WASHINGTON - Reversing a decade-long trend, many of America's largest 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 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. Despite the data, however, census figures continue to show suburbs in the Chicago area still among the fastest growing areas of the nation.

In March 2008, the census reported that Kendall County, about 50 miles west of Chicago, was the fastest growing county in the nation between 2000 and 2007. Kendall grew 77.5 percent to 96,818 in July 2007, compared to 54,560 in April 2000. Will County ranked No. 54 on the list of the top 100 fastest-growing counties nationwide, growing 34.1 percent with 673,586 people.

Then last March, Kendall was the country's fourth fastest-growing county from 2007 to 2008, increasing 7 percent to 103,500. In a special census released last April, Naperville in DuPage County grew by more than 8,000 people to 144,560.

But industrial centers in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minn., Columbus, Ohio, and Lincoln, Neb., with economies focused on finance, health care, information technology or education showed surprising rebounds. Detroit, with its ailing auto industry, declined.

Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle and Portland, Ore., 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.

"Cities are showing a continued vitality as hubs of activity even as some suburban and exurban areas go through tough times," said William H. Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution. "It emphasizes the buoyancy of large established cities with diverse economies and populations."

Frey 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.

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, D.C., jumped 3 percent and 2.9 percent in 2008, respectively, to rank among the 20 fastest-growing cities.

Among other census estimates:

• The 10 largest cities grew about 1 percent from the previous year, buoyed by sharp gains in Chicago and fewer losses in Philadelphia, compared to 0.9 percent for other cities. For much of the decade, the big cities had grown at roughly 0.5 percent - half the rate for elsewhere in the U.S.

• New York continued to be the nation's most populous city, with 8.4 million residents. Los Angeles ranked second at 3.8 million. Rounding out the top 10 were Chicago, Houston, Phoenix, Philadelphia, San Antonio, Dallas, San Diego and San Jose, Calif.

• For metropolitan areas greater than 1 million people, the growth rates of cities grew 1 percent, compared to 1.1 percent for suburbs. In 2001, city growth was half the rate for suburbs - 0.8 percent for cities compared to 1.6 percent for suburbs.