An estimated 2 million people moved away from the largest metropolitan areas in the country between 2020 and 2022 during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a report from the bipartisan Economic Innovation Group.
The report found that about 1.2 million people moved away from large urban counties in 2021, while just under 200,000 moved into those same areas. The following year, over 800,000 moved away from large urban counties while about 500,000 moved to those cities.
Los Angeles County lost almost 300,000 people from April, 2020, to July, 2022, about 3% of its total population. Chicago’s Cook County lost about 166,000 people during that same time period, which is also about 3% of its population. New York County, which encompasses Manhattan, lost about 100,000 residents or 6% of the population, and Kings County, which contains Brooklyn, New York, lost about 150,000 residents or 5% of the population.
William Frey, a senior fellow with the Brookings Institution who works as a demographer, told The Hill that “The metros, as a group, lost population for the first time since at least 1990, and probably for decades before that.”
Notably, the data shows that the regions with the most expensive housing prices in 2021 experienced the greatest loss of population.
The report concludes, “Overall, we find that large urban counties continue to lose population post-pandemic, but at a more modest pace. Consistent with this, we find work-from-home related fundamentals remained important drivers of population shifts in 2022 but less than they were in 2021.”
This has consequences for the cities experiencing the declines.
Chris Fowler, Penn State University associate professor of geography and demography, told the Hill that “it’s the offices that are empty. And what that does is, it brings down the number of people who are there during the day, and who are eating there in the evenings. Vibrant social spaces are healthy, and when we pull people and money out of those places, they don’t do as well.”
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