More than 300,000 New Yorkers Have Fled Big Apple in Last Eight Months: Report

Data obtained by New York Post from the US Postal Service revealed that New Yorkers have, indeed, left the city in a continued mass exodus after some op-ed decried the Big Apple dead.

The Post reports that New York City dwellers filed 295,103 change of address requests from March 1 through October 31 - but the total number of people leaving is likely much higher.

The data shows only when at least 11 forwarding request were made to a specific county outside of New York City, and a single address change could include a multi-person household, the Daily Mail reported.

The coronavirus pandemic kicked off the migration in March, when rising infections and deaths prompted restrictions that all but shut down the city.

Businesses were temporarily shuttered, office buildings were replaced with work-from-home operations, schools pivoted to remote learning and the economy sputtered due to a lack of tourism.

In an interview with Market Watch, New York City Comptroller Scott Stringer noted the 90 per cent decline in tourism in the last quarter of fiscal year in 2020.

'In the midst of the pandemic, we are starting to realize that our 62 million )annual) tourist visitors will be no more in the short term,' Stringer told Market Watch.

'We haven’t lost our mojo as a city, but the pandemic has curbed what we can do to attract people from all over the world.'

There were 244,895 changes of address from March through July, The Post reports. That's 143,553 - or more than double - than the 101,342 requests filed during the same time last year.

According to experts monitoring the city's changing demographics, economic stress, confusion about schools and the crime rate contributed alongside the pandemic.

New York City has recorded more than 284,000 cases and 24,100 deaths.

'I think people are afraid,' Michael Hendrix, director of state and local policy at the Manhattan Institute, told The Post.

'They’re afraid of catching a deadly virus and they’re afraid of crime and other quality of life concerns. One thing we also hear is about trash and cleanliness of the city.'

The institute's report found that 44 per cent of New Yorkers earning $100,000 or more annually have considered moving from the city over the past several months.

Most of the respondents cited 'cost of living' as the biggest factor.

'More than half of high-income New Yorkers are working entirely from home, and nearly two-thirds believe that this will be the new normal for the city. Of those considering leaving New York City, 30% say that the possibility of working remotely makes it more likely that they will move,' the report read.

The report revealed that just 38 per cent considered the quality of life good or excellent, while the same percentage of people thought New York City was going the wrong direction.

Mayor Bill de Blasio blasted fleeing residents 'fairweather friends in August, but Gov. Andrew Cuomo has all but begged wealthy residents to stay.

Many of the city's top earners have escaped to the Hamptons, taking their money and resources with them.

Concerns over education proved to be an important consideration for surveyors, with 53 per cent noting they were worried about sending their children back to school.

De Blasio in August said that the entire school system would automatically revert to all-remote instruction if the city's positivity rate over a seven-day rolling average surpassed three percent.

He reiterated the warning this week as the city reported 2.6 percent of tests performed over the past week have come back positive.

De Blasio is expected to face even more backlash if he moves forward with the plan to close classrooms despite data showing that transmission of the virus in schools has been remarkably low - with a positivity rate of just 0.17 percent.

The rollercoaster-like school schedule has pushed some parents to their wits end.

Regarding crime, the city saw an uptick this summer of shootings and gun violence in the five boroughs.

The NYPD CompStat 2.0 showed there was an uptick in murders in New York City, with 339 recorded this year and 289 in 2019 - a 38.1 per cent increase as of last Sunday.

The number of shooting victims rose greatly this year with 1,635 such incidents after officials recorded 812 last year. That's a 101.4 per cent rise.

'The biggest reason for people leaving the city is uncertainty about when the pandemic will be over and how quickly the New York economy will recover,' Kathryn Wylde, head of the Partnership for New York City, told The Post.

'More than half a million city residents who were employed in the retail, restaurant, services sectors have lost their jobs and cannot afford city rents.

'The late decision on re-opening public and private schools forced many families to relocate so they could make enrollment deadlines in districts where they were living during the pandemic.'

Postal data obtained by The Post showed that a large chunk of New Yorkers simply relocated across the way to New Jersey, Long Island and Westchester.

Post Office officials received 21,362 address change requests to Suffolk County, 18,731 requests to Nassau County and 15,850 requests to Westchester County, The Post reports.

New Jersey's Hudson County saw 9,356 requests so far.

Other popular locations included Jersey City, Scarsdale, Greenwich, Connecticut, and the Hamptons, which had 6,500 requests across six zip codes. 

Some New Yorkers fled even further to places like Los Angeles - 8,587 requests - and Honolulu with 421.

The Post reports that 13,009 requests were issued to Florida counties like Miami-Dade and Broward.

Wealthy residents on the city's Upper West Side made 9,076 mail forwarding requests - the largest in the city.

Earlier this summer, Upper West Side residents protested two homeless shelters being installed in the area and complained of an uptick in crime.

And apartment vacancies have reached its highest number since 2006 at 16,145.

A report from the Real Estate Board of New York found that the city and state have lost $1.4billion in tax revenue due to stuttered interest in 2020.