Name: How New York Became America’s Fastest Shrinking State
Uploaded: 2026-02-15T17:06:39.000Z
Duration: 30 min 46 s
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This is a map of every county in the United States based on Census Bureau recorded population changes seen over the three years between April of 2020, right as the COVID 19 pandemic was getting started in July of 2023 based on the most recently available data.

Based on this map, you can quickly see that the areas of the country that have seen the most significant growth in people this decade have been in places like Washington, Idaho, western Montana, Utah, the Colorado Front Range, Arizona, the Texas Triangle region, Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, the Carolinas and Northern Virginia.

But the areas that have experienced the highest rates of population decline have been California, the Lower Mississippi Basin, especially in Louisiana and Mississippi, Illinois, Upper Appalachia, through eastern Kentucky, West Virginia and western Pennsylvania and New York State.

But if you pay very close attention to New York State and zoom in a little closer, you'll notice that all five of the counties that make up New York City are deep in the red.

And New York City's population losses since 2020 have been so great.

Combined with the slower but still still noticeable losses in upstate New York, the New York State has become the fastest shrinking state in America for the 2020 so far.

In the three years from April of 2020 to July of 2023, New York State collectively lost an astonishing net of 630,000 of its residents.

And it's been estimated by the New York times that nearly 90% of that population loss in the state has all exclusively come from New York City, which alone has lost more than 550,000 of its total net residents in United States the since the start of the COVID 19 pandemic in early 2020, representing a 6.2% decrease in New York City's population in only a three year time span.

To put the scale of that loss into perspective, New York City has lost about as many people as live in the entire state of Wyoming combined, and

The scale of this loss from America's biggest city has single handedly contributed to New York State's title as the fastest shrinking state in the 2020s, both by percentage of loss and by raw numbers of people lost.

With the state continuing to lose roughly 0.5% of its total population between the summer of 2022 and the summer of 2023, beating out all seven of the other states in the country that also experienced population declines over the same time period, the record losses of people in New York this decade have been the worst on record since the 1970s a/2 a century ago.

While New York City's losses alone over the past three years have virtually completely undone all of the city's population gains that were made throughout the entire previous decade during the 2000 and tens.

So what the hell has been going on in New York since 2020 that's been causing all of this to happen?

Why is the trend of population loss in the city and state still continuing even after the pandemic era?

And what could this trend mean for New York's political power and influence going forward into the next decade?

For most of America's history, New York State was the nation's most populous.

And because of the way that the US Government is set up that awards states representation in the House of Representatives by population figures, that meant that New York State was also the nation's most politically influential and powerful state for most of the nation's history as well.

New York State became America's most populous state at the time of the third nationwide census in 1810, and

it continued holding that distinction for the following one and a half centuries.

By the time of the 1940 census, New York had reached its peak influence in the country by the percentage of Americans who lived within the state.

Roughly one in every ten Americans across the country were a New Yorker then.

And the state dominated the American Congress with 45 total seats in the House of Representatives, or about 10% of the total seats available.

But from there, New York's political influence within the country would begin steadily diminishing, even as the state's population generally continued growing.

Because other areas in the country began growing much quicker in the aftermath of the Second World War, especially across the region of the country known as the Sun Belt.

After the invention of compact air conditioning was made, that made the regions warmer.

As New York State continued to grow, its share of the overall pie of America's total population also began to shrink, and

so too did its members that the state sent to Congress.

New York lost two members of the House in the 1950 census, and

it has continued losing members of the House every single decade ever since, including in 2020 when it lost another seat to sink down to only 26 seats still remaining.

Based on the state's loss of people since 2020 and continued downward trend, New York now stands at risk of losing another three seats in the House by the time the 2030 census rolls around, which could end up resulting in New York's representation in Congress being cut down in half since its Peak in 1940.

And during this whole time of losing representation, New York eventually even lost its 15 decade streak of remaining America's most populous state sometime in the 1960s to California, because by the time of the 1970 census, California finally overtook New York's crown as the most populated state state.

And since then, two other states have since overtaken New York's population as well.

Texas surpassed New York's population by the time of the 2000 census, and

then Florida surpassed New York's population next by 2014, pushing New York down into being America's fourth most populous state ever since.

Despite this, though, New York State's population continued a general trend of growth minus a rough period throughout the 1970s where it experienced negative growth until right about 2020, immediately before the pandemic struck, where the state reached its all time high population of just over 20.1 million residents.

Now, throughout all of this history of New York's demographic trajectory, there were always extremely stark differences between the two regions of New York in upstate and downstate.

There's not really any solid definition of where upstate and downstate New York begin at, and

trying to come up with one has been the source of countless arguments between New Yorkers for probably the past 200 years, if not even longer.

Everybody you ask in New York will tend to have a different definition of where they think this divide begins at.

But the one thing that's clear to everybody is that there is a clear cultural, economic and social divide that exists somewhere within the state.

And it can be most clearly seen in maps revealing the state's population density, which is probably the most interesting divide in any state in the country.

This is because despite its appearance, it's a big continental landmass state.

Most of New York's population actually live on islands.

The geographic extent of Long island, including the New York City boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens, is densely populated and currently has around 8 million people who live on it, While Manhattan, another island, has about another 1.6 million more people, giving these three islands in New York State a total population today of about 10.1 million people, which is a little more than 51% of New York State's entire statewide population, which weirdly makes New York the only other state in the country besides Hawaii, where the majority of its residents live on islands.

When you add in the Bronx and the nearby New York City counties like Westchester and Rockland, you arrive at the conclusion that roughly two thirds of New York State's total population lives on just 4% of the state's total land area in the south, while the remaining one third of the state's population lives across the remaining 96% of the state's land further north.

And another clear divide that roughly follows the population divide in the state Is the economic dividend.

With the more heavily populated south concentrated around New York City, Being significantly wealthier on average, Than the larger continental interior part of the state.

To me, these are the most helpful visualizations.

Of about where upstate and downstate within New York exist At the very small, Very urban, Very densely populated and very rich south that has most of the state's population and wealth, and

the very large, Mostly rural, Very sparsely populated and more impoverished north that has most of the state's land.

Both of these sides of New York State Almost function as if they were totally separate states within the same whole.

And both have had very different demographic patterns that have existed for decades.

While the area of downstate has experienced almost continuous growth throughout most of its history.

Because of the economic engine of New York City and the countless opportunities it has provided to people, Upstate experienced a significant boom and bust period across the 20th century.

Lawrence river historically had a series of rapids just past Montreal, it wasn't able to be used for commercial navigation to the Great Lakes until technology advanced enough to overcome them in the 1950s.

So until that point, the completion of the erie Canal in 1825 from Lake Erie to the Hudson River Established the very first navigable waterway route.

From the Atlantic Ocean into the Great Lakes, which dramatically reduced the cost of shipping goods.

From west of the Appalachian Mountains to global markets.

And it proved to be a huge early geographic advantage for New York State.

As no other Atlantic port besides New York City for d decades had a fully navigable route into the Great Lakes region.

While upstate cities located along the canal like Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, and

Albany all benefited from their positions along the new trade route as well and began rapidly growing themselves.

Some historians today have referred to the Erie Canal as America's very first superhighway.

And the canal's capacity was significantly expanded even further in the early 20th century between 1905 and 1918.

While the expansion of the country's railroad network through the area.

Contributed even further to upstate New York's geographic advantage as a critical trade route along the funnel of trade between all of the Great Lakes and New York City.

The corridor along the Erie Canal between cities like Buffalo, Rochester, and Syracuse.

Steadily evolved into one of America's most significant industrial and manufacturing hubs in the early 20th century as a result, which created tons of jobs in the area and attracted people to relocate to upstate from all across the rest of the country and even the world, which led to A long era of population growth taking place in both upstate and downstate New York alike Across the first half of the 20th century.

Buffalo itself even ranked among all of America's top 10 largest cities in both 1900 and 1910.

And by 1950, the growth in upstate had been so high that the metropolitan area around Buffalo had grown to become nearly the same population as the borough of Queens in New York City, Something that's almost completely unthinkable today.

But then upstate's fortunes in particular Began to shift dramatically for the worse, beginning in the 1950s.

The completion of the St. Lawrence Seaway project in 1959 finally transformed the once unnavigable St.

Lawrence river into a fully navigable route from the Atlantic into the great lakes.

And it had a much, much higher capacity for maritime trade Than the smaller and earlier Erie canal had.

And so, after its completion, Maritime trade routes between the Atlantic and the great lakes Quickly shifted from the Erie canal towards the St.

And at around the same time, President Dwight d.

Eisenhower Began the construction Of America's interstate highway system in 1956 as well.

And as it kept getting built out, what little commercial traffic remained on the Erie canal Began struggling to compete with the rise of interstate trucking, too.

By 1994, the Erie Canal, which had once been America's most significant artery of trade, Saw its final ever regularly scheduled trade hauler End its service for good.

And with that, the Erie canal's long days as a trade route Were finally over for good.

With the canal's diminishing importance, Came a diminishing in the city's importance nearby to the canal, and

as greater nationwide trends took over as well.

Like offshoring manufacturing to countries overseas like China, along with deindustrialization and the growth of service sector jobs, Especially in nearby New York City, Upstate New York entered into a long period of heavy population decline that began in the 1950s and persisted for decades until it only began stabilizing itself in the 2000 and tens.

During this time period, between 1950 and 2010, Buffalo lost more than half of its peak population that it had back in 1950, while Rochester and Syracuse each lost more than a third of their peak populations as well.

All as upstate's population just got completely gutted as opportunities there dried up and droves of people left for opportunities elsewhere, including in New York City and downstate, where the population growth continued to remain strong throughout most of the later 20th century.

As upstate languished and fell increasingly further behind, the plentiful economic opportunities and amenities in New York city provided by it being one of the entire world's most significant hubs of finance and services, media, the arts and culture kept its growth going steady and strong.

But then something interesting began happening in the later half of the 2010s.

This set an omen for what would come later.

In the 2000 and twenties, New York City and downstate's population growth began to get stagnant and even started showing signs of slight decreases, while upstate's decades long trend of decline began stabilizing and even reversing with some moderate increases.

New York State overall recorded a minor population loss in 2016 of just 0.1%, the state's first loss in population in a decade since 2000.

After 2016, the state began recording increasingly higher population decreases year after year in 2017, in 2018 and again in 2019, until the nationwide U.S.

census conducted in 2020 revised New York State's total population to about 20.2 million people.

And then the trend only massively accelerated after the first case of COVID 19 was detected in New York City on 1st March 2020.

By the end of that month there were Already more than 30,000 confirmed cases of COVID 19 in New York City, and

the region had already become the worst affected place by the pandemic in the entire country.