New York lost more residents – and at the largest rate – in 2023 than any other state, despite an overall rise in the U.S. population, according to U.S. Census data.

The bureau released a map showing the percentage change in state populations between July 2022 and July 2023 – New York stands out as the only state colored a deep orange, a label for a percentage change of -0.5 or more.

    • CarbonIceDragon@pawb.social
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      11 months ago

      In order to live next to all the city stuff? Some people like cities after all, and more space is more space to clean

      • theangryseal@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        I am so country that the only time I ever visited a city I got vertigo and couldn’t look in any direction but down.

        It wasn’t even a huge city. It was Charlotte NC.

        When I was a kid I dreamed of going to a city and playing music and being a part of the culture.

        The girls got to me though and I have instead repopulated a rural area. :p

        I have 7 kids, 2 adopted, 5 biological.

        My guitar is used almost exclusively to play Yellow Submarine and sing the family’s names in place of yellow. “We all live in little Abby’s submarine, in mommy’s submarine, in daddy’s submarine.”

        My youngest thinks Beatlemania is still a thing. First thing every morning. “Daddy, I want my Beatles.” Sister comes in swinging demanding Pinkfong.

    • Klystron@sh.itjust.works
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      11 months ago

      The literal endless abundance of things to do. Idc if my place is a closet if I’m never in it. Obviously if you’re raising a 5 person family it’s harder, but if you’re solo or DINK then why wouldn’t you

      • hydrospanner@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        Solo converting to DINK here, and for me, after spending years in a city, basically while there’s tons to do in a city, there’s only a relatively small portion of it that I actually want to do.

        Combine that with my love of outdoor hobbies which are all farther from me while living in a city…

        And at this point, for me, it’s more about finding the smallest city that offers me most of what I like about cities while being small enough that I lose as much of the negatives as possible, with bonus points for a city that’s small enough for me to live on the edges, where I can have a house with a yard and a garage, while being within a 10 minute drive of city center, but also less than 30 minutes from outdoor recreation opportunities.

        I’m also at the age where “stay home” is often my preferred choice of thing to do, so having a spacious, comfortable home where I can enjoy living is a major consideration. A 500 sqft 1BR that I share with a roommate or two ain’t cutting it.

        Different people like different things, and while cities provide a lot, there’s also a lot they don’t.

      • laverabe@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        pollution, noise, lack of nature, and depending on the city crime and corruption

        • queermunist she/her
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          11 months ago

          There’s no corruption quite like deep country corruption. Oh, you’re dating the sheriff’s daughter? Well we’ll just look the other way…

          • laverabe@lemmy.world
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            11 months ago

            even withstanding, the other issues are still present. I’m not saying cities are hellscapes, but they are lacking a few advantages that rural areas have. I like touching my own plot of dirt on this pale blue dot. My own piece of Earth. There is nothing like the nutrient overload from the first of the seasons garden fresh backyard tomato grown from last years compost. Or building random projects; or just lying on the ground looking at the stars anytime I want. In my book no amount of money would be worth sacrificing all that to live in a dense city for me personally. But this is just my outlook, I understand many other people value things differently.

            • queermunist she/her
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              11 months ago

              Oh don’t get me wrong, I live in rural Iowa and i love being able to go so deep into the woods there isn’t another person for miles. Lots of land to bike on and plenty of cool places to camp and chill outdoors.

              I’m just saying, corruption can happen anywhere.

      • june@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        Nearly half the state population is in NYC alone. Expand that out to the nyc metropolitan area within New York, and you’re getting close to 3/4 of the state population.

        It’s quite reasonable to assume that the vast majority of the folks that left New York were leaving NYC.

        • n2burns@lemmy.ca
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          11 months ago

          I think what they’re saying is that if people wanted to leave NYC, they could stay in State and have more room.

          • SkepticalButOpenMinded@lemmy.ca
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            11 months ago

            I’m sure some did, but there’s no reason to think a leaver of NYC is vastly more likely to move upstate. I’m sure most would move to another city, for one thing, because most people live in cities in general, and all the more if you once lived in NYC.

          • jak@sopuli.xyz
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            11 months ago

            Yeah, but New York State is not going to be a viable option for a lot of people. Bigotry in small town New York is real to the point that sundown towns are a thing, and even when they’re not, it’s a lot easier to find a confederate flag bumper sticker than an antifa one, especially if you’re out of Hudson valley.

        • linearchaos@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          Oh, no there’s absolutely no reason to assume that. Making assumptions based on a Fox News graph is a really bad idea.

          They did lose 0.5% but they’ve lost less this year than they did last year.

          Let’s say people were leaving due to liberal policy change They would almost certainly just be from the rural areas. It could be changes in the city, zoning, rent, in which case it would be almost solely from the people in the city.

          In any case we really need more data, You can’t just assume because more people live over there that the people are leaving equally

          • june@lemmy.world
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            11 months ago

            Between 2020 and 2022, NYC has lost 5% of its population. That’s approximately 450,000 people (or about 2% of the state’s population) in two years, according to the comptroller report referenced in the article.

            In addition to the very simple assumption that the majority of people leaving are from the majority population center (NYC and its metro area), the recent history of people leaving NYC, it is in fact perfectly reasonable to assume it is people from NYC or the NYC metro area leaving.

            You know why it’s reasonable to assume? Because all the data we have is about aggregate numbers for the time period, and numbers for NYC for the two year timeframe prior. We don’t know why the people left. Which, by the way, is unreasonable to assume that it’s for political reasons when we have pretty good nationwide data showing us that the rise in remote work has led to an increase in people leaving densely populated areas to go life somewhere cheaper.

            So, you see, using data that we have, we can make reasonable assumptions rather than jump to the notion that the moves are political in nature, which is what Fox News wants you to assume.

            As an aside, according to the article, the gross number of people leaving the state was about 37k people higher this year than last. Inflow may have been different but I can’t find any readily available data for the year prior. But more people did leave the state this year than last, but that pales in comparison to the change between 2020 and 2022.