Coronavirus: more than 300,000 have left New York City

I live in Los Angeles, but for some reason I have a fascination with New York City. It seems that over 3000,000 individuals have left the city. I am sure many have also left Los Angeles, but I've only come across one article that discussed it and that was awhile back. When it comes to New York City, I'm seeing more up to date information. As COVID-19 infections increase in Los Angeles, perhaps similar stories will start to pop up about Los Angeles. One does have to wonder how many actors have already left Los Angeles -- though, if true, they'll eventually return. 

Back to New York City. The New York Post (Nov 14) wrote:

City residents filed 295,103 change of address requests from March 1 through Oct. 31, according to data The Post obtained from the US Postal Service under a Freedom of Information Act request. 

Since the data details only when 11 or more forwarding requests were made to a particular county outside NYC, the number of moves is actually higher. And a single address change could represent an entire household, which means far more than 300,000 New Yorkers fled the five boroughs.

Whatever the exact number, the exodus — which began when COVID-19 hit the city in early spring — is much greater than in prior years. From just March through July, there were 244,895 change of address requests to destinations outside the city, more than double the 101,342 during the same period in 2019.

The escape from New York is fueled not only by coronavirus concerns but economic worries, school chaos and rising crime, experts say.

The article has a list of the top 20 destinations;.17 of the top 20 were either New York or New Jersey. The other 3 were Connecticut. I just wonder if these are permanent change of addresses or people just moving to a second home. 

The article also mentions that there are 16,145 apartment vacancies as of October. This represents a 14 year high. But once again, how many of these vacancies are due to students now taking online classes from their parents' home versus taking in-person classes at an NYU?    

From what I'm reading, most of us should be able to get a coronavirus vaccine by September 2021. That is only 10 months away. Will people eventually come back into the city? At least the college students will. And I suspect that if you work on Wall Street, the it is a difficult situation to go to dinner with co-workers and then having to drive all the way to New Jersey. Like everything in life, we'll see. I suppose it depends on the work-from-home movement, but from various headlines it seems to me that Wall Street isn't pro-work-from-home. I'm going to say that for right now this is a temporary situation. Of course, the article discusses increased crime so if the mayor doesn't put some emphasis on that issue, these movements could become permanent. And finally, if taxes go up, that could also factor into the situation.