Story at a glance
- A new Bank of America Institute report shows people are moving away from the West Coast.
- The report also shows Americans are moving to the South, continuing a years-long trend.
- Columbus, Ohio, and Austin, Texas, saw the largest year-over-year population growth.
Columbus, Ohio, and Austin, Texas, saw the largest population growth among major U.S. metropolitan areas during the last half of 2023, a new report found.
Both cities had a year-over-year population increase of a little over 1 percent between 2022 and 2023, according to the report from the Bank of America Institute.
San Francisco and Los Angeles, meanwhile, had the largest year-over-year percentage decreases in population, according to the report.
The California cities’ populations dropped by about 1 percent and .75 percent, respectively, it found.
The report’s findings are in line with the pandemic-era trend of Americans fleeing West and East Coast cities and moving to the South.
Since 2020, the South’s population has grown by 3.9 million people, according to U.S. Census data.
But Southern cities have been gaining newcomers for years, with high housing costs forcing Americans to move.
The Bank of America Institute’s findings are based on aggregated and anonymized data from customers who had open consumer checking, savings, credit and other investment accounts between 2019 and 2013.
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