[URBAN NOTE] "Population Growth in New York City Is Reversing Decades-Old Trend, Estimates Show"

[rfmcdonald]

The New York Times' Sam Roberts reported on trends in migration in New York City, where international immigration more than compensates for losses in migration to other parts of the United States.

For the third consecutive year, New York City last year gained more people than it lost through migration, reversing a trend that stretched to the mid-20th century.

For the year ending July 1, 2013, an influx of foreigners combined with a continuing decline in the loss of migrants to other states increased the population by more than 61,000, nudging it past 8.4 million for the first time, according to estimates to be released on Thursday by the United States Census Bureau.

Every borough registered a gain in population. Even the Bronx, a traditional laggard, recorded a rate nearly as high as top-ranked Brooklyn and Manhattan. While Manhattan and the Bronx lost more people to migration than they gained, the difference was made up by more births than deaths.

“Growth is now quite robust, much more so than it was in the last decade,” said Andrew A. Beveridge, a sociologist at Queens College of the City University of New York. “These new numbers show that New York City now has recouped the roughly 250,000 population that was estimated but not found in the city by the 2010 census.”

Joseph J. Salvo, director of the population division for the Department of City Planning, estimated that the number of New Yorkers had grown by 2.8 percent since 2010.

“That’s big,” he said.