The Empire State is losing more residents than anywhere else in the country. Three families tell why they decided to move on out

IN2017, with a baby on the way, Lia LoBello Reynolds and Colin Reynolds realized staying in the city wasn’t feasible and commuting to and from the suburbs each day wasn’t a life they wanted. The couple got new jobs in Pennsylvania and bought a home in a small town 27 miles west of Philadelphia.

“I just couldn’t imagine being on a train for three hours of my life every day just because I want to work in a city I couldn’t afford to live in,” said Colin Reynolds, a 34-year-old who works in digital marketing.

Reynolds isn’t alone. According to recent data from the US Census Bureau, more people are leaving the state of New York. Between July 2017 and July 2018, the Empire State lost 180,306 people and gained only 131,746 new residents. A difference of 48,560 abandoned New York — the biggest decrease of any state in the US.

The problem is especially acute upstate where 42 out of 50 counties have seen a population decrease since 2010.

“Much more needs to be done to improve the basic climate for economic growth” upstate, said E.J. McMahon, the Research Director for the Empire Center for Public Policy, a conservative think tank based in Albany. “It’s just not dynamic enough to hold more of its people.”

In New York City, the population is still growing, with the number of people living in the city increasing by nearly half a million from 2010 to 2017, but more and more people are moving away. In 2017, roughly 131 people left the metropolitan area each day, compared with 43 in 2014.

“The thought is ‘I like it but I can’t afford it here and it’s hard,’ ” McMahon said of the driving force behind people leaving.

Here, former and soonto-be former New Yorkers reveal why . . .