NATIONAL BRIEFING / NATIONWIDE
Reversing a decade-long trend, many of America’s largest cities are now growing more quickly than the rest of the nation, another sign of an economic crisis that is making it harder for people to move.
Census data released today highlight a city resurgence in coastal regions and areas of the Midwest and Northeast, as the housing crunch, recession and higher gas prices have slowed migration to far-flung suburbs and residential hot spots in the South and West.
The 2008 population figures show New York and Chicago made gains from higher births, while Philadelphia stanched population losses.
Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle and Portland, Ore., registered growth, boosted partly by foreign-born immigrants who moved into and stayed in gateway cities. In contrast, popular areas in Nevada and Arizona had significant slowdowns, as well as inland regions in California.
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