Cook County's Updated Comings and Goings

Image via Forbes.com Screen Grab.

Last year Forbes charted migration in America via interactive map and we shared comings and goings of residents in Cook County. Forbes has since updated those maps using new data from the IRS.

Last year, 37.5 million Americans moved from one home to another. As Forbes noted, this "mobility makes us efficient seekers of economic improvement," with the fortunes of cities rising and ebbing like tides as people move.

Bruner told us he also wanted to look at some longer-term trends and how they factor into migration, such as the collapse of the housing market. Bruner cited Phoenix as a prime example of his research. Phoenix "was taking in nearly twice as many migrants as it was losing and which is now losing more than it’s taking," Bruner said. This pattern of migration to affordable housing, then leaving when the economy or housing market collapses, also holds in Las Vegas, Miami and Charlotte, NC.

Cook County isn't losing as many residents as Phoenix, but there are more residents leaving as arriving. As with the original map, most migrations from Cook County are fleeing for warmer climes while migration to Cook County hails mainly from the Midwest and East Coast. Forbes also asked experts to analyze the migration patterns, including Michael Conzen, chairman of the Committee on Geographical Studies at the University of Chicago. Conzen wrote that people leaving Chicago is mitigated by to the city from collapsing Rust Belt economies.

NewGeography executive editor Joel Kotkin found that outbound migration from dense urban areas like Chicago, while still outpacing incoming migration, has slowed.

"The key question now," Kotkin wrote, "is whether the slowing of out-migration will continue." Anyway, here's the link to Cook County's migration patterns. It's good as both legitimate research and as a time-waster.

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By Chuck Sudo in News on November 17, 2011 11:00 AM 0 Comments

Comments [rss]

BlueFairlane

This was meant to be a reply to 'cee.

twocee

Wow, you have totally blown my work day. Thanks :)

Spot observations -- Chicagoans who leave typically leave for another big city (LA seems to be really popular). Are they moving because of the weather or because of jobs?

Fayette County, KY (where I hail from) took in more people FROM Cook County than migrated TO Cook County. Based on the income level of these folks, this might be attributable to migrant/low-skill workers.

Despite the supposed oil/natural gas boom in Texas AND the influx of Katrina displaced, Houston lost nearly half a million people in 5 years. I find that surprising.

BlueFairlane

In reference to your spot observations:

I think the new immigrant/low wage workers are a good explanation for the income of those leaving Chicago for Lexington/Fayette. It seems to me that immigrants into the nation would be more likely to have contacts in a big city like New York or Chicago, and will go there first. Then, many will leave that city and find their way to smaller communities like Lexington, where they can find work.

I don't find Houston's population loss as surprising as you. Most of the oil/natural gas stuff in Texas right now is either with the refineries to Houston's east or with the Eagle Ford oil shales to Houston's south and west. (And San Antonio, which is in the middle of that formation, shows a population increase, as do many counties around it.) The executives might be in Houston, but the places where the work's actually being done will be closer to the I-35 corridor. The economy of Houston itself, meanwhile, was geared more toward the same service industry stuff which has taken a hit everywhere.

Also, Katrina ... I wonder at the long-term duration of the Katrina diaspora's presence in Houston. I think for a lot of people, Houston was an emergency destination. Many eventually went back to New Orleans, or moved on to other places.