The populations of Howard County’s biggest places are trending in opposite directions. Ellicott City grew in 2023; Columbia shrank, new population counts released last week show.

Ellicott City added about 1,300 people, a growth rate of nearly 2%, but its Hispanic population shrank, bucking a trend seen in many places across Maryland where gains in the Hispanic population offset losses in white and Black populations. The data comes from the Census Bureau’s 2023 American Community Survey, released last week.

Ellicott City added about 1,400 white residents and 400 Black residents but lost around 900 Hispanic residents. Overall, about 75,000 people lived in Ellicott City last year, up from 73,200 in 2022.

Its largest growth came from the Asian population, which grew by 1,500 people, an increase of about 6.7%. During that same time, the city lost a third of both its multiracial and Hispanic populations. Overall, Howard County saw sizable increases to its Hispanic, multiracial and Asian populations, offsetting losses to both its white and Black populations.

Communities of color are leaving some parts of Howard County for more affordable housing, said Gabriel Moreno, chief executive officer of Luminus, a Columbia-based nonprofit that helps immigrants from over 90 countries settle in Central Maryland. For Hispanic residents, it could be a move to communities with larger Hispanic populations.

A person’s decision whether to move to the county or not often boils down to housing affordability, Moreno said.

“It feels like we might be pricing people out,” Moreno said.

A needs assessment report issued every three years by the Community Action Council of Howard County, an antipoverty nonprofit, found that housing — whether renting or owning — is much higher in Howard County than in the rest of Maryland.

The median gross rent in Howard County was $1,916 in December 2023, when the report was last issued, compared to $1,550 for the state as a whole.

Howard County also has some of the highest median home sale prices of any county in Maryland, according to housing sales data from Maryland Realtors, a member-directed association of Maryland-based Realtors.

The median value of a home sold in Howard County in July was $624,000, about $150,000 higher than Anne Arundel’s $475,000. In Baltimore County, the median sale price was $343,500, and it was $220,000 in Baltimore City. July is the most recent month with available data.

Immigrants also flock to areas where their community is, Moreno said.

“You find yourself in spaces where you feel comfortable living,” he added.

Ellicott City’s Koreatown is a good example of this.

Hearing there is a Koreatown, whether a potential resident is Korean or part of the Asian, Asian American, Pacific Islander diaspora, Moreno said, many will move there because they know it’s a place where they can access resources, receive help and assistance and look like their neighbors. The Asian population in Ellicott City grew in 2023.

There were only 11 places in Maryland that met the 65,000 population threshold for this Census release. Among those, Columbia was one of just three which lost population. The other two were Baltimore City and Waldorf, which lost 2.2% of its total population, making it the fastest-shrinking large city in Maryland. Dundalk, in Baltimore County, also shrank, but it’s unclear exactly how much. It had an estimated 66,500 people in 2022, but fell below the 65,000 threshold in 2023, meaning it lost at least 1,500 people.

Columbia shrank by about 350 people, or less than half a percent. But just because the population overall was flat doesn’t mean nothing changed there. Its population trends were more in line with Maryland and Howard County as a whole. About 101,000 people lived in Columbia in 2023.

Columbia is a very diverse place. No one race was a majority of the population. In 2023, it lost nearly 2,200 people from its white population, its largest racial group. It also lost a significant part of its Asian population, roughly 2,400 people or 17.6%. Columbia’s Black and multiracial populations grew enough to mitigate those losses. Each group grew by more than 2,000 people. The Black population increased by 8%. The multiracial population increased by 43%.

This release has a relatively large margin of error for population estimates, especially for geographies with fewer people. The Census Bureau reports 90% confidence that the estimates fall within their margin of error figures, but in some cases those ranges can be quite wide. The figures provided are estimates, and exact numbers shouldn’t be taken as hard and fast population counts. In the cases discussed here, the figures represent long-standing trends in population change in Maryland.

Correction: This story has been updated to correct a median home price for Anne Arundel County.