Even before Covid, 2,600 people per week were leaving New York

Photographer: Nina Westervelt / Bloomberg

Whether it is wealthy people fleeing to their second homes or students forced to return to their parents, the coronavirus has sparked a great migration to the United States this year. But in many cases, this only amplifies trends that already existed.

New York, for example, was losing 376 residents per day to internal migration in 2019 – an increase of more than 100 per day from the previous year – before becoming the epicenter of the virus outbreak in the country in March of this year, according to the latest US Census Bureau survey of population changes.

“New York’s population decline deepened before Covid,” said Justin Hollander, professor of urban and environmental policy and planning at Tufts University in Massachusetts. “It will definitely accelerate as preferences for low density environments boost populations.”

The shrinking of New York would be significantly faster without international arrivals. Last year, nearly 60,000 cross-border migrants settled there (only Miami had more) while 200,000 residents left.

Los Angeles and Chicago were among the other cities to register triple-digit daily departures last year. Both have lost population since 2017. That’s at least somewhat at odds with a widespread Covid narrative that depicts booming cities at the expense of small towns until the pandemic hits.

Hollander points out that long-term trends prior to the pandemic show no signs of ebbing, including the lure of Sun Belt towns in the south and southwest and the displacement of retirees out of urban centers.

New York has been the most populous city in all censuses since the late 1700s, and it is likely to retain that top spot for decades to come. Elsewhere in the top 10, there’s been a lot of churn.

Cities shrink when deaths exceed births and / or residents leave. While the pandemic is likely to trigger a change of pace, urban areas are less likely to stray from the trajectory – dynamic or declining – in which they were previously.

Some effects of the pandemic may extend from coast to coast. For example, Philip Cohen – professor of sociology at the University of Maryland – highlights early indications of an upcoming decline in births. Monthly data in California and Florida suggests they are lagging behind previous years.

The six U.S. cities that saw more than 100 people arriving per day in 2019 were all in the south, with Phoenix and Dallas leading the way. In percentage terms, Austin experienced the fastest growing among the 100 largest metropolitan areas with a population increase of 2.84%.

All of the 100 largest cities have seen a net increase in international migration, except McAllen, Texas; Las Vegas and Boise City, Idaho. The latter two, however, were among the top 10 for internal migration.

Tax base

Municipal governments, focused on their ability to generate income, must take into account the incomes of those who leave as well as their aggregate numbers. This is potentially another concern for New York City, where residents earning $ 100,000 or more make up 80% of the income tax base, according to the Manhattan Institute think tank.

Read more: New York fears top 1% will leak

A recent A survey found that high-income New Yorkers have reported a decline in their quality of life since the start of the pandemic. There too, maybe something was already happening.

Bloomberg Analysis Income tax returns from people who migrated from state to state suggest that New York state lost a total of $ 9.6 billion in resident income during the 2016 and 2017 reporting years. Data shows that for every dollar of income brought into the state by a newcomer, $ 1.80 went the other way.

For more data on how the population has changed in the 100 largest metropolitan areas in the United States due to migration, click here. For data on the changes induced by births and deaths, click on here.