Where did the last ten years go? Here we are in March 2021 and the census is looming. Yet in London and many of Britain's cities it will be the sound of silence that census callers will be hearing on Sunday 21 March. A recent survey by the Government-funded Economic Statistics Centre of Excellence indicated that up to 1.3 million people born overseas have left the UK in the last 12 months and half of them from London. COVID is the cause, with the economic fallout in the tourism and entertainment industries, combined with high rents, the main contributors to this exodus. While the full extent of this economic migration from our cities is disputed, other short-term trends can and will distort the 2021 census. The annual migration of upwards of two million students from home to university has been stalled since January. In some cities these make up a remarkably high number of residents: up to 100,000 in Manchester and 70,000 in Liverpool which represents an astonishing 14% of its population. Similarly, many millennials (25-40-year-olds) have taken advantage of 'working from home' to abandon high rent city centre properties and return to the shires. And the third group are those blessed with second homes who have fled the cities to sit out COVID by the sea.
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