Immigrants Save Us Cities From Shrinking

Parts of the metropolitan US are relying on hundreds of thousands of foreign immigrants to maintain population levels as native-born Americans move elsewhere, according to figures released today.

New York would lose around 100,000 residents a year if overseas immigrants were not filling the void, the census bureau figures for 2000 to 2006 show. Los Angeles and Boston would also shrink without immigrants, threatening their economies and property markets.

"A lot of cities rely on immigration to prop up their housing market and economies," said William Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution, a Washington thinktank.

The census found that more than 1 million immigrants moved to New York between 2000 and 2006, while 600,000 people, mostly US-born, relocated. The Washington area experienced its slowest growth since at least 1990 last year, with newborns and immigrants barely offsetting the record number of residents who moved out, the Washington Post reported.

New York was the most populous metropolitan area on July 1 2006, with 18.8 million people, followed by Los Angeles (13 million) and Chicago (9.5 million). Fourteen metro areas had populations of 4 million or more.

The figures also show that the population of New Orleans has dropped by nearly 290,000 people since 2005, as the city has struggled to recover from the destruction wrought by Hurricane Katrina.

Immigrants have long flocked to big US metropolitan areas, often stimulating growth. More recently, native-born Americans have moved from those regions, seeking a better life or better job prospects elsewhere.

Southern US cities, boosted by sunny climates, continue to grow fastest. Atlanta added more people than any other metropolitan area from 2000 to 2006, increasing its population by 890,000, to 5.1 million. The next biggest increases were Dallas-Fort Worth and Houston, both in Texas; Phoenix, Arizona; and Riverside, California.

Parts of the so-called Rust Belt, the former industrial heartlands, continued to see an exodus. Around 60,000 people left Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania from 2000 to 2006. There were also declines in Cleveland, Ohio; Buffalo, New York; Youngstown, Ohio; and Scranton, Pennsylvania.

"It's a tale of two kinds of cities," said Mr Frey. "Growing and 'new economy' metros that have rebounded from early-decade woes, and large coastal and Rust Belt [regions] where high housing costs or diminishing employment prospects propel continued out[wards] migration."

There are about 36 million immigrants in the US, around one-third illegally. The census bureau does not distinguish between legal and illegal immigrants.

Immigration was a contentious issue in many congressional races last November. Politicians have been unable to agree about how best to control illegal immigration.

Advocates for stricter immigration laws question whether a stable, or even a shrinking, population is bad.

"Don't we have concerns about congestion and sprawl and pollution?" said Steven Camarota, director of research at the Centre for Immigration Studies, which advocates stricter immigration policies.