Where Are Migrants Going? Part V
More Cities, More Data, More Stories to Tell
With each post this week, I’ve offered a new way to compare migration data for certain metro areas (or metro areas generally). I’ve tried to focus on several of the same metro areas across posts, in order to give readers a broader sense of how to look at migration. We can’t explain migration through just one simplistic narrative: why people uproot themselves and move is inevitably a product of myriad influences. Every migration story is different, and every city or county is full of thousands of those different stories.
But for this post, I’m going to look at 18 cities I haven’t assessed yet, or have only touched on very briefly. I’m going to offer an overwhelming amount of data, and I won’t summarize most of it. My mission for writing this series isn’t to be an authority on every city (I’m not!), but to use a few illustrations to nudge the discussion about migration towards the particular, the personal, and the local. So fittingly, for this Friday, I’ve selected a basket of cities based on two criteria: either a family member or close friend of mine migrated to and lived in one of these cities at some point, or it’s a city I received questions about sometime during the last two weeks of writing. I’ll explore a few metro area stories, but my main purpose with this post is simply to provide more data in an easy-to-use format and to show more ways to exploring migration.
I encourage readers who want more information to click the links to the full visualizations at the bottom. All the data is publicly-available census data, I only ask that I be credited if the specific migration rates are quoted (I carried out time-consuming transformations) or if the charts themselves are used.
The List
I’ll look at 18 metro areas: Boston, MA; Boulder, CO; Charleston, SC; Charlottesville, VA; Chattanooga, TN; Cincinatti, OH; Cleveland, OH; Huntington-Ashland, KY-WV-OH; Indianapolis, IN; Knoxville, TN; Lexington, KY; Louisville, KY; Minneapolis, MN; Philadelphia, PA; Pittsburgh, PA; Portland, OR; St. Louis, MO; Seattle, WA. I’m disproportionately focusing on mid-south and mid-west cities because those are the cities near my home, where I know people, and where I’m most likely to have some kind of local knowledge to help explain what’s going on, or because they’re cities where someone contacted me asking for data. Or, in the case of the west coast cities, just because I was curious..
A note: presenting as much data as I am in such rapid succession, I am confident some of the more detail-oriented readers will note that I report contradictory net migration rates for some cities, especially with regard to data relating to nativity. This is almost entirely due to variations in ACS reporting of in-state in-migration numbers. I am unsure why there is so much variation in this number. However, in most cases, it does not fundamentally change results.
All the data I cite will be linked at the end of this post.
Migration by Age: Boston and Portland Are Opposite Kinds of Trendy
For each graph I present, I’ll highlight two exemplary cities, like Boston, MA and Portland, OR. Both cities have reputations as trendy places to live. Both have rapidly rising housing prices and high incomes with booming creative and innovation-led economies. Both are port cities, educated cities, cities with reasonably extensive public transit (for American cities), and many other amenities. Both attract many international migrants. Certainly they have many differences, but also some key similarities.
Yet they manage to have mirror-image migration flows based on age demographics. Boston is losing almost every age group, and losing early professional people the fastest. The one bright spot in Boston’s horizon is college students: presumably the city’s strong educational sector is succeeding in drawing many new freshmen.
Portland, meanwhile, experienced almost comically high levels of out-migration by college freshmen, yet managed to keep early career-aged people. But by middle-age, out-migration resumes. What both cities have in common is an inability to hold on to people most likely be old enough to have school-age kids or be retiring.
Although Boston experiences overall out-migration, college freshmen are its one real boon. But bringing in 18-year-olds isn’t enough. Without the right amenities (and cost of living and job opportunities) to keep people, no amount of college recruitment can stem population loss. Portland, on the other hand, may be a place where young people go to retire: but that wears off. Something is keeping people in Portland until middle-age, and that something seems likely to involve, somewhere down the line, jobs and housing. But for individuals in their 40s and 50s, who may have more grown children and more means to purchase a larger home, out-migration resumes.
Migration by Nativity: Ethnic Networks Channel Foreigners to Seattle, Natives Go to Knoxville
Not only does the ACS provide data about the age of migrants, it provides data about their nation of origin and citizenship status. And as it turns out, migration rates vary with these traits as well. Next week I’ll cover international migration more extensively at the state level, but for now, comparing Knoxville and Seattle is illustrative.
Knoxville has high migration among native-born Americans, and also naturalized U.S. citizens. In other words, for individuals who well-integrated into the U.S., Knoxville is popular. Yet for the foreign-born, and especially for non-citizens, migration rates are pretty deeply in the red.
Seattle experienced negative domestic migration overall, but about a third of out-migration by native-born individuals was offset by migration by foreign-born individuals. Furthermore, Seattle saw high out-migration by naturalized U.S. citizens, while non-citizens migrated into Seattle from around the U.S.
These migration flows are closely related to questions of cultural integration and diaspora networks. People go where they have networks of information, work, and community, and where they feel can feel secure. For individuals here on a visa (or especially those without legal status in the U.S.), that security within an established network often means being surrounded by individuals of the same nationality or language. Thus areas with large international diasporas draw in-migration of their countrymen from around the nation. This complicates narratives about “gateway cities.” Such high-international-migration cities appear to act less as gateways and more as hubs for circulation and recirculation throughout diaspora networks.
Knoxville, with its much smaller international community, naturally draws far fewer foreign-born migrants through internal migration. Simultaneously, it has drawn many native-born migrants, though I venture no reason here as to why.
Migration by Race: Indianapolis Draws Minorities, Lexington Does the Opposite
I covered white and black migration for some key cities earlier, but for the cities today, I’ll look at a wider range of racial and ethnic identities. In this case, I’ll look at Indianapolis, Indiana and Lexington, Kentucky. Full disclosure: I attended college in Lexington, Kentucky, so it’s near and dear to my heart. Go Cats!
As can be seen, the spread between whites and blacks in Lexington was substantial (though not as large as between Asians and ethnic Hispanic individuals). Whites moved in and blacks moved out in 2013. As in Portland, Maine earlier this week, we can’t say if this is good or bad based on this data alone, but such racially-correlated migration patterns certainly raise the possibility of re-segregation. On the other hand, if black migrants move out of Lexington into largely white areas while white migrants move into largely black areas, and if the communities integrate positively, the net effect could be greatly reduced racial segregation.
At the other end of the spectrum is Indianapolis, where black migrants are moving in at a high rate, while whites are moving out. This trend is no less concerning than whites replacing blacks. If white out-migration from the city contributes to urban blight, the new residents may find a city of reduced opportunities and curtailed ambitions.
Racially uneven migration flows aren’t good or bad on their own, but they can be both indicators of and contributors to underlying social tensions. When policymakers see such disparities, it’s worth their while to check in and see what’s happening: are diverse populations created mixed neighborhoods with integrated communities, or is migration creating hostility, diminished community engagement, and worsening economic opportunity? How race relates to migrant integration will vary city to city, but can rarely be ignored.
Migration by Income: Chattanooga Gains Rich and Poor, St. Louis Clings to the Middle Class
The Census provides data on migration by income broken down in $5,000 to $15,000 dollar bands, up to $75,000 in income. Individuals with over $75,000 in income are all lumped together in the bottom category listed. As I’ll show, Chattanooga and St. Louis experienced very different (and perhaps telling) migration in 2013.
Chattanooga saw significant net out-migration by individuals with no income (children, students) and by middle- or lower-middle-class earners: $15k to $50k. Yet it managed to attract people earning below the poverty line (mostly likely these are individuals working less than 30 hours a week), and those earning above $50k. It gains enough richer and poorer migrants to have net in-migration, but is losing its working class.
St. Louis, on the other hand, is struggling to retain almost every income bracket. Students, part-timers, and the poor leave at the highest rates, but those earning the most are also leaving. However, one bright spot is the core of the middle class: St. Louis may not provide upward mobility for the poor or fulfill the ambitions of the rich, but apparently middle-earners can find enough work to at least keep them around.
In Chattanooga, its new rich and upper-middle class are mostly migrants from other states, while its poor-migrants are mostly from within Tennessee or Georgia. Richer folk move in from far away, while poorer people from nearby also cluster, either to provide cheap services, or to take advantage of local opportunities caused by new growth. But in St. Louis, there’s little trend to in-state migration: the trend is overwhelmingly driven by interstate migrants. The rich and poor are leaving St. Louis for somewhere besides Illinois or Missouri, while folks from beyond those states are fleshing out the middle class.
A city’s migrant income profile, in connection with knowledge of local industries, can tell us about that city. For now, I want to avoid diving into this topic too much, but different locations provide opportunities for people with different incomes and skill levels. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, as long as movement is easy and cheap.
Depending on income opportunities, migrants’ preferences for housing cost versus quality will vary, as will many other preferences. In general, Chattanooga seems to be meeting the needs of the rich and the poor: but not a key “endangered” segment of the middle class. Blue-collar, working-class people show some signs of struggle. St. Louis might be better for those people on a static basis, but not if they lose their job and drop down into poverty, or if they have a major promotion and rise in income. Obviously to say with certainty would require more detail, but these profiles are suggestive.
Migration by Education: Charlottesville Trains the Drain, Boulder Gains the Trained
Studies of migration often talk about “brain drain” and “brain gain.” What a migration researcher says about these topics (does brain drain exist? is it damaging for localities? should we prioritize economic outcomes for places, migrating people, or people left behind?) actually reveals a surprisingly large amount their preconceptions (and politics) in discussions of migration, and can lead to strident disagreement. Thus I’m going to avoid making any value judgment about education in migration for now, and stick to the facts: Charlottesville (home of UVA) succeeds in attracting people for college, graduate, and PhD programs, but can’t hold them after. Boulder (home of CU-Boulder) is attracts migrants at every education level, though has some variation between in-state and interstate migration.
Charlottesville has a migration profile that is amusingly (or perhaps bitterly) typical of a vigorous town-gown split. High school graduates in Charlottesville don’t stick around and go to UVA: they leave. Local high schools aren’t mostly providing UVA-prep-quality skills, apparently. This out-migration is almost entirely in-state: these grads aren’t going out of state for school, but relocating to a potentially less selective school elsewhere in Virginia. Notably, outmigration of local “C-Ville” high school grads is so large that even robust recruitment for UVA’s freshman class each year can’t offset it.
But Charlottesville attracts people with “some college,” which may mean transfer students. These migrants are overwhelmingly from within Virginia: possibly students who attended less selective schools for admission and first year or two, then transferred to UVA to claim the more prestigious degree. Interstate migration of “some college” individuals is actually negative: these people don’t finish at UVA, and move out of state.
Both in-state and interstate migration are similar for bachelor’s and graduate degrees: inflows for bachelors, outflows for graduate or professional. The reason is simple: UVA brings in lots of people with BAs, turns them into MAs, PhDs, JDs, and other degrees, then exports them back out.
I’m not going to say whether this is good or bad. We can call it “brain drain” and “poor economic integration,” or we can call it “training for wider engagement” and “specializing in educational production.” But it is notable, especially in comparison to another college town.
Boulder, CO has positive net migration for every educational group. The city attracts those who did not graduate high school from around the state and from other states. For high school graduates, the metro area loses people due to interstate migration (more Boulder high schoolers go to other states than college freshmen moving in for CU-Boulder), but more than offsets it with strong in-state migration of high school graduates. For the “some college” category, there is significant in-state out-migration, but this is overwhelmed by robust interstate in-migration. The same is true for bachelor’s degree-holders. CU-Boulder grads don’t necessarily go to CU-Boulder for grad school, but more than enough out-of-state college grads are recruited to compensate.
Finally, Boulder does export graduate degree-holders to other states: net interstate migration is negative. But, in-state migration of graduate degree-holders more than compensates for this. I’m not sure exactly what explains this trend, but the net result is positive total migration for every educational category.
As with Charlottesville, this might not necessarily be good. Is Boulder failing to train students for jobs beyond Colorado, or has CU-Boulder simply done a better job integrating with the local economy? Without more details, we can’t say for sure.
Charlottesville and Boulder have similar migration profiles in some regards, but other ways are quite different. Which city has a better model for collegiate and graduate education is debatable. But certainly policymakers need to explore the differences and decide what their actual priorities are: do you want to train people for local businesses, or not? Do you want to be a growing city with rising population and expanding suburbs, or not? These are key questions that need answered for college towns around the nation.
Migration is an exciting topic because it’s a place where major sociological and economic questions intersect with key events in peoples’ real lives. As I’ve shown here, with good data, policymakers and commentators in cities can better contextualize their own stories. I’ve used a few extreme metro areas to tell stories about racial politics, changing demographics, international migrant networks, gentrification, and educational-industrial linkages. With more knowledge of their own metro areas, locals can use these and other data to tell their stories and explore ways to improve their own back yards.
Start the series from the beginning!
If you like this post and want to see more research like it, I’d love for you to share it on Twitter or Facebook. But what’s just as valuable for me is if you click the recommend button at the bottom of the page. Thanks!
Follow me on Twitter. Follow my Medium Collection at In a State of Migration. I’m a grad student in International Trade and Investment Policy at the George Washington University’s Elliott School. I like to write and tweet about migration, airplanes, trade, space, and other new and interesting research. Cover photo from Unsplash.
The Data
