Like a number of places in the nation’s manufacturing belt, the Buffalo-Niagara metropolitan area has been losing population over the past several decades. This decline reflects the ongoing population shift from the Northeast and Midwest to warmer places in the South and West, as well as the considerable loss of manufacturing jobs in the region. In recent decades, some large metros experiencing domestic out-migration have seen their populations bolstered by migrants from abroad. But while the Buffalo metro’s rate of out-migration has been roughly average, the rates of both domestic and international in-migration have been very low. Like many cities across the U.S., the City of Buffalo has seen a considerable decline in its population since WWII as growth shifted to the suburbs. As a result, the City of Buffalo has represented a shrinking share of its metro’s total population.