The Washington Post
By Tara Bahrampour
May 18, 2023 at 12:46 a.m. EDT

Many of the nation’s most populous cities shrank when covid struck, causing speculation about whether the change would be permanent. But those cities are for the most part rebounding, according to new data released by the Census Bureau on Thursday.

Most of the 37 cities with more than 500,000 people saw demographic slowdowns in the first year of the pandemic, with the most severe declines in San Francisco, which lost 6.79 percent of its population, and New York City, which lost 3.22 percent. But between July 2021 and July 2022, all but six had improved their trajectory, either by resuming growth, increasing growth, or slowing their decline, the bureau’s latest Vintage 2022 population estimates show.

The 10 most populous cities — those with more than 1 million residents at the start of the pandemic — did the best, with nine out of 10 showing demographic improvement. (Only Philadelphia did not.) The turnarounds spanned the country, with the largest in San Francisco, Seattle, Nashville, Boston, New York City, San Jose, Dallas and Milwaukee, according to an analysis of the data by William Frey, a senior demographer at the Brookings Institution.

Less populous cities, on the other hand, have not seen the same level of revival: Only about half of those with populations between 50,000 and 500,000 did better last year than the previous year. “Fewer of these smaller areas took the big hits of larger cities, and many experienced pandemic-era increases which could be eroding somewhat in the past year,” Frey said.

At the beginning of the pandemic, when many workers who were able to telecommute fled crowded cities for the suburbs or rural areas, businesses and demographers were left guessing whether the moves would be permanent. The new data implies they were not. But regaining population does not necessarily mean that city centers will bounce back.

“We’re talking about whole cities, not just downtowns,” Frey said. “Especially in big cities, where downtown is a big part of the commercial but not a big part of the residential, you still have a lot of people working from home.”

Immigration has also increased in the past year and immigrants tend to head to larger cities, Frey said. Last year immigrant population inflow to many large cities rebounded to levels not seen since the Obama administration.

In many metropolitan areas, the curtailment of the city exodus coincided with a slowdown in suburban growth. Fewer than half of the suburbs in 56 metropolitan areas with populations over 1 million saw bigger gains or fewer losses last year, Frey’s analysis found.

D.C. grew last year by 0.5 percent, a slightly higher rate than its suburbs. The Washington metro area overall gained 8,849 people (+.14 percent) last year, after losing 1,772 (-0.3 percent) the year before, according to census data released earlier this year.

D.C., Arlington County and the city of Alexandria all gained population last year after shrinking the year before. Arlington gained 426 people (+0.2 percent) after losing 5,225 (-2.2 percent), Alexandria gained 322 (+0.2 percent) after losing 3,922 (-2.5 percent), and D.C. gained 3,012 (+0.5 percent) after losing 2,077 (-0.3 percent), according to an analysis Frey did of that data.

In San Francisco, where both the city and its suburbs had shrunk, suburban declines are now slightly greater than those of the city, which shrank by only a third of a percentage point last year. Suburbs of New York City also showed notable declines, with Suffolk County losing 7,653 (-0.5 percent) last year after gaining 11,168 (+0.7 percent) the year before. Nassau and Westchester also shrank significantly compared with the previous year.

The growth may yet increase, Frey said, noting that the numbers released Thursday roughly reflect the second year of the pandemic, when many people were still being cautious. “When the pandemic is on the back burner for many of these people, there may be more coming down the road.”