Figures released by the 2000 Census recently reveal that Washington, D.C. gained population in the last years of the 20th century-a major moment in the progression of a city that lost three times as many residents in the early 1990s as in the 1980s.
Approximately 50,000 new residents came to the District-most of them in the last few years-the Census states.
Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, D-D.C. said this figure gives "definitive and tangible evidence that D.C. has turned a sharp corner."
"The big story here is not only that D.C. has recovered from the insolvency of the 1990s, but that the District is building a vital tax base for the first time in decades," Norton said. "Many cities would have been satisfied to simply stop the hemorrhaging. Instead, since the late 90s, D.C. has been attracting and keeping residents in very impressive numbers."
The city showed a loss of population for the first time in the 1960 Census, when the D.C. decreased from 802,178 in 1950, to 763,956 that year.
D.C.'s population was higher in the 1990 Census at 606,900, than in the 2000 Census, which now reports 572,059; however the last Census figures in the 1990s reported the population at about 520,000. In the last years of the 20th century, the number jumped by 50,000 in figures reported in December.
Norton attributed the increase in population to the desirability of District neighborhoods throughout the city, traffic problems in suburbs, the city's reduced crime rate and the increased availability of affordable housing.
