Quote:
Originally Posted by RST500
It's a general perception that places that are struggling economically such as the Rust Belt have declining populations but what are some cities, towns, or suburbs that are upper middle class or wealthy that are experiencing population decline?
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Almost all wealthy suburbs in the NYC area are seeing a population decline. The basic dynamic is this:
1. In most areas, they are 100% built out, and snob zoning precludes building any more densely. Thus the total number of housing units/households does not rise.
2. Family size is falling, meaning all other things considered, the number of children continues to drop in these communities.
3. Even beyond that, living in a high-cost, dated home on a relatively large acreage isn't that popular among younger people of childbearing age. Many prefer living in the city or in "urban-lite" locations around walkable business districts. Others would prefer to get more house for their money and move to a lower cost metro.
The result of all of this is these towns are steadily climbing in terms of average age, and the number of children is plummeting. Basically they're filled up with empty nesters aging in place. At some point all these boomers are going to die and the local housing prices will collapse, but we're still at least a decade away from that.
In general though, I think it's the case that any fully-built-out suburb without appreciable new construction will decline in population now, even if it's only a few percent per decade.