Large Cities Lost 0.4% of Population between 2020-21

Between 2020 and 2021, the first year of the pandemic, the population of the nation's 798 large cities (defined as incorporated places with populations of 50,000 or more in 2021) fell by 0.4 percent—a loss of 505,000 people. The remainder of the United States grew 0.4 percent, a gain of 898,000 people. The 2020-21 pattern is a reversal of the trend from the previous decade when large cities grew faster than the remainder of the country. Overall, the United States grew by just 0.1 percent between 2020 and 2021, the slowest population growth in U.S. history.

The largest cities—the nine with populations of 1 million or more (New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, Phoenix, Philadelphia, San Antonio, San Diego, and Dallas)—experienced the biggest population loss between 2020 and 2021—a 1.7 percent decline. The nation's largest city—New York— lost 3.5 percent of its residents. Regardless of city size, however, growth was nothing to write home about...

City population growth 2020-2021 by city size

1 million or more: -1.7%
500,000 to 999,999: -0.7%
250,000 to 499,999: -0.1%
200,000 to 249,999:  0.3%
150,000 to 199,999: -0.1%
100,000 to 149,999:  0.0%
50,000 to 99,999: 0.2%

It remains to be seen whether the coronavirus pandemic is the cause of the reversal of the previous decade's city population trends. During the 2010s, the growth rate of the nation's large cities was slowing as the decade progressed. The 2020-21 loss is likely a continuation of the slowdown, exacerbated by the pandemic. 

Source: Census Bureau, City and Town Population Totals: 2020-2021