Moving

San Francisco’s pandemic exodus appears to be like prefer it’s virtually over

Households in San Francisco fled the city in the first year of the pandemic. Many residents – especially those who live in the densest areas – looked for more spacious homes in more affordable areas.

But now that the city is open again, with a consistently low number of new cases and rising vaccination rates, the flurry of excerpts has slowed to near pre-pandemic levels.

The Chronicle analyzed data from the U.S. Postal Service and recorded the number of households that changed their address from one postcode in San Francisco to all other postcodes in the United States

In 2019, more households moved from the city than to the city: This year there were around 22,000 more requests to change addresses from the city than to the city – almost 2,000 households per month. (Even so, the city’s population still grew slightly from mid-2018 to mid-2019 thanks to births and immigrants.)

The number of emigrants rose sharply in March 2020 when California passed a stay at home ordinance and the World Health Organization declared a pandemic. In this month alone, 4,300 more orders for address changes were made in the city than in the city, more than twice as many as in March.

The extracts were similarly high in April in May and increased even further in the summer months. Migration peaked in August 2020 when 8,000 more households requested change of address from the city than to the city.

By the end of 2020, net moves from San Francisco had almost tripled compared to 2019. Almost 61,000 households submitted requests for change of address outside of the city as in the city.

However, after the peak in August, net statements trended lower. The city lost 6,200 households in October and 4,400 in December. From January to March 2021, it lost an average of 3,100 households per month. That’s still a significant spike in pre-pandemic churn, but if trends continue, extracts will soon be back close to 2019 numbers.

The USPS data has some limitations. First, not all households submit USPS change of address requests, and the process is more difficult for people entering or leaving the US. If 10 or fewer people move into or out of the United States in a zip code in a given month, the USPS counts that movement cluster as zero, citing privacy concerns.

Still, the data is “a good leading indicator of what’s going on,” Greer Cowan, a research manager at the Bay Area Council Economics Institute, told The Chronicle. “There is a lot of speculation about how permanent this pandemic-induced brain drain could be. This suggests that the departure from the city may be temporary. “

San Francisco rents rose in March and April, which supported this theory, she added, noting that many workers might return to the city in anticipation of the resumption of personal work.

San Francisco wasn’t the only city in California to see an increase in extracts during the pandemic, although it was possibly the most extreme. Los Angeles excerpts have increased every month since March 2020 compared to 2019. San Diego saw small spikes in spring, late summer, and early winter, although February and March of that year saw relatively positive net collections through 2019.

In all three cities, declining coronavirus cases and rising vaccination rates appear to have stopped the flow of emigration – a sign that these cities are gradually recovering.

For San Francisco, however, that recovery depends on whether the city can make itself more affordable for workers, especially in remote businesses, according to Cowan.

“Now that many people can live anywhere they want to do their jobs, it is crucial to make the region affordable to ensure that many people want to live and work here,” said Cowan.

Ahmad Thomas, CEO of the Silicon Valley Leadership Group, added that the city also needs to improve affordability for employers attracted by other states’ low corporate tax rates.

“We are currently at a turning point resulting from COVID. We see a light coming out of the tunnel, ”he said. “We understand that California is not a cheap place to do business and that cost-benefit analysis is moving away from us. … It’s about how we get out of this pandemic and how we adapt to new local challenges. “

Susie Neilson is a contributor to the San Francisco Chronicle. Email: susan.neilson@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @susieneilson.

Related Articles

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Back to top button