DC Lost >15,000 Net Residents to Out-Migration in First 6 Months of 2020

[Anonymous]

jsteele wrote:How many of those were college students who went home because campuses were closed?

Almost all of them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you look at Census figures, you'll see that DC's population growth has been steadily shrinking for the past six or seven years. This is a long term trend that was obviously accelerated by the pandemic. The Wall Street Journal says the net number of people leaving DC in 2020 nearly doubled from the previous year. Probably a big reason is that the schools here have been closed for so incredibly long. We are a complete outlier nationally in our willingness to keep kids out of the classroom, and parents are responding to that by leaving.

This is 100% a result of a lack of housing and particularly affordable housing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Similar data was brought to the DC Council’s attention with the plea that they require the Office of Planning to revalidate their wild pro-growth assumptions in light of the pandemi, before approving sweeping amendments to the DC comprehensive plan. But Bowser, her SmartGrowth minions and their contributors in the Big Development community jammed the changes through.

Their names are long forgotten but we are lucky that we’ve had a good number of civic leaders in the way back past that made good decisions in consideration of the common good. If we were to start again from scratch today, just think about how much land would get set aside for parks. Very, very little.

??? The city has spent millions of dollars BUYING land so it could be converted to parks. WTF are you even talking about?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

jsteele wrote:How many of those were college students who went home because campuses were closed?

Almost all of them.

College students count at their usual residence, so that didn't affect the numbers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you look at Census figures, you'll see that DC's population growth has been steadily shrinking for the past six or seven years. This is a long term trend that was obviously accelerated by the pandemic. The Wall Street Journal says the net number of people leaving DC in 2020 nearly doubled from the previous year. Probably a big reason is that the schools here have been closed for so incredibly long. We are a complete outlier nationally in our willingness to keep kids out of the classroom, and parents are responding to that by leaving.

This is 100% a result of a lack of housing and particularly affordable housing.

If true, there should be a lot of vacancies now. Or have developers just taken units off the market?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you look at Census figures, you'll see that DC's population growth has been steadily shrinking for the past six or seven years. This is a long term trend that was obviously accelerated by the pandemic. The Wall Street Journal says the net number of people leaving DC in 2020 nearly doubled from the previous year. Probably a big reason is that the schools here have been closed for so incredibly long. We are a complete outlier nationally in our willingness to keep kids out of the classroom, and parents are responding to that by leaving.

This is 100% a result of a lack of housing and particularly affordable housing.

If you read the thread you would see that there is a substantial amount of data presented indicating this to be a secular trend that is occurring nationwide. Also, as has been pointed out, the population did not decrease over that period, the growth rate decreased.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DC is also one of the last places in the U.S. to allow kids to go back to school. Probably not a coincidence.

This. Our family is moving to a small town. We started looking just for fun, and out of a sense of disgust with the school situation (disgust both with the lack of school and the lemming mentality of fellow citizens). Looking for fun turned into “why on earth ARENT we moving” . . .

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DC is also one of the last places in the U.S. to allow kids to go back to school. Probably not a coincidence.

This. Our family is moving to a small town. We started looking just for fun, and out of a sense of disgust with the school situation (disgust both with the lack of school and the lemming mentality of fellow citizens). Looking for fun turned into “why on earth ARENT we moving” . . .

Its been 1.5 years since schools closed. Why are you still here?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you look at Census figures, you'll see that DC's population growth has been steadily shrinking for the past six or seven years. This is a long term trend that was obviously accelerated by the pandemic. The Wall Street Journal says the net number of people leaving DC in 2020 nearly doubled from the previous year. Probably a big reason is that the schools here have been closed for so incredibly long. We are a complete outlier nationally in our willingness to keep kids out of the classroom, and parents are responding to that by leaving.

This is 100% a result of a lack of housing and particularly affordable housing.

It's not like DC is a city state island somewhere. It's surrounded by a number of other jurisdictions, some quite close. Sure, MoCo has become expensive but PG County is much more affordable. People can and od more for more affordable living. DC doesn't have to do it all.

[Anonymous]

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you look at Census figures, you'll see that DC's population growth has been steadily shrinking for the past six or seven years. This is a long term trend that was obviously accelerated by the pandemic. The Wall Street Journal says the net number of people leaving DC in 2020 nearly doubled from the previous year. Probably a big reason is that the schools here have been closed for so incredibly long. We are a complete outlier nationally in our willingness to keep kids out of the classroom, and parents are responding to that by leaving.

Just to be clear, you are saying that DC wasn't growing as fast, but it was still growing, right? Without careful reading, it is easy to think you are saying that DC's population has been shrinking, which is simply not the case.

Correct. Between 2010 and 2020, DC gained something like 90,000 people. But the bulk of that increase came between 2010 and 2015 or so. Since then, the rate at which we've added people has slowed down dramatically. I'd be shocked if we haven't started losing people, compared to the number of people here immediately prior to the pandemic, because of the extremely long school closures here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

jsteele wrote:How many of those were college students who went home because campuses were closed?

Almost all of them.

College students count at their usual residence, so that didn't affect the numbers.

LOL, wrong.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

jsteele wrote:How many of those were college students who went home because campuses were closed?

Almost all of them.

College students count at their usual residence, so that didn't affect the numbers.

No, this is based on a study done by a moving company, not based on Census data, so we have no idea what did or didn't affect the numbers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

jsteele wrote:How many of those were college students who went home because campuses were closed?

Almost all of them.

College students count at their usual residence, so that didn't affect the numbers.

No, this is based on a study done by a moving company, not based on Census data, so we have no idea what did or didn't affect the numbers.

It’s based on reported USPS change of address data, so it is a count of people who have registered a change of address and not a count of where people have established residency.

[Anonymous]

Good. It's too crowded anyways. For a city that has height restrictions and a housing crunch (setting fancy 1bdrm condos aside), why do we always posit that robust growth is the best way to be?
There's a middle ground between the growth rate that happened in DC from 2004-2015 and the decline of places like Detroit. I don't think it's such a bad thing if things slow down for awhile.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Good. It's too crowded anyways. For a city that has height restrictions and a housing crunch (setting fancy 1bdrm condos aside), why do we always posit that robust growth is the best way to be?
There's a middle ground between the growth rate that happened in DC from 2004-2015 and the decline of places like Detroit. I don't think it's such a bad thing if things slow down for awhile.

I agree with you. My question would be if this will be the status quo for the immediate future, what should it mean for policies. Should there be more 1-BD condos and large apartment buildings? More density in NW? Or should building more desirable housing like THs be prioritized in areas where there is vacant land to do so. Particularly in the parts of the city that could use more investment.