Cities appear to be thriving, but the numbers are deceiving.

Despite many people fleeing US cities during the pandemic’s signature year, several metropolitan areas appear to be enjoying a revival. Statista estimated that 83.7% of the US population might live in urban communities by 2025, a percentage that could climb to 89.2% by 2050. In fact, the United Nations Population Division predicts seven out of every ten people worldwide will live in urban territories by 2050.

According to a study published in Sage Journals, “[N]onmetro counties (defined in 1980) grew from 55 million people in 1980 to roughly 70 million in 2020. Yet, because of nonmetro-to-metro reclassification, the 2020 census reports a nonmetro population of only 46 million.”

But the numbers are misleading.

When Rural Becomes Urban

Rural demographics can erode for many reasons, like a natural decrease due to more deaths than births, population aging, and the migration of young adults to cities. But there’s another factor that weighs on the metro vs nonmetro statistics. According to data Sage Journals collected, the nation’s geographical classification system seems to make rural growth a zero-sum game. When suburban and rural regions flourish developmentally, they are often reclassified, feeding the rise of urban counties.

According to the Census Bureau, the standards for delineating metropolitan areas have been modified eight times since the 1950s. In the last 60 or so years, 753 nonmetro counties have been redefined as metropolitan. During that period, the US population gained 106 million people, and the metro population expanded by 115 million. Yet nonmetro went from 54 million people to 46 million.

On the Dark Side

Some experts had feared the pandemic would spawn an “urban doom loop.” They thought urban populations would plummet as people moved away and that those cities would continue to sink further and force more people to leave — a perpetual spiral that would “do to superstar cities what the decline of the auto industry did to Detroit,” as Rogé Karma wrote in The Atlantic.

The man who proposed the doom-loop theory, Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh, a professor at Columbia specializing in real estate and finance, believes the doom loop is currently in its early phases. Karma interviewed Van Nieuwerburgh, who said, “The shift to remote and hybrid work causes companies to downsize their offices or eliminate them altogether, leaving the owners of office buildings with a lot of empty space and far fewer potential tenants. This process has already begun; earlier this year, the percentage of vacant office buildings hit an all-time record.”

That is the first step, what Van Nieuwerburgh believes is the catalyst, a process that will force office owners to sell properties at a discount. That, in turn, reduces property values and which lowers property taxes, eventually causing budget deficits in local governments and spiraling from there. “Crime and homelessness will rise, schools will worsen, and public transport will decay. Residents will leave cities in droves, which will further erode the city’s tax base and public services in a vicious cycle,” Van Nieuwerburgh said. “We’re only in the first inning right now. Things are going to get much, much worse.”

Plenty of people disagree with the doom-loop theory – and many metropolitan communities do seem to be thriving. Still, as Karma explained, it’s cities like Memphis and Cleveland, “where property values don’t have as far to fall,” that could face a “doom loop of abandoned buildings, shrinking budgets, and declining populations.” So where will those people end up? Will the future bring a nation of crowded megacities, or will rural areas thrive?