Philadelphia experienced steady growth between 1860 and 1950, except for a brief lull in the 1930s, which was due in part to the Great Depression. Its population peaked at 2,071,605 in 1950. Between 1950 and 2000, the city lost 554,055 people, or 26.7% of its population. To put this into perspective, Chicago lost 20.0% of its population during the same era, and Baltimore lost 31.4%, according to US Census data. This nationwide trend is often referred to as "white flight", named for the movement of upper- and middle-class white families from the increasingly racially diverse cities in favor of more racially homogeneous suburbs.