Tens of thousands of residents left some of the biggest and most densely populated metropolitan cities during the first year of the Covid pandemic from mid-2020 to mid-2021.
New data released by the U.S. Census Bureau shows that people are leaving costly cities in favor of Sunbelt destinations.
Population trends of migrating to the South and to the West were intensified by the Covid pandemic. Covid also intensified a slowdown in growth in the biggest American cities.
New York lost the most residents, seeing an exodus of 328,000 residents, driven by people leaving for other cities. However, the metropolitan area also gained new residents who moved there from abroad, and births outpaced deaths.
In Los Angeles, almost 176,000 residents left. San Francisco saw about 116,000 leave, and Chicago lost more than 91,000. Boston, Washington, Miami, and San Jose all lost tens of thousands of residents as well.
Some smaller cities grew. Dallas gained 97,000 residents, and Phoenix greeted about 78,000 new residents. Houston got another 69,000 people. Dallas and Houston’s population growths were from a combination of migration as well as births outpacing deaths, and Phoenix grew in population due to people relocating there from other American cities.
Micro areas, as in cities that have less than 50,000 at their core, gained populations as well in the year after years of slow growth and declining populations. People moved to smaller cities, and deaths outpaced births in the majority of those places.
Some experts predict that the growth of micro areas and decreases in the bigger cities will be a temporary shift. Some also point to the lowest levels of immigration in decades, and how that affects big metropolitan areas.
Covid also meant a stark increase in deaths outpacing births, with about 75 percent of counties experiencing a natural decrease due to deaths.
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