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I have the migration rates from 2010 from the US Census Bureau. I'll try to get the most recent ones but I can't imagine that the trend has been reversed in the five years, though I'm sure there are some changes.
This chart shows the NE slowly declining in net migrations - in fact, that region has the fastest rate of declining migrations of all regions, followed by the Midwest. The South has the highest rate of migration, followed by the West.
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And I know we've had this debate before, but almost no one moves region to region because of climate. You can't keep claiming this to be true when census surveys keep showing that climate is one of the smallest reasons for relocation.
Weather wouldn't generally be THE reason for a move, but it is often one of several factors people consider. Generally speaking of course, people look at ALL the pros and cons before completely uprooting their families and moving across the country - not just one factor.
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Also, if the South has such awesome weather, why was the North the center of population growth from its inception through the 1950s?
Do you really not understand why this was? My gosh, some of the western states haven't even BEEN states for 100 years!
My family's migration has been pretty typical. My ancestor's moved here - to Virginia and Pennsylvania - in the mid 1600s. In the early 1700s they moved to South Carolina. In the early 1800s they moved "west" to Arkansas and Texas - before Texas was even a state. Arkansas and Texas were "wild and woolly" and very "uncivilized" at that time, much as South Carolina was in the early 1700s, and Pennsylvania and Virginia were in the 1600s.
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Southern migration drop by over 180% and is now negative
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Originally Posted by jbcmh81
It's not based on what I believe, but what I can prove. North to South migration HAS fallen by more than half in the last decade.
And I know we've had this debate before, but almost no one moves region to region because of climate. You can't keep claiming this to be true when census surveys keep showing that climate is one of the smallest reasons for relocation. Also, if the South has such awesome weather, why was the North the center of population growth from its inception through the 1950s? No one cared. It was about economics, and the North was the clear leader. The South did better after that, and cost of living was good, so there was a shift. But the North, save for a very few select places, is doing much better now. Unemployment rates are lower, job growth is decent, economies are far more diversified than they once were, etc. The boom had to end sometime, and all indications are that, at the very least, we're moving into a time of parity between the regions.
Population projections are notoriously bad. Ohio's population is already higher than it is supposed to be in 2030. It's domestic migration is improving, going from a loss of almost 41,000 in 2005, to just over 15,000 in 2013. Ohio more than doubled its domestic migration from the rest of the Northern states and is positive, dropped its losses to the South by more than a third, and is almost 8x higher in its migration from the West. Ohio has gone from having the 43rd fastest growth 2010-2011 to 21st 2013-2014, the fastest rise of any state. Also, if you project out the growth rates of Georgia and NC, they would not be near at 12 million by 2030, and neither would pass Ohio through the middle 2030s. That assumes current rates, but rates have been falling for 3 decades.
North Carolina, meanwhile, had Northern migration drop 40% in the period, Southern migration drop by over 180% and is now negative, and overall migration is down almost 45%. Ironically, NC sent Ohio a net of 3,000 people in 2013. Guess climate doesn't trump all.
keep making up numbers if it makes you feel better
Actually, even though we are talking about different time frames (mine was 2005-2013), your links support what I'm saying. However, your links don't break down states or anything like that. I posted a link above that does.
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This chart shows the NE slowly declining in net migrations - in fact, that
region has the fastest rate of declining migrations of all regions, followed by
the Midwest. The South has the highest rate of migration, followed by the West.
Your link also shows that, through 2010, the South actually had the largest rate of decline during the 2000s, while the Northeast/Midwest improved some.
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Weather wouldn't generally be THE reason for a move, but it is often one of
several factors people consider. Generally speaking of course, people look at
ALL the pros and cons before completely uprooting their families and moving
across the country - not just one factor.
Yes, and is it very logical to expect weather to be that determining factor, or even a top 5? That's just not supported, but people constantly bring up climate as a major factor in domestic migration.
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Do you really not understand why this was? My gosh, some of the western states
haven't even BEEN states for 100 years!
We're talking about the South, specifically the Southeast. All the Southern East Coast states aside from Florida were part of the original 13, and all of them were states LONG before 1950.
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My family's migration has been pretty typical. My ancestor's moved here - to
Virginia and Pennsylvania - in the mid 1600s. In the early 1700s they moved to
South Carolina. In the early 1800s they moved "west" to Arkansas and Texas -
before Texas was even a state. Arkansas and Texas were "wild and woolly" and
very "uncivilized" at that time, much as South Carolina was in the early 1700s,
and Pennsylvania and Virginia were in the 1600s.
All states, even Eastern states (or the land that would become them), were fairly rural and not highly populated in the 1600s-1700s, and even so into the 19th century. Arkansas became a state in 1836 and Texas in 1845. That's still more than a century before Southern growth began to boom. It took that long to get those states civilized enough to grow?
And this link as well. What's most interesting about this one, however, is that the South sure has a lot of counties with domestic migration losses, which are those in blue. This is especially true of the Mid-South. It makes it pretty clear that the South's growth is concentrated in certain areas, particularly parts of Texas, Florida, and generally major cities.
For the record, I am working on putting the state-by-state numbers together for the 2005-2013 period. I will post them here when I'm finished so what I'm talking about is clear.
New York all by itself has accounted for about 1/3rd of all the North to South/West migrants. It's long been that way. The "North" in this case has always been a story of a few states.
While the numbers I posted don't directly address this point, North to South domestic migration has been falling for about a decade, even before the recession began. Northern states have been able to retain more of their residents. I suspect this is a two-fold reason: Improving economic conditions there, and less mobility during the downturn. Recent annual numbers suggest this trend is continuing despite the recovery. The South will likely have to rely more on natural growth and international migration increasingly in the future. It may still see positive domestic migration to some degree, but not likely at nearly the same level as those states have become accustomed to.
I wouldn't say that. For example, my home state of Ohio has seen a drastic reduction in the losses to the South, on the order of about 85% in the last 10 years. It had positive domestic migration from about half of the Southern states, including those like North Carolina, which was one of its biggest feeder states previously.
I'd add a third big reason: people who moved find out that the grass isn't greener and come back home. I think I've heard that reason more than the other two you noted. It's not specific to the South or West either, and I think it affects all movers who move for non-urgent reasons. People's perceptions of what they would gain by moving were much different from reality, and it's always the little things that people take for granted and then long for once they're gone (like a white Christmas or their favorite sports teams or Sweet Tea). For example, one thing I took for granted was how sunny and cloudy certain parts of the country were, and that "normal" wasn't the same as back home. Another is the importance of good public schools. Where I was from good public schools were important, but the options were vast compared to other cities I've lived in subsequently. I never would have noticed those things had I not moved in the first place.
Do you really not understand why this was? My gosh, some of the western states haven't even BEEN states for 100 years!
My family's migration has been pretty typical. My ancestor's moved here - to Virginia and Pennsylvania - in the mid 1600s. In the early 1700s they moved to South Carolina. In the early 1800s they moved "west" to Arkansas and Texas - before Texas was even a state. Arkansas and Texas were "wild and woolly" and very "uncivilized" at that time, much as South Carolina was in the early 1700s, and Pennsylvania and Virginia were in the 1600s.
I guess that makes Alaska and Hawaii the future's fastest-growing states for domestic migration.....IOW, it's not an altruism, just like it's not altruistic that weather is THE reason a person will move from one region to another. It's never that simple.
keep making up numbers if it makes you feel better
At least he substantiated his points.
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