We apologize in advance to all of our friends up in Buffalo and Syracuse. We love you, we really do. However, now that the story is in the New York Times, it's more or less official: your cities are boring. They're so boring, in fact, that not only is the population of 24-35 year olds declining by 25% but people are actually fleeing upstate cities for areas that have previously been reserved for retirement.
Your cities are so boring that the population in New York suburbs among younger demographics has been far surpasing the population of upstate cities since 1990.
In New York City and the five suburban counties in New York State, the number of people ages 18 to 44 increased by 1.5 percent in the 1990's. Upstate, it declined by 10 percent.
Over all, the upstate population grew by 1.1 percent in the 1990's — slower than the rate for any state except West Virginia and North Dakota.
Ok, see, now that's just sad. When the only state with less population growth is North Dakota (where people have trouble carrying their cousins' babies to term) you know your town really sucks.
Flight of Young Adults Is Causing Alarm Upstate [Sam Roberts, New York Times]
Editorial Director
But you missed the most horrifying stat of all:
"Population growth upstate might have lagged even more but for the influx of 21,000 prison inmates, who accounted for 30 percent of new residents."
One doesn't quite know where to begin with that one.