The Realignment of America - The native-born are leaving "hip" cities for the heartland.

[Herman Munster]

http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110010045

It has become a commonplace to say that population has been flowing from the Snow Belt to the Sun Belt, from an industrially ailing East and Midwest to an economically vibrant West and South. But the actual picture of recent growth, as measured by the 2000 Census and the census estimates for 2006, is more complicated. Recently I looked at the census estimates for 50 metropolitan areas with more than one million people in 2006, where 54% of Americans live. (I cheated a bit on definitions, adding Durham to Raleigh and combining San Francisco and San Jose.) What I found is that you can separate them into four different categories, with different degrees and different sources of population growth or decline. And I found some interesting surprises.

Start with the Coastal Megalopolises: New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego, Chicago (on the coast of Lake Michigan), Miami, Washington and Boston. Here is a pattern you don't find in other big cities: Americans moving out and immigrants moving in, in very large numbers, with low overall population growth. Los Angeles, defined by the Census Bureau as Los Angeles and Orange Counties, had a domestic outflow of 6% of 2000 population in six years--balanced by an immigrant inflow of 6%. The numbers are the same for these eight metro areas as a whole.

There are some variations. New York had a domestic outflow of 8% and an immigrant inflow of 6%; San Francisco a whopping domestic outflow of 10% (the bursting of the tech bubble hurt) and an immigrant inflow of 7%. Miami and Washington had domestic outflows of only 2%, overshadowed by immigrant inflows of 8% and 5%, respectively. This is something few would have predicted 20 years ago. Americans are now moving out of, not into, coastal California and South Florida, and in very large numbers they're moving out of our largest metro areas. They're fleeing hip Boston and San Francisco, and after eight decades of moving to Washington they're moving out. The domestic outflow from these metro areas is 3.9 million people, 650,000 a year. High housing costs, high taxes, a distaste in some cases for the burgeoning immigrant populations--these are driving many Americans elsewhere.

The result is that these Coastal Megalopolises are increasingly a two-tiered society, with large affluent populations happily contemplating (at least until recently) their rapidly rising housing values, and a large, mostly immigrant working class working at low wages and struggling to move up the economic ladder. The economic divide in New York and Los Angeles is starting to look like the economic divide in Mexico City and São Paulo.

[alcibiades_mystery]

1. Reactionary garbage from a reactionary source

Good post. :eyes:

[Warren DeMontague]

2. People are "fleeing" San Francisco?

Bullshit.

[Herman Munster]

3. back up your

"bullshit" with statistics. Or do you know something the census bureau doesn't know?

http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/06/06075.html

San Francisco County

Population, 2006 estimate 744,041
Population, percent change, April 1, 2000 to July 1, 2006 -4.2%
Population, 2000 776,733

[Warren DeMontague]

5. I doubt they're moving to Kansas. They're probably moving somewhere where rent is cheaper.

Like the South or East Bay.

That's a 32,000 people net loss. Hardly some mass exodus. Oh, I'm sure San Francisco is a veritable ghost town because of it. I'll remember that the next time I need to find street parking. :eyes:

The idea that folks en masse are leaving the bay area? I don't buy it. And if they are, it's because real estate is so expensive. Which, in turn, is because so many people want to live here. Trust me, the people that ARE leaving are going to places like Portland, Oregon. Not Kansas.

I can't speak for you OR the census bureau, but as someone who actually lives in the area, YES I am qualified to make an accurate assessment. Certainly moreso than someone from the East Coast who wouldn't know "Frisco" from Crisco.

I don't hear anyone saying "Jeez, I'd love to live in Topeka, if I only could manage it"

[Arugula Latte]

13. I grew up in the Bay Area ... now live in Portland.

Love 'em both. :hi:

[juno jones]

18. Uh-huh!

We may leave SF, but we aren't heading back to the midwest. More likely to Sacramento or points north like OR or WA. I have lived there, and there are some strong alternitive scenes in the MW, perhaps more fierce for being outsiders, but I prefer the anonomynity of the west coast where I am just another freak (and not as freaky as some). I enjoy walking down the street unnoticed.

[Warren DeMontague]

22. I spent half my life in the greater Chicago area. I love that city. But it's too damn cold.

All the same, yeah- hordes of people moving from the West Coast to the Midwest? I just don't see it happening.

[bluestateguy]

4. Barone has been forecasting an imminent Republican tidal wave for 12 years now

And even when it never materializes, he just keeps on prognosticating.

[Herman Munster]

6. well that's bullshit nonense if he said that

but the demographics in the article aren't. They come straight from the census bureau. What will probably happen is a lot of the red states will become more purple as the blue staters move.

[Clark2008]

14. Actually, I agree with the fact that people are moving, but I think

it will result in a Democraticc tidal wave.

In the South, roughly 47 percent didn't vote for the Shrubster. You get another 3 percent from the coasts moving in - people who normally vote "blue" - and you'll see a shift from red to blue - not the other way around.

[liberal N proud]

7. And to think I left the heartland to move to a city in the east

From rural Iowa where I grew up to rural Missouri for 20 years then to the big city. Yeah we didn't know what we had back there in the country.

[misanthrope]

8. Whatever...

...Once the "hip" got to these heartland places where they're supposedly moving, the cultural isolation would drive them out in short time. Take it from someone who has seen the effect of parochial provincialism on the cosmopolitan.

"How you gonna' keep 'em down on the farm after they've seen gay 'Paree?'" is based in some truth. A lot of these "hip" folks migrated from the heartland toward the population centers for a reason.

[live love laugh]

9. It's the "immigrant" thing that jumps out at me. How would he/they know

who replaced whom if a formal census hasn't occurred? The focus on immigrants seems to be for other purposes: like to make the point that immigrants are invading America's cities.

[Herman Munster]

10. the census bureau

has estimates every year. You can see how many immigrants are moving into each metro area, how many natives are moving out.

Go to www.census.gov and look around. The data is all there.

[Donnachaidh]

11. key word here is ESTIMATE

I have family that works for the census. There are NO hard FACTS to back up these estimates. Basing arguments on estimates, or more truthfully, GUESStimates, is nonsense.

[muntrv]

12. They way Barone says it, one would think that it is all conservative Republicans

leaving the cities for the "heartland."

I thought most people moving out of LA and San Francisco are moving to Nevada and Arizona, not Kansas and Nebraska.

[GRLMGC]

15. I know a lot are leaving for Texas

Houses here (LA) are way too expensive. I personally wouldn't wanna leave LA though.

[SoCalDem]

19. What $109,900 gets you in my husband's home town (in Kansas)

the Sq footage does NOT include the full basement



$109,900
3 Bed, 2 Bath
2,095 Sq. Ft.
4 Acres
Estimated Payment:
$518 Per Month*

10674 Jewell Road
Fredonia, KS 66736
MLS ID# 213632


Single Family Property, Area: OUT OF AREA, County: Wilson, Approximately 4 acre(s), Year Built: 1976, Garage, Central air conditioning, Basement
This listing is brokered by: Becky Schaffer Ins. & Rea
Office [phone]
Property Features

* Single Family Property
* Area: OUT OF AREA
* County: Wilson
* Year Built: 1976
* 3 total bedroom(s)
* 2 total bath(s)
* 2 total full bath(s)
* Approximately 2095 sq. ft.
* Style: Ranch



* Master bedroom
* Living room
* Kitchen
* Game room
* Basement
* Master bedroom is 16'8 X 16'2
* Living room is 24'1 X 12'6
* Kitchen is 13'3 X 22
* Game room is 12'2 X 19'8



* Garage
* RV/boat parking
* Central air conditioning
* Interior features: Basement, Dishwasher, Disposal, Range and oven, Trash compactor
* Exterior features: Horse(s) allowed, Public water supply, RV parking, Wooded
* Horse(s) allowed
* Approximately 4 acre(s)
* Lot size is between 2 and 5 acres

[SoCalDem]

16. People are cashing out.. We are thinking about it as well

As people get older, their needs diminish somewhat. Kids are raised, that big house is no longer all that interesting. If you can sell your house and use the profit to pay cash for a nice house somewhere else, it's not such a bad thing. To retire where we are (Southern Calif) means a pretty chintzy retirement...but to pay cash for a smaller place ./..somewhere else, means that we could live a fuller retirement.

and younger people who travel for work, work from home, or online...can live just about anywhere...so why not get more for less, and maybe raise those kids in a calmer setting..a childhood closer to their own, perhaps..

Sometimes we get threads posted where people post real estate listings..and if you are willing to live in the midwest, you can find great homes for a pittance..

People have always been mobile..

[xchrom]

17. and ''immigrants'' will also leave the big city.

cities are creatures of flux -- and their demographics change over time.

lately it's because we have lost the ''old neighborhoods'' -- which vastly changes a city from something more individual in terms of experience -- to something more homogenous.

many people who initially move to a city like sf or new york or what ever -- come looking for that alternative bohemian experience -- which is still there -- more tightly controlled by the increased cost of everything.

thus it goes with cities -- ''imigrants'' will soon follow to kansas city and durham, etc -- because they will look for the same things we all look for -- whatever that is.

[CatholicEdHead]

20. Not all of the heartland is flyover country

There is lots of culture in Minnesota, Wisconsin, etc... St Paul, MN and Madison, WI can easily compete with any coastal city. Yes they tend to be the highest cost in each state, but for job opportunities and culture they cannot be beat.

[knitter4democracy]

25. Madison is really nice.

Harvest is the best restaurant I've ever eaten at, too.

Kalamazoo, Michigan, Traverse City, Ann Arbor--there are many nice places here in our state, too. The Twin Cities in Minnesota are well-known for how nice they are, too.

Here in Michigan, if you get a decent job, you can afford to buy a house. We have amazing local foods, and you can afford to travel and vacation here.

[muntrv]

21. "A distaste in some cases for the burgeoning immigrant populations--

these are driving many Americans elsewhere." That's Barone's way of saying "The fuhriners are takin' over."

Never mind that immigrants have been settling in the cities since the founding of our nation.

[Rex]

23. Hmm

Could we just sum it up by saying people move all over the place in America? I mean, you have 50 states to run around in and the regions are so different from each other. If you've never lived in another state, I highly recommend it! The farther you go, the more different other Americans are.

I personally love it and have lived in many different states.

[Swamp Rat]

24. Michael Barone is a right wing hack for "U.S. News & World Report"

His theories on demographics is highly suspect, to say the least. :eyes:

1. Population growth aside, urbanization is growing much faster in coastal regions worldwide (including the USA). Barone ignores long-term trends.

"Given that the nation's top 20 oceanic and Great Lakes coastal metropolitan regions are likely to increase their population by an additional 32 million people by the year 2025, the ‘urban footprints' of these 20 regions are likely to expand by 46 percent, or from about 20,000 square miles to about 29,000 square miles," according to Daniel McGrath, coastal business and environment specialist for Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant and a fellow at the University of Illinois at Chicago's Great Cities Institute.

2. His comical little map has the wrong color for the middle area. If people are moving from so-called "blue," coastal regions, then that might turn the heartland purple. I doubt such a geographic move would cause someone to change ideologies. How the hell does Barone account for the personal political philosophies of the interstate migrants, and how does he measure them? Where's his DATA?!? Jeebus! There is so much wrong with his article.

http://www.nationalatlas.gov/articles/people/a_popchange.html

Yes, Phoenix, Houston, Dallas have grown, but WHO made it grow? Hmm...

http://www.nationalatlas.gov/natlas/Natlasstart.asp

3. Did I say Michael Barone is a right wing hack?

"Demography is destiny." :eyes: