The 'magic bullet' driving post-pandemic population revival of major US urban centers

Major cities around the country are experiencing a post-pandemic population revival, with immigrants driving much of the growth, according to a report released this week.

The analysis by The Brookings Institution, gleaned from U.S. Census Bureau national, state, county and city data released earlier this year, shows pandemic-related population losses subsiding in places like New York, Los Angeles and Chicago, while in some cases – such as in San Francisco and Washington, D.C. – turning into pre-pandemic-level gains.

“The new Census Bureau numbers make the case that major metro areas and cities are showing signs of coming back,” Brookings senior fellow William Frey wrote in the report.

The results, he said, indicate that while a full post-pandemic recovery remains years away, improvement in some of the areas hit hardest by COVID-19 is fairly widespread.

Immigration most benefited urban centers

The analysis found that 40 of 56 metro areas with populations of more than 1 million grew more from July 2022 to July 2023 than in the two previous years. That included seven of the nation’s 10 largest metro areas – New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, Boston, Miami and Washington.

Births outnumbered deaths nearly everywhere, the report said, but it was changing domestic migration patterns, especially a rise in international immigration, that made the difference.

Immigration from abroad rose considerably over the past two years after nearly historically low levels in 2020-2021, with urban areas the greatest beneficiaries. The 20 metro areas with the most immigrants from 2021 to 2023 represented three fifths of total U.S. immigrant gains despite comprising just 36% of the overall U.S. population.

And 11 metro areas – including Seattle, Boston and Miami – would have lost population over that time had it not been for immigration.

“The rise in immigration from abroad was a unique and demographically welcome contributor,” the report read, noting that such growth will likely continue to drive urban economic vitality. “…. International migration appears to be the ‘magic bullet’ not previously foreseen.”

From 2020 to 2021, it said, the 56 metro areas with populations of 1 million or more saw their first loss as a group in 30 years, driven by a pandemic-related shift to virtual work. But those areas, the data showed, grew by a collective 527,000 residents in 2022 and another 870,000 in 2023.

COVID deaths, low fertility rates also fueled population loss

Ken Johnson, a professor of sociology at the University of New Hampshire, said other forces beyond out-migration contributed to the population decrease in urban centers in the early 2020s, including natural decrease – in other words, when the number of deaths exceed births.

“Some 75% of all U.S. counties experienced natural decrease between 2020-2023,” Johnson said. “This far exceeds any historical period.”

Though much of that was a result of COVID-19-related deaths, Johnson noted that fertility rates have also been historically low, particularly among women under 30.

“Without significant natural increase, the growth or decline of a place depends increasingly on migration – both domestic and international,” he said. “Whether these young women are delaying these births or will forgo them entirely remains to be seen, but many are reaching the end of their prime childbearing years.”

The 2010s saw cities and urban cores experience growth spurts in the wake of the Great Recession of 2007-2009 as economically strapped and jobless young adults moved to suburban and urban areas. That growth slowed as the economy and the suburban housing market picked up, prompting migration to the inner and then outer suburbs.

The trend was hastened by the pandemic and remote-work technologies, with San Francisco and New York as prime examples of emptying cities. But the data shows those cities bouncing back and places like Cook County (Chicago), Denver County, Milwaukee County and Washington, D.C., turning their losses into gains.

Immigration also key to Chinatowns' survival

Gary McDonogh, Helen Herrman Professor and Chair of the Growth and Structure of Cities program at Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania, said the Brookings analysis was important “because it focuses us on the 600,000 to 1 million legal immigrants who arrive each year who are highly vetted and bring skills, capital and often family ties that revitalize cities and suburbs.”

McDonogh, who studies Chinatowns, said such neighborhoods depend on immigrants to stay vital. They often absorb Latino immigrants as employees to stay afloat and also more easily absorb Chinese immigrants who arrive as refugees, he said.

“These new immigrants may settle in suburban areas or participate in the gentrification of older downtown Chinatowns,” McDonogh said. “Together, they revitalize Chinatowns as service hubs.”

Additionally, he said, they can attract domestic migrants by making big cities more cosmopolitan and global.

Migration to non-metropolitan areas drives growth

The Brookings report also found high levels of domestic migration contributing to positive demographic shifts in non-metropolitan areas – even more so than immigration from abroad. The growth reflected a sharp reversal of negative or minuscule gains for those areas in the 2010s, more than offsetting pandemic-related natural decrease.

Johnson, of the University of New Hampshire, said nonmetropolitan growth is heavily concentrated in recreational and retirement areas that have traditionally received migrants from urban ones, as well as nonmetro areas just beyond metropolitan outer edges.

“A key question to be resolved is how many domestic migrants from metro areas who might have been able to move there because of remote work will choose to stay in these areas,” he said.