Does NY actually have a declining population? We clearly have an increase in housing stock so are demographic changes alone enough to keep the real estate and rental markets propped up or do the "laws" of supply and demand simply not apply here?

http://skift.com/2013/01/02/infographic-americans-moved-out-of-new-york-city-and-into-d-c-in-2012/

This article is referring States. Are you talking about the laws of supply in demand as they relate to NY State or NYC? If NY State, impossible to apply as it is too big of a region. If NYC is what you are referring to, you would need to supply demand data, possibly in the form of population increase, for NYC specifically. Hope this answers your rhetorical idiotic question.

I just spent a few days in fl and one of the recurrent conversations was how high nyc tax rates were going to prop up fl real estate prices b/c nyc residents would buy second home in fl just to avoid nyc/nys taxes. I have no thoughts on whether there is any merit to what I simply listened to, but those who were speaking suggested that people might not be leaving nyc as much as they were pretending to leave nyc. And the linked article does only discuss ny state, but the title of the link references nyc.

There was a good thread on this idea a couple (a few?) years ago. I've just been searching but can't find it. It also started with an observation about people leaving the city - I think in that case based on government state-to-state migration data rather than moving company data - and the question of whether this bodes ill for real estate prices and rents. Among the points that I recall being made were (roughly):

- Many young people come to NY for a first job out of college but move on after a few years. These are a natural and recurring source of emigration. Of course they are replaced, give or take, with the next crop of college grads, so the 'emigration' is more optical than significant
- Similarly, many young couples (although perhaps fewer than in the past) move to NY suburbs, NJ/CT suburbs or out of the metro area altogether when they have a family and face housing costs for family-sized space (more a Manhattan issue than other boroughs). Another recurring source of emigration
- Not sure if retirement of elderly to warmer climes was mentioned, but anyway same built-in-source-of-emigration concept as the young people
- On the other side, immigration is a huge driver of population growth, as is natural increase through births to native and immigrant couples staying in the city where in past generations they might have left. Immigration is both domestic - the young college grads, etc. - and international in large numbers all up and down the socia-economic spectrum.

As dmag2020 suggests, the real test is population growth and NYC has grown significantly in recent years. There is a historical population table (by decade) here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City
This shows a popuation just under 8 million in the 1950, 1960 and 1970 censuses, declining to barely 7 million in 1980 and recovering to 8.24 million by 2011, with most of the growth since 1990.

I think from a fundamental standpoint, the (unfortunate, in my humble opinion) gentrification of the city has led more young families, who can afford it, to stay in the city, as well as more retires to move to the city. Retirees have been finding the ease of apartment life combined with the entertainment and dining options, very attractive. This is all from empirical evidence I have observed, so take with as many grains of salt as you will...

Hb - surprise? No. Respect? Yes.

Huntersburg- with gentrification you tend to lose a lot of the flavor of the city. Bodegas go out, 7 elevens come in. City starts to become a strip mall. I liked when the east village was punk rock, and real estate was more reasonably priced. Sure, lower crime rates are great. But a lot of great people have been priced out which to me makes the city less desirable. All that said I recently bought and hope I don't regret it.