It's Tuesday, mate. I'm oscar mirrors from the Daily Dive podcast in Los Angeles, and this is reopening America. New census figures are showing that big cities have been in a decline. The largest cities lost a greaterst share of people than small and midsized ones. New York, San Jose, and Chicago saw the greatest numbers of people leaving, while Texas and Arizona had seven of the ten fastest growing cities. All of these migrations were accelerated by the pandemic and
work from home capabilities. Paul Overburg Report at The Wall Street Journal joins us for why people are leaving. Thanks for joining us, Paul, thanks for having me. Well, let's talk about some of the demographic changes that we saw in big cities throughout the pandemic. You know, at the very beginning of the pandemic, we started seeing this migration out of big cities, especially once worked from home and the remote work thing really started getting into into action.
But that trend ended up continuing. We saw a lot of big cities, especially on the coast, to people moving inland to cheaper, bigger homes, things like that. But it seemed to have been a trend that continued throughout the pandemic. So Paul, tell us what we're seeing there. Well, the Census Bureau has just released new population estimates for cities for the year that ended last July one, so effectively the first year of the pandemic, and these estimates show
that that s and D that trend has continued. The biggest cities have had major losses of to three percent of their populations from the mid and even smaller mid midsize cities half a million to a million. A lot of those, even ones that have been growing in the years before that, so are small losses or basically flat growth. And so where did we see the biggest losses? Any cities in particular that saw the biggest migrations out New
York and San Francisco sort of stood out. New York plus three and a half percent of its residents in a year, what's about a third of a million people. San Francisco lost more than ex percent, which is not as many people against San Francisco smaller. But you can see smaller losses all around the Bay Area, in the cities around that area, including areas that have been growing.
So it's not just the core cities themselves. You can see the same sort of pattern in cities like Los Angeles and Chicago, and even on down the line if you go to places like Nashville or Seattle and Atlanta and Denver, places that were growing up until the last couple of years. And it's not just the pandemic. There were some signs of this starting even in before the pandemic,
a combination of other demographic factors. Part of it is peak numbers of baby boomers are now reaching retirement age, and uh they find that they can sort of tash out of owning a home for ten or twenty years and moved to a less congested, slower paced place with a lot less expense. At the same time, millennials. Millennials are exactly right in getting time for the families and looking for that bigger space for those growing parts of it.
They were also a big part of people moving out right. Millennials, the oldest millennials are now reaching their mid thirties, and they didn't didn't marry and have children at the same pace at earlier generations did. But now because there's so many of them, they're having an impact on things like the housing market, especially the house a housing market for places where you'd raise a family with more space and
good school districts and things like that. So that's a piece of this movement that was already starting, and the pandemic is just sort of accelerated. Now more people are participating in this move for those reasons, but also because they weren't enough space to be able to work from home if that's an option with their employer, and where are a lot of these people going to. Texas and Arizona had seven of the top ten fastest growing cities with fifty people or more between one, so Texas and
Zona getting a big chunk of those people. Florida and Tennessee also in these top ten cities, right, you can see a lot of the cities that are growing fast. Obviously, they're at the small end of that range, that fifty thousand. The census spirit uses to kind of sort of set a floor on this places that are out and sort of what you might think of his ex urban locations
around uh say, these major areas. So a fair number of spring Hill, Tennessee, which is you know, well outside Nashville, and Buckeye, Arizona, which is well outside Phoenix and several other places around Phoenix on the outskirts and the edges of it, like places that are now are actually fair size cities you may not have heard of, like places
like Goodyear and Buck and Eye. Right, Yeah, and so you spoke to a lot of people that made these moves, that made these moves to different states and cities completely and for the most part, they're very happy with the changes there. Their houses are bigger now, their mortgages are they feel might be a little more pro read because of the interest rates and stuff like that. So a
lot of them very happy with the moves. Right. My colleague Janet Atomy spoke with a couple of folks, one family that moved from Portland, Oregon to a little bit e town on the upper Peninsula of Michigan and was very happy with all the changes in their life because they've got more room and they can do She and her husband can work remotely. So yeah, there's a lot of families sort of reaching the transition points in their lives, and the pandemic sort of nudge some people or pushed
some people to sort of make decisions and make moves. Yeah, definitely, I mean the work from home thing has been a big game changer for a lot of people, and they've taken advantage of it. So, I mean there's a lot of It's a big common theme we heard throughout the pandemic. So we'll keep seeing if these trends do continue. Paul Overberg, reporter at the Wall Street Journal, thank you very much for joining us. Thanks for having me. I'm Oscar Ramiers
and this has been reopening America. Don't forget that. For today's big news stories, you can check me out on the Daily Dive podcast every Monday through Friday. So follow us on I Heart Radio or wherever you get your podcast.