As Housing Market Cooled, Fewer New Yorkers Left for Exurbs

Courtesy Speko's Flickr.

Make room, please: The outward migration of New Yorkers relocating to the exburbs has been dramatically reversed. According to recent census data, between '07 and '08 NYC had the smallest out-migration since at least 1990, and it's part of what may be a nationwide reversal of a decade-long trend, which saw major cities losing residents to cheaper housing and job opportunities in smaller communities. A Brookings Institution analysis has found that the population growth in urban areas mirrors a slowdown in migration magnets like Riverside-San Bernardino, which recorded the first migration loss since the mid-1990s.

As of July 1st, 2008, the census counted 8,363,710 New Yorkers, an increase of 355,000, or 4.4%, since April 2000. NYC residents now account for nearly 43 percent of the state’s population. Joseph Salvo, New York City’s chief demographer, tells the Times, "This is new, a real deviation from the average. Whether it’s a trend is another thing." Because it only includes half of 2008, the latest data does not reflect the impact of the most recent job losses. Kenneth Johnson, a sociology professor at the University of New Hampshire, breaks it down:

Those leaving metro cores tend to be in their 30s and 40s with children, so the housing market, particularly selling houses, is a big deal to them. The slowdown of the housing market has essentially frozen them in place. As a result, big metro cores are losing fewer people and continuing to gain young ones...This is one of the most complex patterns of migration change in a short period that I have seen in 30 years.

According to USA Today, even San Francisco attracted more people from other parts of the country than it lost, for the first time in 18 years! Here in the Big Apple, the city grew by nearly 54,000 between July 2007 and July 2008, with Brooklyn boasting the biggest surge. During '07, 76,000 more people left the city for other states than arrived from other states, but that's significantly less than the annual average of 148,000 since 2000. If that trend continues, the city’s population will top 8.4 million in 2010. Which shouldn't be a problem; all these numbers are making us horny.

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By John Del Signore in News on March 19, 2009 4:27 PM

Comments [rss]

rcltrh

People can't move because they can't sell that 800K studio they stupidly bought at the height of the market.

kissel

finally, someone got it. gold-star.

angry_pickle

all these numbers are making us horny.

Why would it make you horny? Because it implies there are a lot more fresh young innocent things that you can prey on?

Felix Hoenikker

All those Carrie Bradshaw wannabees will have to work a lot harder to get by when they migrate here. And by work, I mean fuck older rich guys.

babyhitler

you have to have a certain mindset to live in the burbs. I once lived there one summer and it drove me insane. You have to have a spouse and you have to fuck like 3 times a day to make it work, otherwise forget it.

NannyState

I always knew you were into banging suburban housewives.

Steven

The major difference is you have to go out and find things to do in the suburbs (they are things to do - a lot). The problem is most people are too lazy to find interesting things to do. Also you absolutely must need a car to get around. In the city it's just a hop on the bus and subway and you're there - most parts anyway. Some places in Staten Island and Eastern Queens look like the suburbs.

ANGRYGOD11

Surburbs aren't the paradise people once thought they were. A lot of them are in heavy debt and without a solid tax base.

Trilby16

And now you couldn't move if your life depended on it.

zpk

Fewer. Fewer New Yorkers left.

Steven

This is because of the sub prime mortgage crisis. People wanted a house with the backyard and some land so they moved outside of the city. Over the last decade a good portion of places that were though to be way too far to live and commute into the city turned in a suburban (NW NJ, North of I-287 and into CT).