After an outflow of residents during the COVID-19 pandemic, new population estimates released Thursday by the U.S. Census Bureau show that fewer people are leaving urban centers such as King County, home to Seattle.
The Census Bureau reported that overall patterns of population growth and decline are moving toward pre-pandemic rates for the nation’s 3,144 counties.
King County had net domestic outmigration of -16,035 in 2022, compared to -37,655 in 2021. When counting other factors, such as births, deaths, and international migration, the county gained 13,751 residents from July 2021 to July 2022.
King County’s population dip from 2020 (2.27 million) to 2021 (2.25 million) was the first for the county since the early 1970s, according to Data Commons.
During the height of the pandemic, some predicted a population shift to rural areas and smaller cities as remote work took hold. In tech hubs like Seattle, where many thousands of workers could do their jobs from home, the question became, “where should home be?”
Glenn Kelman, CEO of Seattle-based real estate company Redfin, predicted back in May 2020 that the health crisis and remote work capabilities would fuel an aversion to big cities and drive workers from places such as Seattle and San Francisco to smaller spots like Boise, Idaho, or Bozeman, Mont., in search of bigger homes and fewer people.
The Census Bureau reported that San Francisco County, Calif., had net domestic outmigration of -9,421 in 2022, compared to -57,611 the prior year. And New York County (Manhattan) had a slight net domestic migration of 2,908 this year, compared to a net domestic outmigration of -98,566 the prior year.
Whitman County, Wash., was the fastest growing U.S. county between 2021 and 2022, illustrating how many college and university counties saw a rebound after a drop during the pandemic. Home to Washington State University, Whitman County’s population dropped by 9.6% between 2020 and 2021 but then grew by 10.1% last year — the most of any county above 20,000 in population.
“I wasn’t expecting this quick of a bounce back for some cities and urban areas,” demographer William Frey of the Brookings Institution told The Associated Press. “It’s not a full recovery from before the pandemic but moving in the right direction.”
Redfin reported in January that a record number of users are looking to relocate to a different metro area due to remote work and affordability, among other factors.
