Hunterdon, Monmouth and Hudson saw their year-over-year population losses slow or halt between 2016 and 2017, while more urbanized counties like Hudson and Union experienced significant slowdowns in their recent breakneck growth.
“It could be a blip in the data, but we were quite surprised,” said James Hughes, dean emeritus of Rutgers University’s Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy.
While one year doesn’t make a trend, Hughes, who has been studying the flight from the suburbs since 2014, said it’s worth noting that housing prices in urbanized counties have skyrocketed with the demand of recent years.
