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> About 3.57 million people left New York City this year between Jan. 1 and Dec. 7, according to Unacast, which analyzed anonymized cell phone location data. So

by ruddct 6y ago

> About 3.57 million people left New York City this year between Jan. 1 and Dec. 7, according to Unacast, which analyzed anonymized cell phone location data. Some 3.5 million people earning lower average incomes moved into the city during that same period, the report showed. Uhhh I'd take this with a HEAVY grain of salt, given that it's based off of anonymized cell phone location data. Were this true, 40% of NYC's population has turned over in the past year, which feels like absolute nonsense from anecdotal experience.

CydeWeys 6y ago
It's absolute nonsense from my anecdotal experience here in NYC as well. I don't even see how it's remotely possible for a full 40% of NYC's population to have turned over in the span of 9 months. New lease signings are down, not up many hundreds of percentage points! Every single thing that would have to be true for this to be true as well, isn't. It's bad methodology from one company trying to get its name in the news and then a media outlet running an uncritical article using this as fact. We just had an election. Go look at the voter rolls and who actually voted, and for the absentee ballots, where the absentee ballots were sent. There's no way in hell 40% of the voter rolls have turned over since the last time we held an election. The data is out there to easily disprove this ridiculous notion.
- throwaway2245 6y ago
  > Go look at the voter rolls I used to do this, and can report the area of London that I lived in turned over 25% of its (voting) residents in a typical 12 month period: that is, before coronavirus time! They may have relocated within London, of course. I assume that New York City is comparable in this respect. Further assumptions: People not vote-registered are likely to turn over even quicker than that. People who you know personally are more likely to be settled and therefore less likely to move out, just by statistical virtue of having any such personal connection - your anecdotal data will be extremely biased by this.
  - CydeWeys 6y ago
    You need to look further into the voter rolls and actually correlate voters by identity. 25% moving within the city every year doesn't count; the linked article is talking about "Fleeing New Yorkers", not "New Yorkers moving between neighborhoods" (which is commonplace, unremarkable, and doesn't affect NYC's tax revenue in any way). What we care about here is people that actually moved out of the city entirely, or that moved into the city entirely from elsewhere, not typical movement within the city. If the article is including normal movement within the city in its 40% figure then it's being extremely misleading.
    - throwaway2245 6y ago
      My point is that I do not find it remarkable for that number to be higher than 25% during this period, nor would it be remarkable if more of that churn of people were moving in and out of the city rather than within. (you misrepresent what I said about that). So the article's reporting fits within my expectation - also noting that a net change of 70,000 people is very small. The voter rolls will significantly lag outside of election day and - again - is much less likely to include transient residents who won't bother to register, so it's no more likely to be a complete reflection of what has happened than the cellphone data source used here. Something like 40% of the NYC population is not registered to vote.
      - CydeWeys 6y ago
        Everything you're saying here is reasonable/plausible. But it's not at all what the linked article says; it says that there was 40% turn-over of people leaving and entering the city, which is absurd. The first sentence is literally "Millions of people have moved out of New York City during the pandemic, but at the same time, millions of others with lower incomes have taken their place". Not moved within the city, moved out of the city, and being replaced by other lower-income people. That is all completely made up and wrong. I'm not misrepresenting you; rather, you're misrepresenting the article. The article is indefensibly wrong.
        6y ago
- pc86 6y ago
  I might be misunderstanding you, but doesn't lease signings being down support the argument that a large subset of NYC residents have left?
  - CydeWeys 6y ago
    New lease signings, not renewals. Most NYC residents live in their apartment for a lot longer than one year. If 40% of leases had truly turned over then we would be at record highs in new lease signings. But we're not; they're down. That indicates reduced turn-over if anything, plus also some net emigration (but nothing close to these double digit figures).
  - roganartu 6y ago
    I admittedly have not looked at the data, but I would have a _very_ hard time believing that the total population of NYC is down 40% based on what I see outside my window and while moving around the city (eg to the go the gym etc). The city feels a little quieter than it normally is, but certainly not the ghost town that a 40% population reduction would be. It follows from that observation that, if 40% of the population did indeed leave, that they would have to have been replaced by people moving into the city. New lease signings being down suggests this is not the case. As an anecdote, about 10% of the apartments in my building that I can see out my window are empty (normally ~1-2% are at any given time). The buildings across the street (which are mostly owner-occupied) are all still occupied.

by ruddct 6y ago

CydeWeys 6y ago

It's absolute nonsense from my anecdotal experience here in NYC as well. I don't even see how it's remotely possible for a full 40% of NYC's population to have turned over in the span of 9 months. New lease signings are down, not up many hundreds of percentage points! Every single thing that would have to be true for this to be true as well, isn't. It's bad methodology from one company trying to get its name in the news and then a media outlet running an uncritical article using this as fact. We just had an election. Go look at the voter rolls and who actually voted, and for the absentee ballots, where the absentee ballots were sent. There's no way in hell 40% of the voter rolls have turned over since the last time we held an election. The data is out there to easily disprove this ridiculous notion.

throwaway2245 6y ago
> Go look at the voter rolls I used to do this, and can report the area of London that I lived in turned over 25% of its (voting) residents in a typical 12 month period: that is, before coronavirus time! They may have relocated within London, of course. I assume that New York City is comparable in this respect. Further assumptions: People not vote-registered are likely to turn over even quicker than that. People who you know personally are more likely to be settled and therefore less likely to move out, just by statistical virtue of having any such personal connection - your anecdotal data will be extremely biased by this.
- CydeWeys 6y ago
  You need to look further into the voter rolls and actually correlate voters by identity. 25% moving within the city every year doesn't count; the linked article is talking about "Fleeing New Yorkers", not "New Yorkers moving between neighborhoods" (which is commonplace, unremarkable, and doesn't affect NYC's tax revenue in any way). What we care about here is people that actually moved out of the city entirely, or that moved into the city entirely from elsewhere, not typical movement within the city. If the article is including normal movement within the city in its 40% figure then it's being extremely misleading.
  - throwaway2245 6y ago
    My point is that I do not find it remarkable for that number to be higher than 25% during this period, nor would it be remarkable if more of that churn of people were moving in and out of the city rather than within. (you misrepresent what I said about that). So the article's reporting fits within my expectation - also noting that a net change of 70,000 people is very small. The voter rolls will significantly lag outside of election day and - again - is much less likely to include transient residents who won't bother to register, so it's no more likely to be a complete reflection of what has happened than the cellphone data source used here. Something like 40% of the NYC population is not registered to vote.
    - CydeWeys 6y ago
      Everything you're saying here is reasonable/plausible. But it's not at all what the linked article says; it says that there was 40% turn-over of people leaving and entering the city, which is absurd. The first sentence is literally "Millions of people have moved out of New York City during the pandemic, but at the same time, millions of others with lower incomes have taken their place". Not moved within the city, moved out of the city, and being replaced by other lower-income people. That is all completely made up and wrong. I'm not misrepresenting you; rather, you're misrepresenting the article. The article is indefensibly wrong.
      - 6y ago
pc86 6y ago
I might be misunderstanding you, but doesn't lease signings being down support the argument that a large subset of NYC residents have left?
- CydeWeys 6y ago
  New lease signings, not renewals. Most NYC residents live in their apartment for a lot longer than one year. If 40% of leases had truly turned over then we would be at record highs in new lease signings. But we're not; they're down. That indicates reduced turn-over if anything, plus also some net emigration (but nothing close to these double digit figures).
- roganartu 6y ago
  I admittedly have not looked at the data, but I would have a _very_ hard time believing that the total population of NYC is down 40% based on what I see outside my window and while moving around the city (eg to the go the gym etc). The city feels a little quieter than it normally is, but certainly not the ghost town that a 40% population reduction would be. It follows from that observation that, if 40% of the population did indeed leave, that they would have to have been replaced by people moving into the city. New lease signings being down suggests this is not the case. As an anecdote, about 10% of the apartments in my building that I can see out my window are empty (normally ~1-2% are at any given time). The buildings across the street (which are mostly owner-occupied) are all still occupied.