Why More People Are Moving to NYC Now Than Before the Pandemic

The City That Never Sleeps appears to have a population that's "waking" back up.(Source: educalingo)

The migration out of NYC seems to be reversing

New York City — "Don't call it a comeback!" L.L. Cool J once roared. Indeed, with more people moving back to the Big Apple than before COVID struck, perhaps the New York native's old lyric serves as the city's new mantra.

Rewind Father Time's hands to a year ago, and the nation was frozen by a pandemic. And as is usually the case — the city with the most people found itself affected the most.

“New York City had one of the largest declines in the first stage of the pandemic and one of the fastest rebounds,” said Rob Warnock, a researcher at Apartment List (rental search). The Upper West Side, in particular, saw more than 25,000 people leave in 2020 than in 2019.

According to Sarah Holdern of Bloomberg:

Migration out of many NYC neighborhoods has reversed. In fact, even as the city’s population is still decreasing, more households are moving into Manhattan now than were moving in before the pandemic in 2019.

As for why this latest twist seems to be the case, according to various reports: most New Yorkers that fled the city didn’t actually leave the region per se. After all, almost 80 percent of the relocators "who made permanent moves" were New Yorkers who "stayed within the New York metro area."

In short, the abrupt return to the City That Never Sleeps, by many who appeared to have fled, once again shows why "there's no place like home."