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The Cities Americans Want to Flee, and Where They Want to Go

The Cities Americans Want to Flee, and Where They Want to Go

January 24, 2020

By Sarah Holder

Read More: https://www.citylab.com/life/2020/01...entals/605371/

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Though California outmigration leaped 38 percent in 2018, that was only 1.8 percent of the huge state’s population. The state still ranks in the bottom three for proportional departure rates. And Americans overall are moving at the slowest rate since 1947. The factors limiting big moves are demographic (more older Americans are aging in place) and, more powerfully, economic (with unemployment low and remote work increasingly common, fewer people are finding jobs good enough to move for).

- But plenty of stuck Americans do wish they could move. And Apartment List, a rental property search engine, has opened a window into the nation’s mobility dreams, as people browse for new apartments in far-flung cities or neighboring towns. This week, the company released a new analysis of where it sees renters hoping to move, based on their search habits over the second half of 2019. Better (or comparable) jobs and more affordable living seemed to be prime motivators for making a switch. --- While there’s no way to determine how many of these searchers actually followed through on the transitions they pursued through the platform, Chris Salviati, Apartment List’s housing economist and the author of the report, says that the site’s long registration process helps weed out those who aren’t as serious about finding a new apartment.

- Based on the results, California’s mass exodus appears to be overstated, says Salviati. While about 22 percent of Bay Area renters are peeking at Seattle, Denver, New York, and Austin, mostly, people based in San Francisco want to move somewhere nearby in California, like San Jose or Sacramento, which offer similar employment opportunities and lifestyles. (San Joseans want to move right back to San Francisco, for what it’s worth.) --- Other Californians, too, feel Western ties. In Riverside, California, where 50 percent of outbound searches are for places out of the city, 40 percent of them are to nearby Los Angeles. Nearly 20 percent of Angeleno apartment hunters are interested in moving to Phoenix, Arizona; 12 percent are looking at Las Vegas, and another 12 percent are scoping out Riverside. “Phoenix is also a car-centric city, but lacks L.A.’s traffic issues,” the report notes.

- There are a few cities that appear to be luring long-distance migrations. Among the top 25 largest cities, Denver, with its snowcapped mountains and tech jobs, tops the list of cities drawing far-flung inquiries: Almost half of the people looking at Denver apartments were from outside the metro area. (Between this report and the last, Denver overtook Tampa as number one.) --- D.C. people are the most interested in heading to Denver, a phenomenon for which techlash could be blamed, Salviati posited: “Over the past year or two, the tech industry has been subject to a lot more scrutiny generally. It might be the case that early-stage tech companies are trying to get a little bit of a jump on that by being more interested in hiring folks that have policy background.”

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Pretty interesting. A little surprised to see New York so low on the list of cities people want to go to and surprised to see Washington DC so high on the list of cities people want to leave.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Handro (Post 8814728)

Pretty interesting. A little surprised to see New York so low on the list of cities people want to go to and surprised to see Washington DC so high on the list of cities people want to leave.

New York and LA are both such huge cultural Icons for the US and the World that a ton of people move and a ton of people who have been there want to leave.

Thats why for the first time in a long long time they are just slightly losing population. But the vast majority of the outbound is replaced by international arrivals and generally young people from small towns and cities who want to live in NY or LA because it has a sort of mythical draw in the popular culture.

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Originally Posted by Handro (Post 8814728)

Pretty interesting. A little surprised to see New York so low on the list of cities people want to go to and surprised to see Washington DC so high on the list of cities people want to leave.

I don't think New York is ever very high on domestic migration lists.

That said, there probably aren't a lot of solid conclusions to be drawn off this data. It is all based on searches on a website that is not very well known in every market. The study could be just telling us where people use ApartmentList the most.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Obadno (Post 8814737)

New York and LA are both such huge cultural Icons for the US and the World that a ton of people move and a ton of people who have been there want to leave.

Thats why for the first time in a long long time they are just slightly losing population. But the vast majority of the outbound is replaced by international arrivals and generally young people from small towns and cities who want to live in NY or LA because it has a sort of mythical draw in the popular culture.

Right, which is why it's surprising that New York is pretty low on the list of cities people want to move to...

Baltimore being second is pretty surprising. I know there's strong job growth, but to be ahead of some of the others on that list is impressive.

Are we sure this isn't being skewed by people just looking at prices in one of the most notorious cities in the country out of curiosity? Sounds like this site requires a little more registration than just browsing on Zillow, but not sure how much that helps.

in the northwest seattle is popular and portland is not, thats actually nice because it kinda levels the nw out. those two cities are next to each other and they are similar (lots of people move from seattle to portland and the other way around) the only difference i see is seattle has more jobs.

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Originally Posted by iheartthed (Post 8814752)

True, Just look at real growth numbers and ...St. Louis?

Yes, it's important to know the context and limitations of any list!

One point (not directly related to above): A city with zero net migration could be HUGE on both the inbound and outbound moves. For example a city full of newly-arrived college students or college grads might also have a ton of outbounds after graduation or when they want a cheap house.

And definitely certain life stages are more likely to be reflected on these lists than others.

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And Apartment List, a rental property search engine

LOL no :haha: stopped reading there.

There are so many problems with this type of data, obvious sampling issues, can be easily manipulated, too ambiguous to draw any real conclusions, etc.

All it's good for it writing clickbait articles like this one. Of course this is a citylab work.

Once in a while, when I've got time, I check out house listings in other metros because I'm curious.

Maybe a city recently came to my attention because I met someone from there, and because I love cities, I want to know as much as I can about it. So after a Wikipedia session, I migrate to Zillow or Trulia to survey the market. I look at what the sites feature first, as that's usually where the bargains are. I look at the high end. I add some terms like "mixed use" or "transit." It's a fun way to spend fifteen minutes after a long day, and I usually learn something about the city in question.

Lists like this are not useful to people who work outside real estate and maybe U-Haul. While it is likely I won't spend the rest of my life in San Francisco, it's ridiculous for any entity or person to assume I'm searching house listings in City X because I'm desperate to flee my home.

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Originally Posted by M II A II R II K (Post 8814715)

The Cities Americans Want to Flee, and Where They Want to Go

January 24, 2020

By Sarah Holder

Read More: https://www.citylab.com/life/2020/01...entals/605371/

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I'm surprised Austin isn't on the list of destination cities above. San Diego #3 as destination? The weather is good but it is very expensive--I know, I live in area. Baltimore (#2) as destination, really? OK, the crab cakes are good.

theres probably like 1,000,000 native st. louis expats who are perpetually homesick who are skewing this. st. louis is the capital of homesick people who live in denver who talk about moving home and don’t.

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Originally Posted by CaliNative (Post 8815283)

Baltimore (#2) as destination, really? OK, the crab cakes are good.

As the article notes, it's probably mostly people in the large D.C. metro looking for more affordable alternatives in nearby Baltimore, that are still within commute range.

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Originally Posted by Centropolis (Post 8815289)

lol, I think Cincinnati might be number 2 in this regard. Seemingly half of my graduating class now lives in Denver.

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Originally Posted by Centropolis (Post 8815289)

From what I've heard St. Louis may be reaching that tipping point where the new economy jobs are finally starting to make up for the losses of old economy jobs. For decades the region had been gaining thousands of jobs that have catapulted much of the new growth cities into the stratosphere, but it always had to combat with the fact that thousands of manufacturing jobs were being loss simultaneously. Which essentially led us to being a slow growth/no-growth metro for the better part of 40 years. This could also explain why Baltimore is ranking so high. If I recall correctly, St. Louis added over 20k jobs last year, which is almost unheard of for this region in recent decades. Obviously, we still have a lot of perception problems in the region, but if the jobs are finally there it could spark a lot of interest in people either a) coming back or b) giving the region a shot if they secure the right job. An interesting story from today's news. St. Louis just secured Gate Ag One, which will essentially make it the hub for agricultural research in America thanks to the Gates Foundation. This will certainly lead to a slew of jobs coming to the region, which will be either filled by people coming from other parts of the country or perhaps on H1 visas (something Bill Gates has been a big proponent of).

https://www.stltoday.com/business/lo...6ab2de61f.html

most ny'ers flee to atlanta and orlando.

most who come are probably international over domestic, despite brooklyn boro prez eric adams whining about the d*mn iowa, ohio, whatever, move-ins.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/22/n...ification.html

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Originally Posted by edale (Post 8815304)

lol, I think Cincinnati might be number 2 in this regard. Seemingly half of my graduating class now lives in Denver.

Just about everyone I meet in Denver is either from 1) Chicago, 2) Milwaukee, 3) St Louis, 4) Kansas City or 5) Cincinnati (tied with Cleveland). The locals are always deriding the Californians but I rarely encounter them.

There was a better study a few months ago that showed inflow and outflow for about 12 different cities.

Who was coming, and where people were going too.

What was interesting is many cities top destinations and immigrants were the same. Like for Phoenix the largest number if immigrants came from LA but it was also was the number one expat location for people moving away from Phoenix.

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Originally Posted by mrnyc (Post 8816088)

Maybe NYC, but Tampa Bay is infested with people from Upstate.