San Francisco saw the second largest population decline of all major cities in the U.S. in 2020, according to census data. Only one city —Baltimore — logged a greater population decline.
San Francisco’s population shrank by 1.39% between July 1, 2019, and July 1, 2020, U.S. Census data shows. Before that, San Francisco’s population had been growing modestly since 2010. Baltimore, meanwhile, declined by 1.42%.
San Jose was the city with the third largest population decline, shrinking by 1.3% over that time period, though the city also had negative growth in 2019.
Though they top the list for population declines, San Francisco and San Jose are not necessarily outliers for having seen such declines. Among the 50 most populous U.S. cities, 15 shrunk during the pandemic, including New York, Los Angeles, Boston and Chicago, according to the data.
So where were people leaving the Bay Area’s big cities going? Postal service data shows that they mostly moved to other parts of the Bay Area or California. A Chronicle analysis in March found 72% of address changes filed with the United States Postal Service resulted in moves to other Bay Area counties, and about a fifth went elsewhere in California.
For those who did leave the state, the most popular destination was Washington state, the Chronicle found. That lines up with the census data, which showed that Seattle — which has been among the fastest growing cities for the last few years — topped the list for 2020, adding to its population by 2.2%.
Seattle, like San Francisco, has become a hub for tech workers. Bay Area tech giants like Google and Facebook have satellite offices there, and Salesforce, San Francisco’s largest private employer, has a significant Seattle division after buying local software company Tableau. Amazon and Microsoft are also based in the coastal city and are hiring rapidly.
Seattle housing prices are also substantially lower than in the Bay Area. A median one-bedroom apartment is $1,500 there, substantially lower than San Francisco’s $2,650, according to real estate firm Zumper.
Also contributing to the decline in San Francisco and San Jose is that California had a decrease of new people moving into the state, leaving fewer people to replace those who left according to a March study by the California Policy Lab, an initiative from UCLA and UC Berkeley that uses data to address policy questions.
But while the census data does capture what happened in the early months of the pandemic, it doesn’t answer whether there have been any changes since July, or how much of the loss can be attributed to people moving versus natural population growth — births and deaths.
There’s reason to believe San Francisco is already making a comeback. San Francisco’s rent prices are making a strong recovery after dropping during the pandemic, a report by Apartment List found, indicating that people may be ready to move back to the city. The Apartment List analysis uses property data on its website and statistics from the Census Bureau and Department of Housing and Urban Development and includes rents for older units and those in lower-income neighborhoods.
Danielle Echeverria is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Twitter: @DanielleEchev Email: danielle.echeverria@sfchronicle.com
