Housing
Population Growth in Dense U.S. Cities: Short-Term Correction or Long-Term Trend?
People are moving to city centers in record numbers, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's a permanent change in where Americans want to live.
Has the housing bubble and bust fundamentally changed where Americans want to live? Today, apartment construction in dense cities is booming, and hyper-urban high-rise neighborhoods have both strong home-price growth and population growth. Furthermore, the most recent Census population estimates tell a striking story of a swing back to big, dense cities.
After losing population between 2000 and 2006, Brooklyn, San Francisco, Washington, D.C., and Suffolk County, Massachusetts (Boston) all grew between 2010 to 2013, and faster annually than between 1980 and 2000. At first glance, these trends suggest that the housing bubble and bust reversed a decades-long shift toward suburbs and the Sunbelt, harkening an urban resurgence.