The 10 fastest-shrinking US cities and towns

• Jackson, Mississippi, led the nation in the rate of population decline from July 2021 to July 2022.
• Many left the Bay Area and Utah, as well as St. Louis and New Orleans.
• San Francisco, which was the fastest-declining city from July 2020 to July 2021, did not make the top 15.

The Miami metro area has been experiencing its first population decline over a multiyear period since 1970. Miami, though, is not alone.

In fact, Miami’s nowhere near the top ten for rate of recent population loss, according to May data from the US Census Bureau.

Though the Midwest is experiencing a “doom loop” in many of its cities, in which remote work has slowed the economies of Midwestern cities, only one Midwestern city made the top ten cities and towns shrinking at the fastest rate between 2021 and 2022.

In an analysis of nearly 20,000 cities, towns, villages, and boroughs across the US, the Census Bureau found that places in Utah and Louisiana saw especially sharp declines. That’s a change from the previous year, which included San Francisco, New York City, Washington, D.C., and Boston in the top 15 declining cities between July 2020 and 2021.

Jackson, Mississippi, topped the list with a year-over-year decline of 2.5%, amounting to a net loss of about 4,000 residents. Some residents left following the city’s water crisis, sparked by poor infrastructure and climate change. Jackson’s population has slowly declined since 1980, as many white and middle-class Black families moved out.

“The legacy of racial zoning, segregation, legalized redlining have ultimately led to the isolation, separation and sequestration of racial minorities into communities (with) diminished tax bases, which has had consequences for the built environment, including infrastructure,” Marccus Hendricks, an associate professor of urban studies and planning at the University of Maryland, told PBS last year in a story about Jackson’s water crisis.

St. Louis, which was ranked second, lost nearly 7,000 net residents, or a 2.4% decline, during the period. Business development leaders told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that the city and surrounding region has experienced slow growth over the last few decades.

New Orleans, the city with the largest population in the top ten, lost over 7,300 net residents, many perhaps due to the impacts of Hurricane Ida and the pandemic. The larger New Orleans metro area lost more than twice the number of residents, which placed it in the top 10 fastest shrinking US metro areas.

Three Utah cities outside of the Salt Lake City area — Taylorsville, Orem, and Sandy — also had above 2% losses in population.

Though San Francisco did not crack the top 10 this year, the Bay Area experienced losses, particularly in Union City, Livermore, and San Leandro. Over 500,000 residents left California during the pandemic, according to Census data, and many specifically left the Bay Area due to tech companies’ shift toward remote work, as well as high home prices.

By contrast, Santa Cruz had 12.5% population growth during the same period, surpassed by Georgetown, Texas, with a whopping 14.4% growth.