Major cities in the United States lost residents during the pandemic

According to the United States Census Bureau, the first full year of the pandemic (which runs from mid-2020 to mid-2021), the country's main urban centers significantly decreased their number of residents due to internal migration, which largely went south of the nation.

The exodus from the main cities of the country was noticed most dramatically in New York City, which during the period in question lost about 328 thousand inhabitants, according to the census. The census concludes that inhabitants were lost due to internal migration in the country because the number of births in that year exceeded the number of deaths in the city (including the huge number of deaths as a result of COVID-19).

But the phenomenon is not only in the cold northeast of the country. People also left cities that many consider to have perfect climates in California: Los Angeles lost 176,000 residents during that year and San Francisco lost 116,000 residents. It is clear that people did not escape from snow, but from high living costs. The fourth city on the list, Chicago, lost at least 90,000 residents that year.

On the contrary, urban centers in the south-central part of the country saw their population grow enormously. The city of Dallas, Texas, is the one that saw the highest growth with 97,000 new residents between 2020 and 2021. It is followed by Phoenix, in Arizona, with an increase of 78,000 people, and in third place is Houston, also in Texas, which added 69,000 residents. Florida was the state that received the highest number of new residents, but these were spread among several cities with Miami, Tampa and Orlando being the ones with the largest new population.

According to the census, the phenomenon in Phoenix was solely due to the arrival of residents from other parts of the country. In Dallas and Houston it was a combination of internal migration with the fact that in that year deaths exceeded deaths.

Cities like Dallas, Phoenix and Houston all have one thing in common: the low cost of living compared to New York or Los Angeles. The average price of an apartment in Manhattan is one million dollars, according to the specialized site Zillow. In Dallas, the average value of a house is $201,000, according to the same website. While salaries tend to be higher in New York, the wage gap is not that big. And to that is added the possibility for many to work remotely. Winning New York wages with the Texas cost of living was a winning formula for many.

But the census also indicates another phenomenon: that of micro-areas gaining ground. Micro-areas are defined as urban centers with up to 50 thousand inhabitants. After years of population loss, between mid-2020 and mid-2021, these areas grew according to the census exclusively on the basis of internal migration, since contrary to what happened in large urban centers, deaths in micro-areas exceeded births. The three micro-areas that gained the most population were Kalispell, in Montana, Jefferson, in Georgia, and Bozeman, also in Montana.

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