Younger residents continue to head off Long Island

Long Island Business News, Sep 29, 2008 by David Reich-Hale

Long Island's brain drain is getting worse.

According to statistics released by the U.S. Census Bureau, the region continues to have the highest rate of decline of residents 25- to-44 years of age in the state. The Island has lost 19 percent, or nearly 160,000, of its residents in that age group since 2000.

To compare, the average rate of decline in New York City was 2.24 percent, and the drop in the other New York suburbs was 14.43 percent, nearly 5 percent below Long Island's precipitous drop.

Nationally, the rate of decline for people between 25-and-44 years of age was 1.93 percent.

The brain drain has often been cited by workforce housing activists and business leaders who argue that younger Long Islanders are leaving because of the lack of diversity in housing stock. Only 17 percent of housing on the Island is for rentals, for instance, compared to 36 percent in Westchester County.

But those same leaders admit that there's been little hope of pushing through high-density projects, rentals or otherwise, if zoning decisions are made at the local level by elected officials afraid of pushing the idea to reluctant residents.

"Zoning authorities have to accept the fact that changes need to be made," said Matthew Crosson, the president of the Long Island Association. "It's a difficult political problem for them, but this is what they're there for. This is strangling Long Island and they have to act."

Many other counties in the New York metropolitan area also faced double-digit percentage drops of younger residents. For instance, Fairfield County, Conn. lost more than 15 percent of people 25-to- 44 years of age since 2000.

"They're having a rough time of it, but they're not as bad as us," Crosson said. "Great."

Crosson added that he hoped the latest statistics will push workforce housing to the forefront of political debate on Long Island.

"There's the old saying that nothing focuses the mind like the site of the noose," Crosson said.