Most large American cities are continuing to lose people, the U.S. Census Bureau reported last week, even as many smaller and mid-sized counties are growing. And while politicians (and, increasingly, billionaire investors) like to make hay over the cultural and economic reasons for moving, the most striking aspect of the U.S.’s shifting population isn’t which counties are losing people. It’s the sheer number that are experiencing population loss.
Consider that 48 of West Virginia’s 55 counties lost people, as did 56 of Louisiana’s 64 parishes. A majority of the counties in Iowa, Ohio, Mississippi and North Dakota lost population. Northern New England grew, as remote workers fled the expensive metro areas of the Northeast in search of more rustic accommodations. But almost all of upstate New York shrank, as did Western Massachusetts. Even in fast-growing Texas, most of the arid western counties and much of South Texas lost people. So did big stretches of rural Pennsylvania, southwestern Virginia, and all of Puerto Rico.
Some transition of population from place to place is healthy and natural, and the pandemic induced large dislocations in working habits and daily life. And in some expensive metro areas, such as New York and San Francisco, some population loss may be beneficial.
