WASHINGTON - REVERSING a decade-long trend, many of the largest US cities are now growing more quickly than the rest of the nation, yet another sign of an economic crisis that is making it harder for people to move.

Census data released on Wednesday highlight a city resurgence in coastal regions and areas of the Midwest and Northeast, due to a housing crunch, recession and higher gas prices that have slowed migration to far-flung suburbs and residential hotspots in the South and West.

The 2008 population figures show New York and Chicago made gains from higher births, while Philadelphia stanched population losses from earlier in the decade.

Also showing rebounds were industrial centres in Minneapolis and St Paul, Minnesota, Columbus, Ohio, and Lincoln, Nebraska, with economies focused on finance, health care, information technology or education. Detroit, with its ailing auto industry, declined.

Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle and Portland, Oregon, all on the West Coast, registered growth, boosted partly by foreign-born immigrants who moved into and stayed in gateway cities. In contrast, former hotspot areas in Nevada and Arizona had significant slowdowns, as well as inland regions in California.

William H. Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution and other demographers said many of the population shifts could be longer-lasting. They noted that while the Sunbelt region is still growing, it is unlikely to return to the torrid growth rates of earlier in the decade before the housing bubble burst.

President Barack Obama has pledged to upgrade mass transit and push energy conservation, high-speed rail and other urban priorities. That could create shifts in residential patterns and city life, especially for younger couples and small families more likely to move.

Robert E. Lang, co-director of the Metropolitan Institute at Virginia Tech, predicted that upscale, inner suburbs with developed transit systems will see bigger gains in the future.

He noted that while far-flung exurbs have been declining in population growth, closer-in suburbs such as Virginia's Arlington and Alexandria outside Washington, DC, jumped 3 per cent and 2.9 per cent in 2008, respectively, to rank among the 20 fastest-growing cities.

New York continued to be the most populous US city, with 8.4 million residents. Los Angeles ranked second at 3.8 million. -- AP