Central business districts are important parts of metropolitan areas. They not only are homes for important areas of office, but of retail and often of residency. But according to a new Bank of America analysis, many in northern and western parts of the U.S. haven't seen consumer spending return to pre-pandemic levels.

"There appeared to be two major reasons for this. One was the rise of remote work, or working from home (WFH), which started during the pandemic but has persisted since and in turn, displaced consumer spending away from CBDs into areas closer to people's homes," the bank wrote. "The second, which impacted northern and western cities in particular, was outward migration trends, accelerated by the pandemic. This movement saw large outflows of people from impacted cities, further drain spending in the CBDs from which they left."

Relative to four years prior, Seattle, Boston, San Francisco, and New York saw some significant losses of consumer spending. Seattle was down close to 30% while San Francisco was close to -35%, New York was shy of 20%, and Boston is just over 20%. That highlights how bad things can be. And yet there were metros that saw significant improvements. Tampa was up by nearly 40% and Phoenix over 40%. Columbus, Ohio, up nearly 20%, as was Nashville. And Houston, maybe 12% up.