In the 1950s Baltimore was the sixth-largest city in the United States with a peak population of nearly 950,000. Now the riot-hit metropolis ranks 26th on that measure and scores as one of the less equal American cities when measured by income and educational achievement.
Despite an economic recovery in the majority black east coast city since the financial crisis, the gap between the haves and the have-nots is wide in a population that now numbers about 620,000.
In Baltimore, a household in the top 5 percent of income earners received $12.30 for each dollar earned by those in the bottom 20 percent in 2013, according to a 2014 analysis by Alan Berube and Natalie Holmes of the Brookings Institution, based on census data. By comparison, across the whole of the U.S., the top take is $9.30 for every dollar earned at the bottom.