Where Migration Changed in 2016
Some of the trends we observed crop up again. Most oil migration isn’t in urban areas, but the cities nearest the oil fields do seem to be facing more negative migration. The Appalachian region and all the east coast megalopolis cities are facing more negative migration as well.

Meanwhile, we can see the strength of Florida, the mountain west, Arizona, and the Pacific Northwest quite clearly, as well as some strength in the upper south region.

What becomes clearer in this map, however, is the large-scale loss throughout Illinois. This isn’t a midwest thing: many Indiana, Ohio, Missouri, Iowa, Wisconsin, and Minnesota metro areas fared just fine, even improving their performance. Nor is this a Chicago thing: migration worsened in non-Chicago Illinois metro areas as well. Now, this may be a proximity to Chicago thing, as far downstate Illinois seems to be suffering less, and non-IL metros near Chicago also seem to be struggling.

We can also see the weakness along the western Gulf Coast. This is largely oil-driven as well, but wasn’t quite as clear in the county maps.

We can also look at how domestic net migration has developed over time for a few cities. For example, here’s a basket of several Appalachian metros:

Here we see a divergence. Around 2011/2012, things looked pretty good for these cities. Huntington was struggling of course, but most had positive domestic migration, some very robustly so like Morgantown, WV. Roanoke, as I’ve discussed before, has been much-ballyhooed for its successes.

However, Appalachian metros’ conditions have worsened in many cases, although the most successful metros, like Knoxville, Chattanooga, and Asheville, are getting even moreso! This is a divergence within Appalachia.

We can also look at a basket of midwestern cities:

The above chart is really noisy, I know, but I wanted to include most of the metros I expect people might ask about. As you can see, Des Moines kinda kicks butt, and Chicago is the Big Loser. Chicago’s net migration is more severely negative than any of the other metros in my sample and, to be clear, I included Detroit, Cleveland, and St. Louis, so I wasn’t cherry-picking strong cases. Chicago has more severe outflows even than collapsing cities like Youngstown.

The reason Chicago isn’t declining as fast, or at least wasn’t in the past, is that it historically received more immigrants (which is changing), and it was historically somewhat younger than other Midwestern cities, giving it higher birth rates and lower death rates.

Next up, let’s look at the east coast!
['Lyman Stone']
['Economics', 'Politics', 'Silicon Valley', 'Migration', 'Chicago']