The city has experienced one of its largest exodus in the midst of the crisis generated by the covid-19 pandemic.
A new study that was published this Tuesday, December 15 by the company Unacast, a location analysis firm, revealed that about 34 billion dollars lost New York by the massive exodus that the Big Apple suffered during the last months.
According to Unacast data, approximately 3.57 million people left New York City from January 1 to December 7. This exodus was replaced by 3.5 million people with the lowest income, as detailed by the New York Post.
With these figures, New York City would have lost around 70,000 people during this year 2020. Although the exodus of New Yorkers was not that high, according to the company, it had a significant impact on the city’s income.
“The exodus is not as great as people have been talking about. Perhaps the biggest impact is how the population is changing and how the demographics are changing ”said Thomas Walle, CEO and co-founder of Unacast, the New York Post reported.
Unacast used cell phone location data to analyze the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in at least three New York City neighborhoods: Williamsburg, Astoria y Tribeca.
The analysis showed that Tribeca, a neighborhood with a population of 20,000, was the most affected by the exodus, with a loss of 3,500 residents.
The exodus of inhabitants that the neighborhood of Tribeca it had a high impact on the economy, with a loss of 1 billion dollars in less than a year.
Residents fleeing the downtown Manhattan neighborhood had a median income of $ 140,000, the Unacast co-founder said. Meanwhile, the area earned an average of $ 82,000 from newcomers moving into the area, according to survey data.
“That means residents can pay less in terms of mortgages, rent, restaurants, retail, and other consumer expenses. As a result, stores, etc., that are more used to serving a high-end clientele, will likely lose market share to more affordable brands ”, the agency indicated in its report.
For its part, in the Williamsburg neighborhood, where 80,000 people live, the exodus was around 19,000 inhabitants, who moved out of the area before Sept. 7, according to data from the Unacast report.
The exodus from Williamsburg represented a loss of $ 1.3 million in revenue. This was one of the neighborhoods most affected by migration that New York City experienced during the hardest time of the coronavirus pandemic.
While, in Brooklyn, a net loss of 330 million dollars was generated, according to Unacast.
“That’s a lot of lost discretionary spending in a small community with many local brands currently showing little sign of resilience or recovery,” details the Unacast report.
Restaurants and retailers suffer the economic consequences
Both the restaurant industry and retailers in New York City are suffering the harsh economic impact of the pandemic, Unacast said in its report.
Restrictions and partial closures to prevent the spread of the virus caused thousands of restaurants and dozens of small businesses to close their doors in New York City, creating more cracks in the economic recovery of the Big Apple.
The survey detailed that there was a 33% decrease in retail foot traffic compared to last year. Also, during the crisis, the presence of people in restaurants decreased 34%.
“The popular interpretation is that this is related to foot traffic, but a tertiary cause is the net outflow in city neighborhood populations everywhere, along with a reduction in average income and therefore a lower purchasing power. reduced”, Unacast said.
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