Mark Goldstein, an economist with the Maryland Department of Planning, who noted Harford "isn't alone in Maryland or in the country."
But Goldstein said the slowdown in Harford still poses "a little bit of a mystery," because other suburban counties in the state began to pick up population at a faster rate the past few years, while Harford has not.
"We've see this pattern in many outer suburban and exurban rural counties," he said, but in Harford's case, "there was pretty good job growth prior to 2014, and we would have expected a little more population growth."
The job growth Harford experienced during the last decade from the base realignment that brought a number of jobs to Aberdeen Proving Ground appears to have slowed, Goldstein said.
Citing federal statistics, he said Harford had a net reduction of 300 jobs during the period January to September 2014 compared with the same nine months a year earlier. The county lost 665 civilian federal contractor jobs in the period.
Goldstein said job losses can be an indication of slower population growth or actual declines. For Harford, he said, "you are going through a period of slower growth – you aren't losing population."
More foreign migrants
Of the four years of population gains since the last census, 3,254 occurred from what the census bureau calls natural increases, births versus deaths among residents, which in Harford's case meant 11,398 births and 8,144 deaths.
The remaining 2,031 new residents came from net migration, including 1,681 residents from outside the United States and 350 from within the country.
According to the latest estimates, Maryland gained 202,855 new residents since the last census, a four-year growth rate of 3.5 percent. The state's population stood at an estimated 5,976,407 as of July 1, 2014, up from 5,773,552 in the 2010 census. Between 2013 and 2014, the state added 37,670 residents or 0.6 percent.
Goldstein said much of the growth in Maryland this decade has come from foreign immigration, with other large counties in the state seeing a much higher number of foreign-born residents moving in compared to Harford.
He also said the so-called "natural increase" in population – births over deaths – is slowing across the state, an indicator of an aging population that isn't just happening in Maryland, but across the United States as a whole.
In 2013, the latest year for which figures are available, the Census Bureau estimated 23.3 percent of Harford's residents were under the age of 18, while 14.1 percent were over 65. Statewide, the percentages were 22.7 percent and 13.4 percent, respectively, but Harford also had a lower percentage of residents under the age of 5 at 5.6 percent, compared to the statewide average of 6.2 percent.
Goldstein said the multi-year decline in public school enrollment in Harford is a sign of the county's aging and that it's not bringing in significant numbers of new residents through migration or births. Harford school officials have said their projections don't foresee a pick-up in enrollment the remainder of this decade.
The county has also seen a slowdown in new housing construction that stretches back into the last decade, which Goldstein said is an indication that "the demand is not there," primarily for economic reasons, and that's another reason there hasn't been population growth at the rate of previous decades.
He said Maryland was seeing people move out at a rapid pace before the recession, at which point the trend came to a standstill. In past two years, however, he said out-migration has begun to pick up.
Others grow faster
While Harford has slowly gained more residents during the current decade, several other counties in the state are growing at a faster pace, in particular Frederick County, which ranks just behind Harford in population. Frederick's population grew by 4.4 percent, to 243,675 residents, according to the census estimates. Frederick's public school system also passed Harford's in enrollment this decade, 40,737 versus 37,543, according to figures reported by each system.
Among Maryland's six most populous jurisdictions above Harford, Howard County had the highest growth rate since the last census, 7.7 percent to 309,284 residents as of last July, followed by a 6 percent growth rate in Montgomery, the state's most populous county, estimated at 1,030,447 residents. Charles County grew 5.6 percent to 154,747 and St. Mary's County grew 5 percent to 110,382.
Prince George's County grew at a 4.7 percent rate, to 904,430 residents, and Anne Arundel County grew at a 4.2 percent rate, to 560,133 residents. Conversely, Carroll County's growth rate was just 0.4 percent to 167,830.
Baltimore County's four-year growth rate was 2.7 percent to 826,925 residents, and Baltimore City's population grew by just 0.3 percent to 622,973 residents.
Among Harford County's other neighbors, Cecil County's growth rate was lower at 1.3 percent to 102,383, as was York County, Pa.'s rate of 1.3 percent to 440,785.
Back to the 1920s
If the trend in the first four years of this decade continues, Harford County is on pace to experience its lowest percentage gain in population for a decade since the one that preceded the Great Depression.
In the decade between 2000 and 2010, Harford's population grew 10.7 percent from 218,590 to 244,826, the smallest 10-year percentage gain since 1930-40, when the gain was 10.9 percent.
The last time Harford's population growth rate from census to census fell below 10 percent was between 1920 and 1930, when it was 7.8 percent. The previous decade, the growth rate was 4.7 percent, while the county lost about 1 percent of its population between 1900 and 1910, according to census records.
Goldstein said it might be too early to write off the 2010s as a lost decade for growth in Harford, given than the census estimates are just that, estimates, and thus far amount to only four years of 10.
He conceded, however, that a few more years of 0.3 percent growth like the past year, and it will be difficult to reach the 10 percent mark when the next census is taken in 2020.
Harford County's population 1900-2014:
2014 – 250,105
2010 – 244,826
2000 – 218,590
1990 – 182,132
1980 – 145,930
1970 – 115,378
1960 – 76,722
1950 – 51,732
1940 – 35,060
1930 – 31,603
1920 – 29,291
1910 – 27,965
1900 – 28,269