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Perhaps not intentional on the NYT's part, but I found the phrasing of "college graduates" deeply misleading: to me it implies a departure of younger demographi

Perhaps not intentional on the NYT's part, but I found the phrasing of "college graduates" deeply misleading: to me it implies a departure of younger demographics from cities, when the article is actually about college educated white-collar workers in the 40-to-64 demographic. In other words, the established family households to "empty nester" demographic. In fact, the only mention of younger college graduates is in a wiggle phrase with no attached statistic: > Younger educated workers were at first a bulwark against that trend, but have increasingly migrated away from these regions, too. (The same can be said for the article's statistics -- it's misleading, at best, to limit the analysis to 2020 and 2021.)

ghaff 3y ago
Of course, young families with kids migrating out of cities (but often not the broader metro area) is a trend that's been happening pretty much forever. Of my cohort of grad school classmates who moved to NYC upon graduation, I'm guessing only a couple were still actually in the city a decade later. As you say, the increase in some urban populations relative to a couple decades ago was mostly driven by new college grads, many of whom previously did not live in the city after undergrad, in part, because many of the jobs that weren't in finance were out in the suburbs/exurbs.
- woodruffw 3y ago
  > Of course, young families with kids migrating out of cities (but often not the broader metro area) is a trend that's been happening pretty much forever. Of my cohort of grad school classmates who moved to NYC upon graduation, I'm guessing only a couple were still actually in the city a decade later. Right -- I didn't highlight it specifically, but that's another part of the article I found misleading: NYC has historically had large outflows because, every summer, hundreds of thousands of undergraduates and graduates complete their studies and leave. And similarly with young families: those who stay for over a decade are likely to remain, but many come to the city while they're young, stay to date and work, and decamp for the suburbs once they've had their fill. Both of these demographics and their historical trends are conflated with the post-COVID numbers (again, ending at 2020/1) for unstated reasons.
- chimeracoder 3y ago
  > Of course, young families with kids migrating out of cities (but often not the broader metro area) is a trend that's been happening pretty much forever. > > As you say, the increase in some urban populations relative to a couple decades ago was mostly driven by new college grads, many of whom previously did not live in the city after undergrad, in part, because many of the jobs that weren't in finance were out in the suburbs/exurbs. That trend hasn't been happening "forever". It's only a few decades old, and it's a direct function of the broad changes in housing and social policies that were made between the 1960s-1980s.
  - ghaff 3y ago
    I'm not sure it's that hyperbolic to describe trends that have basically been in place since about WWII (and there were streetcar suburbs before that) to be "forever."

ghaff 3y ago

Of course, young families with kids migrating out of cities (but often not the broader metro area) is a trend that's been happening pretty much forever. Of my cohort of grad school classmates who moved to NYC upon graduation, I'm guessing only a couple were still actually in the city a decade later. As you say, the increase in some urban populations relative to a couple decades ago was mostly driven by new college grads, many of whom previously did not live in the city after undergrad, in part, because many of the jobs that weren't in finance were out in the suburbs/exurbs.

woodruffw 3y ago
> Of course, young families with kids migrating out of cities (but often not the broader metro area) is a trend that's been happening pretty much forever. Of my cohort of grad school classmates who moved to NYC upon graduation, I'm guessing only a couple were still actually in the city a decade later. Right -- I didn't highlight it specifically, but that's another part of the article I found misleading: NYC has historically had large outflows because, every summer, hundreds of thousands of undergraduates and graduates complete their studies and leave. And similarly with young families: those who stay for over a decade are likely to remain, but many come to the city while they're young, stay to date and work, and decamp for the suburbs once they've had their fill. Both of these demographics and their historical trends are conflated with the post-COVID numbers (again, ending at 2020/1) for unstated reasons.
chimeracoder 3y ago
> Of course, young families with kids migrating out of cities (but often not the broader metro area) is a trend that's been happening pretty much forever. > > As you say, the increase in some urban populations relative to a couple decades ago was mostly driven by new college grads, many of whom previously did not live in the city after undergrad, in part, because many of the jobs that weren't in finance were out in the suburbs/exurbs. That trend hasn't been happening "forever". It's only a few decades old, and it's a direct function of the broad changes in housing and social policies that were made between the 1960s-1980s.
- ghaff 3y ago
  I'm not sure it's that hyperbolic to describe trends that have basically been in place since about WWII (and there were streetcar suburbs before that) to be "forever."