Census data show an exodus from big cities in 2020-21; pandemic, living cost, remote work, politics all played roles

Net domestic migration per 1,000 residents from July 1, 2020 to June 30, 2021
Business Insider map using Census Bureau data; click the image to enlarge it or click here for the interactive version.

Newly released Census Bureau data show a mass exodus from the largest U.S. cities in the year that ended June 30, 2021. "At the same time, smaller metro areas, as a group, experienced higher population growth than in each of the previous two years, while non-metropolitan America showed the greatest annual population gain in more than a decade," William H. Frey reports for Brookings Institution. "The demographic shifts revealed by the latest census population estimates are not just a continuation of past trends. The sharp domestic out-migration from the nation’s major metro areas and urban core counties in the 2020-21 pandemic year was unusually large, even when compared with the previous year and the modest growth declines in the last half of the 2010s. As a result of out-migration from these areas, many smaller metro areas and rural counties experienced higher growth than in previous years."

Americans' reasons for moving during the pandemic varied, and it was often a combination of factors; some wanted to take advantage of remote work opportunities and get out of crowded, expensive cities they perceived as more vulnerable to the coronavirus, and some felt the pandemic was a wake-up call to pursue a slower, more meaningful life, Madison Hoff reports for Business Insider.

Politics may have motivated some to move. "America is growing more geographically polarized — red ZIP codes are getting redder and blue ZIP codes are becoming bluer. People appear to be sorting," John Burnett reports for NPR. "Residents have been fleeing states like California with high taxes, expensive real estate and school mask mandates and heading to conservative strongholds like Idaho, Tennessee and Texas." Bill Bishop first spotlighted this trend in his 2008 book The Big Sort: Why the Clustering of Like-minded America is Tearing Us Apart.