Exodus: Affordability Crisis Sends Americans Packing From Big Cities

Real Clear Investigations ^ | 09/11/2025 | Joel Kotkin and Wendell Cox

[T.B. Yoits]

Modern cities have no future because they've been hostile to raising children for more than a century and a half.

Cities are prisons, open air mental institutions, and urban reservations.

Cities support fewer and fewer industries. A quick look at a simple list shows just how few need to remain in a city, especially since the implementation of electricity and combustion engines.

Accommodation
Accommodation and Food Services
Administrative and Support and Waste Management and Remediation Services
Administrative and Support Services
Agriculture, Forestry, Fishing and Hunting
Air Transportation
Ambulatory Health Care Services
Amusement, Gambling, and Recreation Industries
Animal Production
Apparel Manufacturing
Arts, Entertainment, and Recreation
Beverage and Tobacco Product Manufacturing
Broadcasting
Building Material and Garden Equipment and Supplies Dealers
Chemical Manufacturing
Clothing and Clothing Accessories Stores
Computer and Electronic Product Manufacturing
Construction
Construction of Buildings
Couriers and Messengers
Credit Intermediation and Related Activities
Crop Production
Data Processing, Hosting, and Related Services
Education and Health Services
Educational Services
Electrical Equipment, Appliance, and Component Manufacturing
Electronics and Appliance Stores
Fabricated Metal Product Manufacturing
Finance and Insurance
Financial Activities
Fishing, Hunting and Trapping
Food and Beverage Stores
Food Manufacturing
Food Services and Drinking Places
Forestry and Logging
Funds, Trusts, and Other Financial Vehicles
Furniture and Home Furnishings Stores
Furniture and Related Product Manufacturing
Gasoline Stations
General Merchandise Stores
Goods-Producing Industries
Health and Personal Care Stores
Health Care and Social Assistance
Heavy and Civil Engineering Construction
Hospitals
Information
Insurance Carriers and Related Activities
Internet Publishing and Broadcasting
Leather and Allied Product Manufacturing
Leisure and Hospitality
Lessors of Nonfinancial Intangible Assets
Machinery Manufacturing
Management of Companies and Enterprises
Manufacturing
Merchant Wholesalers, Durable Goods
Merchant Wholesalers, Nondurable Goods
Mining (except Oil and Gas) (NAICS 212)
Mining, Quarrying, and Oil and Gas Extraction
Miscellaneous Manufacturing
Miscellaneous Store Retailers
Monetary Authorities - Central Bank
Motion Picture and Sound Recording Industries
Motor Vehicle and Parts Dealers
Museums, Historical Sites, and Similar Institutions
Natural Resources and Mining
Nonmetallic Mineral Product Manufacturing
Nonstore Retailers
Nursing and Residential Care Facilities
Oil and Gas Extraction
Other Information Services
Other Services
Paper Manufacturing
Performing Arts, Spectator Sports, and Related Industries
Personal and Laundry Services
Petroleum and Coal Products Manufacturing
Pipeline Transportation
Plastics and Rubber Products Manufacturing
Postal Service
Primary Metal Manufacturing
Printing and Related Support Activities
Private Households
Professional and Business Services
Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services
Publishing Industries
Rail Transportation
Real Estate
Real Estate and Rental and Leasing
Religious, Grantmaking, Civic, Professional, and Similar Organizations
Rental and Leasing Services
Repair and Maintenance
Retail Trade
Scenic and Sightseeing Transportation
Securities, Commodity Contracts, and Other Financial Investments and Related Activities
Service-Providing Industries
Social Assistance
Specialty Trade Contractors
Sporting Goods, Hobby, Book, and Music Stores
Support Activities for Agriculture and Forestry
Support Activities for Mining
Support Activities for Transportation
Telecommunications
Textile Mills
Textile Product Mills
Trade, Transportation, and Utilities
Transit and Ground Passenger Transportation
Transportation and Warehousing
Transportation Equipment Manufacturing
Truck Transportation
Utilities
Warehousing and Storage
Waste Management and Remediation Services
Water Transportation
Wholesale Electronic Markets and Agents and Brokers
Wholesale Trade
Wood Product Manufacturing

[SharpRightTurn]

“My neighbor is a bear.”

No doubt that neighbor would be superior to some found in the inner cities.

[Reeses]

Crime would be the bigger factor in IMO.

Equator psychopaths also tend to be ugly, dirty, noisy, and smelly. A concrete cliff dweller with an undersized prefrontal cortex is a constant annoyance to 20 neighbors in 3 dimensions. On the plus side, they bankrupt socialists quickly, keeping the left's big nightmare contained to vertical mental asylums.

[SunkenCiv]

BS -- it isn't about affordability, it's about Demaogogic Party-run false genderism, sanctuary policies, lawless unfit judges and prosecutors, anti-gov insurrection, defunding police, rising taxes, Demwit corruption, and single-party-state fascism.

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[sergeantdave]

Liars. Big cities have been losing population since the 1960s. The main reason given by escapees is that big cities are hostile to families with children.

Note also that the urban propagandists have expanded the population count to include surrounding suburbs, which they now redefine as “metropolitan” areas, not exclusively the core big cities themselves.

It’s all BS and a failed effort to attract stupid people back into the crumbling, failed big cities run by democrat thieves.

[SeekAndFind]

RE: Liars. Big cities have been losing population since the 1960s

I can’t speak for other cities in the USA, but I can for the city nearest to me — New York City.

The City lost population in the 1960’s, actually REVERSED the decline in the 1970’s, and then started losing population again in the 1980’s.

The broader trend was downward until the 1990s, when immigration and urban revitalization began to turn things around. That was the Giuliani and then the Bloomberg era ( not even the 9/11 terrorists attack prevented the NYC revitalization). We had 20 years of relative peace and prosperity. Even the first term of Bill De Blasio did not reverse the rise.

NYC’s population continued to grow modestly during de Blasio’s first term and into his early second.

Then, New York City’s population began its most recent decline in 2020, triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic and its cascading effects. Between April 2020 and July 2022, the city lost about 468,000 residents, a 5.3% drop that erased nearly three-quarters of the gains from the previous decade.

There are signs of stabilization now, but the long-term trajectory will depend on housing, immigration, and economic recovery. If Zorhan Mamdani gets elected this year, expect a sharp exodus once again.