Crime and COVID Has New Yorkers Fleeing the City in Droves

According to statistics obtained by The New York Post, an astounding 300,000 residents of New York City have fled for more comfortable conditions over the last eight months – driven out of the city by a combination of crime, economic concerns, and the coronavirus. We have to imagine that at least some percentage of these folks left because of the vastly incompetent leadership in City Hall, as well. Of course, that’s part of the reason why crime and COVID are spiraling out of control in New York, so perhaps that’s already baked into the pie.

From The New York Post:

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 of the city, more than double the 101,342 during the same period in 2019.

The Post spoke to Manhattan Institute expert Michael Hendrix, who said he was not particularly surprised by the exodus.

“I think people are afraid,” he said. “They’re afraid of catching a deadly virus and they’re afraid of crime and other quality of life concerns. One thing we also hear is about trash and cleanliness of the city.”

Scarcely mentioned in the Post’s report – but likely very relevant – is the fact that this exodus has been happening for some time. And it’s not just from NYC, either; stats show that more people are leaving New York, the state, than are coming to live there – a dramatic reversal of the norm for decades. Driven away by astronomical taxes and oppressive Democrat policies, these residents are finding the air a bit more breathable in places like Connecticut, New Jersey, and, in many cases, all the way down south in Florida.

Unfortunately, many of these people bring their Democrat voting tendencies with them.