32,000 People Fled The Upper West Side In 2020: New Study Shows

UPPER WEST SIDE, NY — As the pandemic swept through New York last year, residents fled the Upper West Side at some of the city's highest rates, according to a new study by the global real estate firm CBRE.

The study looked at 29 million change-of-address requests filed with the U.S. Postal Service last year, providing insight into which ZIP codes saw the most departures — and where residents went.

New York City, which was already shrinking before the pandemic, had the second-most net move-outs of any metro in the country in 2020, trailing only San Francisco, the study found. Meanwhile, Sun Belt cities like Austin and Charlotte saw population gains.

Within the city, dense, urbanized neighborhoods like Midtown, Lower Manhattan, and Northern Brooklyn lost the most residents.

Across the Upper West Side's four ZIP codes, more than 32,100 people moved out in 2020, while 22,697 moved in — a net loss of about 9,500 residents. That's a far greater exodus than the previous year, when the neighborhood had a net loss of about 3,300.

Here is the 2020 move-out data for each Upper West Side ZIP code:

• 10023: 7,996 move-ins, 10,808 move-outs — 2,807 net loss of residents, or 29 per 1,000 people
• 10024: 5,711 move-ins, 8,471 move-outs — net loss of 2,760 residents, or 33 per 1,000 people
• 10025: 7,685 move-ins, 11,467 move-outs — net loss of 3,782 residents, or 23 per 1,000 people
• 10069: 1,288 move-ins, 1,437 move-outs — net loss of 149 residents, or 11 per 1,000 people

The 10025 ZIP code, which spans between West 91st and 115th streets, had the most net move-outs of any part of the Upper West Side, with 3,782. The figure was the sixth-most in the state, and one of a handful of ZIP codes that saw more than 10,000 move-outs during 2020.

Most people who moved last year went only a short distance, often to a nearby county, the researchers found. Many of them were affluent young adults who had no children and were able to work remotely.

"The outflow from urban areas likely will subside as normal life resumes and lower rents lure back some who had moved out," they wrote.

Manhattan rent prices, which fell precipitously during the pandemic exodus, have shown signs of rebounding in recent months, suggesting that demand for urban living has begun to rise again.

Patch reporter Nick Garber contributed to this report.