On The Move

by Peter Saint-Andre

2007-01-19

Michael Barone has a fascinating analysis of some county-level American census data here. His conclusions:

1. Americans continue to flee the central cities, especially New York, San Francisco, Chicago, L.A., and Boston.
2. That outmigration is tempered somewhat by immigration from outside the U.S., but only in L.A. does immigration offset internal outmigration.
3. The true American boomtowns today are Phoenix, Las Vegas, Tampa, Atlanta, and Orlando.
4. Americans continue to move south and west in droves.
5. Almost all the exploding counties tend to vote conservative Republican, almost all the imploding counties tend to vote liberal Democratic.

The results comport with the research of Joel Kotkin -- though it would also be interesting to look at percentage increases and decreases rather than raw numbers.

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