More and more people are moving away from major German cities

Last year, large German cities lost their population as much as they did in 1994. The number of people moving to smaller cities and rural regions rose by 1.8 percent compared to the pre-Corona year 2019, according to the Federal Institute for Population Research (BiB ) announced in Wiesbaden on Monday. In the same period, the number of people moving to urban districts with more than 100,000 inhabitants fell by 5.4 percent. "This means that the internal migration balance of the big cities is at a lower level than it has been for 30 years."

Compared to 2019, in 2021 it was mainly 30 to 49 year olds (up 3.7 percent) and minors (up 8.9 percent) who left the big cities. "The numbers suggest that the suburbanization of families, which we observed before the pandemic, continued to intensify in 2021," said BiB expert Tamilwai Kolowa. Possible reasons are changed preferences when it comes to housing, housing shortages and persistently high housing prices. Suburbanization is also often referred to as urban exodus.

The BiB experts used 2019 as the last year before Corona for comparison, as moving behavior was particularly influenced during the pandemic. A spokesman explained that in 2020, among other things, the number of job-related relocations due to new hires or studies had decreased. "Therefore, the comparison of 2021 with the previous year is problematic."

The big cities had already recorded population losses in 2020, which, however, were mainly due to the overall declining mobility of the population in the first year of the pandemic, explained the BiB. The areas around the city in particular benefited from the significant increase in people leaving in 2021, but also smaller cities and even rural areas. They all gained population through immigration.

According to the Federal Institute for Population Research, the calculations are based on current figures from the Federal Statistical Office.