Suburban flight? Hiring in urban centers is trailing the burbs

Jabriel Donohue said he had considered opening his pizza-and-cocktails restaurant in Seattle, but instead settled on a less urban environment: Bellingham, Washington, a nearby city of about 50,000 people where rents are lower and tech workers have migrated amid the remote work shift of the pandemic. 

"Bellingham has been growing at nearly 10% year over year," Donohue, 37, said of his business decision. "Tech workers have realized they didn't have to be in the office every day and have gone over to nicer, less intense, less traffic [jammed] environments." Donohue, who is planning to open his Bella Ciao restaurant early next year, is part of a nationwide surge in small- and mid-sized businesses that are opening up or expanding outside large urban centers amid a shift in consumer demand. That's creating growing disparities between urban cores and suburban areas, according to data from payroll provider Gusto.