Much has been made about the exodus from California’s Bay Area, with thousands of residents — empowered by the option to work remotely and fed up with high housing costs — moving out of the region since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Yet, as the interactive map below shows, many metro areas in the U.S. are experiencing flight from densely packed urban neighborhoods. Thousands of households abandoned neighborhoods in New York, Chicago and Boston. Many flocked to nearby suburbs, or relocated to the South and Sun Belt. But even in some of the hottest urban markets, downtown neighborhoods from Miami to Las Vegas have experienced a net drain in migration since the pandemic began while surrounding suburbs surged.
Our map, compiled from U.S. Postal Service change-of-address data, shows how American migration trends have shifted since the start of the pandemic. Zoom out to view the whole country and you’ll see the blue swaths concentrated in the south that represent a net positive migration flow.
Zoom in on your home ZIP code — or your Aunt Millie’s in Mills County, Texas, and your former neighbors’ in Nashville — to see how the population from household migration has changed. We’ve got nearly all 30,000 ZIP codes across the country covered — even in Hawaii and Alaska.
To search for your neighborhood, enter the ZIP code in the search box, then press enter to zoom to any location within the U.S. Or scroll around and see how things shake out nationally.
SEARCH YOUR ZIP: HOW HAS THE EXODUS IMPACTED YOU?
Search your ZIP code in the search box below, or click on a ZIP code to see how many households have moved in and moved out since February 2020. If the ZIP code is red, that means more households moved out than moved in. If it’s blue, that means more households moved in. The more intense the color, the greater the change.
In the Bay Area, the impacts of the exodus have been far from equal. Central urban hubs, like downtown San Jose and San Francisco, in particular, have seen significant flight since the start of the pandemic. Meanwhile bucolic portions of the Bay, like San Ramon or parts of Sonoma County, have seen a net increase in household migration. Experts say the exodus was particularly acute in urban centers because housing prices were exorbitantly high there.
