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Key Findings
The Park Towns’ Pre-Millennials age group across the U.S. experienced a +19.8% gain and New York State increased by +10.7%.
The Park Towns’ Pre-Millennials age group experienced a −25.9% population loss from 1990 to 2020. Nearly 4,000 college age young people moved away. Every rural area lost population, ranging from −16.7% to −29.5%. The Split Towns saw a population loss of −17.9%.
The next age group is the Pre-Millennials who were born between 1976 and 1985 and were 5 to 14 years old in 1990 and 25 to 34 in 2010. Though 20 years is a limited time period, the Pre-Millennials by 2010 show major population losses from young people leaving rural areas for college or military service. The Park Towns Pre-Millennials saw a −25.9% population loss, similar to other rural areas. See Table 24.
The population loss of the Park Towns’ Pre-Millennials was shared across rural areas, ranging from −16.7% to −29.5%. The pattern of heavy loss of college age young people in the Park Towns and other rural areas stands in stark contrast to the population gains in New York State and the U.S. The other pattern that should be noted is that the heaviest losses continued to occur in the most thinly populated regions.
In 2010 there are only data about the loss of college age young people among the various Pre-Millennials age groups. Whether Pre-Millennials recruit population among 35 year olds is a question that will be answered when new data are available in the next decade.
The maps on the next page show vast landscapes across New York State, the rural Northeast U.S. and Rural America that experienced even greater population losses among their Pre-Millennials age group than did the Park Towns. Fully 51% of the towns, cities and boroughs in New York State and 48% of Rural America counties experienced greater losses than did the Park Towns. Fully 31% of the population of Rural America and 36% of the population of the rural Northeast lived in places with population losses among their Pre-Millennials age group greater than that of the Park Towns. The Park Towns’ population loss among this age group was consistent with trends across rural areas in the U.S. ❑
Table 24: Population changes in the Pre-Millennials age group (born between 1976 and 1985) in nine study regions from 1990 to 2020
| Areas | 1990 5–14 |
2000 15–24 |
2010 25–34 |
2020 35–44 |
Change 1990–2020 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| New York State | 2,292,078 | 2,483,474 | 2,632,964 | 2,537,520 | +10.7% |
| Rural NY Towns | 9,347 | 7,438 | 5,993 | 6,452 | −31.0% |
| Park Towns | 13,793 | 12,531 | 9,879 | 10,215 | −25.9% |
| Split Towns | 18,393 | 15,225 | 13,672 | 15,099 | −17.9% |
| United States | 34,888,126 | 38,550,194 | 40,659,216 | 41,784,328 | +19.8% |
| Rural America | |||||
| USDA Nonmetro | 6,225,342 | 6,100,185 | 5,206,834 | 5,185,617 | −16.7% |
| Low Density US | 2,782,303 | 2,528,696 | 2,171,120 | 2,178,065 | −21.7% |
| USDA Nonmetro NE | 584,605 | 554,598 | 451,529 | 469,415 | −19.7% |
| Low Density NE | 66,513 | 54,564 | 44,599 | 46,901 | −29.5% |
Table 24 shows that the Park Towns’ Pre-Millennials age group lost −25.9% of its population from 1990 to 2020. This loss was driven by the loss of nearly 4,000 college-age young people. The Park Towns’ losses of college-age young people was similar to losses across rural areas, ranging from −16.7% to −29.5%. The loss of college-age young people is one of the primary facts of life in Rural America. In 2020, there was not enough data to see if the Pre-Millennials age group in rural areas will start to recoup some lost population with recruitment of young people of career age.
Figure 92: Population changes in the Pre-Millennials age group (born between 1976 and 1985) in nine study regions from 1990 to 2020
Figure 92 shows in two line graphs the population gains or losses of the Pre-Millennials age group across nine different regions from 1990 to 2020, first as raw percentages and second normalized using U.S. population to correct for mortality, et cetera.