The District’s fast-paced population gain over the last year is part of a long turnaround from the decline American cities have been grappling with for a half-century.

Families began leaving D.C. for the spacious suburbs in the 1950s with the rise of the commuter car and interstate highway system. But the outmigration turned into an exodus following the 1968 riots and the crack cocaine epidemic in the 1980s and ’90s.

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