Americans leaving urban counties reached a new high in 2021 as droves of people settled in suburban and exurban counties.
More than two-thirds of large urban counties saw their populations decline, according to a recent report by the Economic Innovation Group (EIG) that used federal statistics. This marked the first time in 50 years that counties with an urban center and more than 250,000 people experienced negative growth as a category.
While some migration patterns had been in effect before the pandemic, COVID-era remote work and delayed immigration accelerated the shift.
“The big key takeaway to me was just how dramatic the effect was in 2021," August Benzow, the lead researcher on the study, told Yahoo Finance.
This will be shocking news to statists like urban booster Will Wilkinson who said growth in urban America was the future.
