REPORT from a field agent in our Bureau of Socioeconomicometrics:
"It is publication time again, over at Bell Atlantic. The 1994-1995 phone book is out (technically, the Residence White Pages for the Greater Baltimore Metropolitan Area; except that Bell's calling area is distinctly smaller than the Census Bureau's Metropolitan Area). And so, it is time for the city's annual 'N numbers checkup.
"Are there more pages than last time, indicative of growth, prosperity and more dial tones? Or, unhappy thought, are there fewer pages, in token of hard times, retrenchment, a glum population?
"Statistics fans will remember that Baltimore started the decade with 1,496 pages' worth of 1990- 1991 White Pages (plus a 28-page government section). The good times rolled, and by 1992-1993, the city had broken the 1,500-mark psychological barrier and was at 1,535 pages.
"But then came the Downturn. Baltimore shrank, canceled, decamped out into the toll-call area. In 1993-1994, we were down only 1,503 pages.
"What saith the 1994-1995 book (as always, five columns of names to the page, 70 or 80 names to the column)? How pleasant to report, once again, upswing. To wit, 1,518 pages.
"Government agencies, contrary to some of the beliefs voiced on radio, fill the same, unchanged 28 pages.
"A different way of measuring is, of course, the Business Listings or front section of Bell Atlantic's Yellow Pages (there the barrier is the 500-page mark). All right, for 1991-1992, it was 418 pages; in 1994-1995, that section runs to 442 pages.
"Onward! Moreward!"
Our agent, though unaccredited at generalizing, suggests that the number of us Baltimoreans is fairly constant; somehow, we grow more and more active.