Exodus of young professionals slows, but brain drain ongoing

The latest U.S. Census data show a slowing of the exodus of young educated workers out of Westchester County, but suburban brain drain remains an overall trend.

Westchester has lost 12 percent of its 25- to 34-year-olds since 2000, according to the 2012 American Community Survey, but the recent numbers show an improvement over the 12.8 percent in the 2011 survey. An analysis of the data was presented at an Aug. 6 event in Purchase hosted by the Urban Land Institute”™s Northern New Jersey and Westchester/Fairfield councils.

Alexander Roberts, the executive director of fair housing group Community Housing Innovations Inc., shared a presentation that said despite the easing of the loss of young professionals, the county”™s wealthiest communities were still experiencing the greatest losses. Roberts said in an interview that regional planners had predicted the demographic shift based on a lack of development of affordable housing construction.

“Single-family houses are out of reach for more than 40 percent of the population of Westchester,” he said. “Unless the free market in housing is restored, consumer choice will continue to be limited by local ”˜police power”™ acting against the free market.”

Roberts said that land-use boards in Westchester”™s elite communities have been unfriendly to residential developers and favored zoning that allows for large, expensive homes and hinders construction of multifamily and affordable dwellings. Fears of overcrowding small school districts or bringing new residents into elite neighborhoods, combined with ever-increasing property taxes have made home ownership an unattainable goal for many young adults, Roberts said.

“It”™s counter to American values of property rights that people should be able to do what the free market demands and not be thwarted by the desire of neighbors to preserve the status quo,” he said.

Roberts authored a report in February using the 2011 data that cited a demographic collapse of 25- to 34-year-olds in Westchester and Long Island. Several communities listed in that report have seen their losses cut in the newest data.

Scarsdale cut its decline from 52 percent in 2011 to 42 percent in 2012. Rye, which had the largest exodus, 63 percent, in 2011, cut that number to 56 percent. Bronxville and Pound Ridge saw their losses increase, rising from 23 percent to 46 percent, and 58 percent to 63 percent, according to the report. Roberts said communities with lower-cost housing continue to have better results ”” Peekskill and White Plains saw 12 percent and 5 percent gains over 2000, according to the 2012 data.

The administration of County Executive Rob Astorino, a Republican, has countered the perceived brain drain. Spokesman Ned McCormack said in a recent interview that the Census showed the county population growing overall, with a 57 percent increase in the 45-to-54 age group.

McCormack attributed the shifts to changing habits of millennials, who he said tend to live in urban, walkable environments. Adults tend not to marry or have children as young as their counterparts of previous generations, and he said people are more likely to move to the suburbs in their 30s when they have children. Westchester”™s public school enrollment is up 2.5 percent in the period from 2000 to 2010, according to the county executive”™s office.

Roberts countered that the population of Westchester grew 2.9 percent, less than the national average of 9.8 percent growth since 2000.

The county is in the midst of a contentious implementation of the settlement of a 2009 affordable housing lawsuit with the federal government. In that settlement, Westchester agreed to build or obtain 750 affordable housing units in some of its most elite ”” and racially diverse ”” communities. The majority of those units were required to be built in municipalities whose populations were less than 3 percent black and 7 percent Hispanic.

Prior to the lawsuit, under the administration of County Executive Andrew O”™Rourke, Westchester adopted a Housing Allocation Plan on the recommendations of a commission. That plan, adopted two decades ago, sought to build 5,000 units over 10 years with a portion allotted to each county community, but many of those communities did not produce their share of the units.