Major urban areas regaining residents lost at start of pandemic: Census data

Major urban areas in the U.S. are regaining some of the residents they lost when the COVID-19 pandemic pushed many out of cities into less dense areas, according to new Census data. 

U.S. metro areas grew by roughly 0.4 percent between 2021 and 2022, the Census estimates, with around two-thirds of the 384 recorded metro areas seeing population increases in that same period. 

Many metro areas in the South saw increases in the new data: the metro area around Phoenix crossed 5 million, and The Villages, Fla., metro area went up by a significant 7.5 percent. 

The Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington metro area in Texas had the biggest numeric population jump in the U.S., adding 170,396 people. Georgetown, Texas, had the highest percent change, with a 14.4 percent increase. Houston also added more than 124,000 residents.

The new data indicates a slowing or reversal in many places of the mass exodus from major cities seen when the coronavirus pandemic first hit the U.S. in 2020, as many Americans looked for more sparsely populated areas or shifted to remote work outside of metropolises.  

The first- and second-most populous metro areas — the New York-Newark-Jersey City area and the Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim area — both saw decreases of more than 100,000 between 2021 and 2022, though New York held onto its title of the largest city nationwide. With more than 8 million residents, New York’s population is more than twice that of Los Angeles, at nearly 4 million. 

Roughly 40 percent of the U.S. population lives in the 4.1 percent of cities with populations of 50,000 or more, according to the data.