The ebb and flow of New York City's population from 1970 to present, seen many different ways.
As Harry Siegel wrote recently in Vital City, the New York that just marked the 25th anniversary of the September 11th attacks is not the same city that suffered unthinkable losses on that day.
Siegel's piece and the short video version that circulated on social media struck a chord. We heard from many New Yorkers who appreciated its insight and were astonished, for instance, by a demographer’s math that some three-quarters of the city has turned over since 9/11. (You can write us anytime about this or anything else by shooting a note to info@vitalcitynyc.org.) So we wanted to take a deeper look at how the city has transformed not just in total numbers but in age, ethnic profile and other ways.
America's most populous city is constantly renewing, thanks to people coming from around the country and around the world, from different places at different times. It's also constantly losing people, either to the suburbs or other parts of America or out of the country. Over the years, foreign migration into the city has been the ballast wheel keeping the population from shrinking from domestic out-migration. Current federal policies threaten this dynamic.
The ever-evolving nature of New York is part of the reason why it's so silly to hear people try to litigate a fixed category of who's a "real New Yorker" and who's not. Population shifts are also shaped by the basic facts of life: Babies are born, people die, and the generations in between age through a life cycle where each cohort is marked by sharing momentous experiences.
When you dive into the census data and other official sources, what does it all add up to? Since 1970, New York City has recorded 6.38 million births and 3.65 million deaths, a natural increase of 2.73 million, and 2 million more people have moved out than have moved in. The result is a city of 8.58 million, about 690,000 larger than the 7.89 million counted in 1970.
Using the data we collected, it turns out only about two-thirds of the city, not three-quarters, has turned over since 2001. A calculator lets you estimate how much of the city has changed hands between any two years in the period.
The charts and graphs below, reviewed by CUNY Graduate Center professor John Mollenkopf, detail the shifts over the decades. Official data has some limitations, especially in tracking flows of undocumented immigrants. But it's the best we have.