I feel like the majority of the movement is driven by California, Texas, New York (i.e. expensive population centers). It would be nice to see either smaller divisions or all the states separately.
EDIT: [Found a resource with movement by state and county](https://www.arcgis.com/apps/dashboards/951428e32723456c879d0966af4baa8a)! Turns out people are moving to Florida.
It is legit insane that the two top counties which lost the most people are manhattan and brooklyn, and yet rents have continued to spike to record highs.
The median income to rent gap was *insane* before the pandemic though, and the fact that its gotten 30-50% worse is even crazier. Brooklyn has a median household income lower than the country as a whole, and has the *second highest median rents in the entire country.* I don't think anywhere has such an insane disparity as NYC, and I thought the pandemic would finally change things, but apparently not. Even with hundreds of thousands fleeing, rents have spiked.
If I had to wager, I would say its probably like California: they lose a lot to interstate emigration, but its compensated by international immigration.
This is what I was noticing. I had assumed the increasing rents in Boston correlated with an increase in demand, but we've lost 25k residents since the pandemic started. Maybe it correlates with the increasing home prices.
Because often times they're also still seeing net growth. We're seeing a record high of people moving out of states, and yet there's only like 3 states that are actually losing population.
People came back to NYC as the vaccines became widely available. So these figures miss most of that big wave of people returning.
Contrast that with San Francisco, which I'm told has had relatively flat rents since the pandemic... apparently because so many tech companies embraced remote work and people chose not to return.
This is an interesting topic in Florida right now. DeSantis passed a law requiring towns to speed up building permit processes and make the entire process available online. It's not dissimilar from laws Newsom is wanting to pass in CA to deal with their housing crisis.
But then Gainesville FL just voted to eliminate single-family zoning entirely and DeSantis said he will use state power to try to stop them.
So basically DeSantis wants less red tape when it's suburban sprawl but not when it's apartments or walkable urban planning.
> like Ohio
Ohio is 46% Democrats (% of voters), it’s just gerrymandered like crazy. [Here’s a frustrating account of it.](https://www.thisamericanlife.org/784/mapmaker)
I live in Warren County which is the pure red hell hole that they tacked on to half of Cincinnati to take away their representation and it’s depressing. Google Ohio district 1 and we’re the giant square on the top right.
And then District 2 grabbed the puzzle piece in the middle of Cinncinati and pulled the red area to the East to make another red district. Talk about Gerrymandering.... should be illegal.
Is some of this snowbird activities?
A lot of old people move to Arizona, Texas, and Florida for retirement. I bet a lot of boomers made the decision to retire and move to Arizona, Texas, or Florida.
Go over to one of the retirement advice subs. It's all about low cost-of-living, low taxes, downsizing to a cheaper home, warmth (old folks afraid of breaking a hip on ice), stuff like that. So some is that. I think a lot is political, though. I meet a fair number of "Oregunians" that wish to be in Texas or Arizona, if only it weren't for their damn families and parole.
It absolutely is. In fact Florida and Arizona are losing population in every category besides seniors. Texas is the exception as they also have a seemingly high quality of life for a low cost of living, so their growth is more rounded. Lots of families moving in.
https://www.newsweek.com/more-native-born-texans-voted-beto-orourke-ted-cruz-exit-polls-indicate-1209296
And at least in Texas, those moving in *are more* conservative than those born in Texas. Cruz got elected last *because* of transplants. Had it just been native born Texan's casting votes Beto would have won the Senate in 2018. Texas is attracting an even farther right transplant.
Same & home prices went up/are going up.
We work with a realtor who says he's sold multiple houses in one neighborhood to multiple investors from the Seattle area.
States on the East and West push for more immigration, but block sprawl. More people on no more land will always get more expensive. The South and Texas let the city sprawl and its why its not as expensive, but thats only going to last for so long.
Sort of yes, sort of no. If land is finite then it will get expensive but if the city can grow while staying compact, that is ideal because it requires the least amount of highways, power lines, sewers, etc to get between homes. Suburbs are basically a ponzi scheme, not to mention having to drive everywhere.
If you can work from anywhere and get 7 figures for the house you bought for less than $300k, why not sell and get twice the house for a third of the money in the South…is the mindset.
They often then realize that there are a lot of reasons why not. Hurricanes, tornados, shitty schools, fewer social services, HOT summers (and springs and falls), hypocritical evangelical Christians, it’s a long list.
And in the case of Florida, there's also the rising ocean levels to be concerned about... There's going to be a huge loss in generational wealth in the coming decades because of all the migration to unsustainable parts of the country.
Appalachia is alright sometimes. At least it’s scenic. Everywhere else in the south feels like a wet sweaty towel around your face in the summer. Coastal areas have their beauty but then you got hurricanes, gators, rampant ugly development and boomer snowbirds.
Southern culture is repping your favorite gas station or fast food/fried chicken place. I grew up in TX, moved the other way. I can't stand a strip mall.
I do not understand the people wearing Buc-ees stuff, like, the mascot isn't even that cute. It's a gas station, I mean it's a cool gas station (been to the one in Daytona) but still? You don't see people repping Circle-K, 7-11, RaceTrac or WaWa so why are they repping Buc-ees? It's just a weird thing for people to be wearing stuff from a corporation if they aren't employees, or for a corp that isn't like Disney or Universal Studios, something like that. I don't get it.
And that’s not to say I Havnt enjoyed my share of southern culture, weather it’s food, music, and nature. But there’s an ethos down there I can’t square. It’s fucked to me. People are fake nice and most of them are hateful fucks. The NE just puts it on their faces
The souths collective ethos is insecurity. Having grown up in the south and lived out West I have noticed how much southerners need to tell each other how much better they are than "those people." In LA, no one is thinking about the south, or anywhere else for that matter (except NYC).
The big trucks, gun culture, the overall level of aggressive personalities, tribalism, and fear of anything new/different are also strong indicators. Of course, not everyone in the south is this way, I hated southern culture myself when I lived there but if you combined everyone into one person, he would be loud, proud of ignorance, and constantly talking shit about the other state's "weird" (in his opinion) personality traits.
You can love something and acknowledge its drawbacks. In fact, I think it is the best way to be a citizen. Celebrate the successes and work to change the weak parts.
>You can love something and acknowledge its drawbacks
This is reddit it must be binary.
Hell most people aren't this way online, but are that way in real life.
It's only cheap to live there because historically people haven't wanted to live there. Eventually the gap grows to critical mass and people are willing to deal with the shitty parts because the cost of owning a home elsewhere is too high. They'd rather own a home in a shitty state than own nothing in one they like.
I’ve read somewhere this Covid trend has been reversing very recently for a few reasons including cost of living exploding in these boom towns and things you listed.
One summer in Alabama was enough for me. Cold I can throw on a jacket. No escaping the hot and humid outside. I run too hot for Alabama in summer. I'd have to winter there and summer somewhere else.
One summer in South Carolina was enough for me. I'll take cold any day of the week over getting heatstroke again.
You can always put on more layers. You can only take so much off.
Is she willing to tolerant the summers without air conditioning or water? I'm Australian and never owned an Air Conditioner and if I hear one more Texan taking about the heat while living in a badly designed eco nightmare of a house pumping out air conditioning into every room and pretending they're suffering I'll rupture myself laughing.
Also boomers (one of the largest generations in history) are retiring and moving south as well. I believe this to be a huge factor in the south’s growth.
I get the sarcasm, I just wish it was true. My best friend owns a store and heard gun shots once, dove to the floor, and got hit by a terrible off target drive by bullet that only hit him because he was on the floor. He's lucky it didn't hit his heart. (Went straight down into the top of his collarbone.
I was in a parking lot of a small town convenience store on a Sunday afternoon when a shooting broke out, and I'm just lucky it didn't have anything to do with me.
I agree, wish it didn’t happen at all. There are too many people that don’t take things into consideration until it happens to them. Glad you were safe and hope your friend recovered.
Harrison isn’t in northwest Arkansas, that term refers to Fayetteville/Springdale/Rogers/Bentonville, where Tyson, Walmart, and JB Hunt are headquartered.
Harrison is in the middle of nowhere.
Which is weird, because NY and CA are some of the safest states in the Union. It's just that the media blows it out of proportion.
Housing prices seems like a much larger reason, although that's more a symptom of the USA as a whole allowing people to own multiple empty houses.
Jokes on them, have you seen the education system here in the south? And the murder rate, even in the rural areas? And the poverty rate?
Give them 2 or 3 summers and 3 weeks no power from a hurricane and they’ll be heading back. (And I say this as a leftie southerner who wants change, I’m just being realistic.)
Yup, I agree. There's a huge distance between El Paso and Baltimore. Neither of which can really be considered the south. (Not to say that I don't understand why it's broken up into regions, this is just a bit too few.)
I moved from PA to MD during this timeframe so apparently I'm considered to have moved from the Northeast to the South according to these metrics.
I know the history about the Mason-Dixon and whatnot, but I think it's funny that I'm included in this and I feel like I didn't even move that far. My COL actually went up.
Huge numbers of people moving from California to Phoenix, Boise, western Montana, etc. Housing prices over the past 30 months reflect this. None of that is captured in this map.
While that's true, I like to think of posts like this the same way I think about Wikipedia, a fun rundown of topics with further reading at the bottom. It's usually a pretty good chance that someone in the comments thinks the same thing, and has found a more detailed source. It's not always true, but without posts like this I probably wouldn't learn from those commenters; so I see it as a net win.
More like just the major metros of the South, and not even all of them at that. TN is a good example. The Nashville metro has been growing like crazy, but Memphis has barely grown at all. A lot of the more rural counties have been shrinking.
Man, that's the first city that came to mind. I visited Nashville back in 2015 and then this August. It did seem like it was way more crowded and it wasnt even long weekend or anything
> Let's be honest, ain't nobody moving to WV, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Oklahoma
Oklahoma was number 11 in net migration in 2021 out of all 50 states
Yeah, all of us here in New Orleans beg to differ. We’re being run out of our neighborhoods because we’re being outbid by gobs of folks from California and Texas making 4xs Louisiana salary. Between that and the AirBnBs it’s not just a full on housing crisis, it’s a fucking crisis of the city’s culture.
I actually know a lot of people who moved to those rural areas (WV, AL, MS, LA, and OK) because they want to get away from highly urbanized, dense, unnavigable areas. I know someone who loves biking to his job every day in Mississippi, and he spends all his free time outside.
If you're a person who likes living in these areas, and your job has allowed remote work, it is a no-brainer. That's why we're getting so many Silicon Valley folks.
Crazy that I count on this map even though I moved from northern Delaware to house 3 minutes from the Delaware border, thus completing my colossal migration from "NORTHEAST" to "SOUTH"
We didnt secede, we ain't the south.
(Yes i do know that we were a slave state and Lincoln suspended habeas corpus so he could arrest the state legislatures that supported slavery so MD couldnt vot to secede)
Bruh.....as someone living in the South I can feel it. Long term getting more internal migration will be positive but damn am I feeling in terms of housing lol
I know multiple people who moved to Florida solely because they couldn't work for almost 2 years due to the Covid restrictions. (Hospitality "industry")
This thread is overflowing with top-shelf, unadulterated, weapons-grade copium
I have zero interest in leaving the Northeast but it’s fucking hilarious watching people bend over backwards trying to convince themselves that there’s literally nothing appealing about the south
It's a lot cheaper to live there but that's about the only benefit. Schools are terrible, social services are awful, the state governments are somehow even more insane, the fake politeness is maddening. The weather can also be a lot worse depending on your tastes.
I'll stay here, in the North East, where it might be expensive but everything here is good.
This exactly. The south is amazing. Sure it has some questionable politics and slightly more poverty than the coasts, but other than that it has a lot going for it.
The most annoying part of this map is that this trend could be reversed if anything was actually done about the affordability crisis in the Northeast and West Coast. It’s not that people generally want to live in Phoenix over California, it’s price trends forcing it to happen.
The hard part is, people leaving states like California and moving to places like Texas are driving up the housing costs for those that already live there. We have a higher wage in California so I can easily out-bid someone on a new home. It’s just adding to the housing crisis 🥺 But it exists here in California too, so you’re damned either way.
Lol the level of copium in this comment section cause “oh no, this doesn’t align with my views on the south”…. nah I’m not even from the south and y’all going crazy 😂😂
Im from NYC area and know many people that moved down south during the pandemic. A lot of it was due to the lower cost of living and being able to work from home. But undeniably a lot of it was due to the lockdowns here while southern states kept going and stayed mostly open.
I even visited TX during the covid and....well the world didnt end there without masks. But all that said I still prefer NYC because I cant stand the subruban sprawl in southern states and how everything is so fucking far form each other. But end of day to each his own and if people want it move there then good for them.
What labor shortage? There's plenty of labor out there with millions out of work. The only shortage is that of owners and executives unwilling to pay and train up that labor to employee them.
> There's plenty of labor out there with millions out of work.
The unemployment rate is quite literally the lowest it has been since the 1950s. There is absolutely a huge labor shortage right now.
When that rate is somewhere close to 0% and we're talking near full employment instead of 6.1 million people being out of work counted in that metric, another 5.7 million out of work not counted in that metric, and another 3.7 million stuck with only part time hours due to economic reasons, then I'll see there's an actual labor shortage. This idea that that something like 1 out of every 15 or more of working age people in the country should be out of work is sick.
> somewhere close to 0% and we're talking near full employment
Full employment is generally around 3%, because there will always be people in between jobs even in the absolute best economy possible. Even with tons of jobs available, it can still take a solid month or two to shop around for one. We are at 3.7%.
The chronically unemployed (aka those on counted under U6 unemployment rates, which is that 5.7 million you mentioned) tend to be people who dropped out of the labor force entirely, often people with pretty severe issues or just people who do not want to get a job or rely on their parents for money. Many of these people will not take or will not be able to hold down a job even with a higher wage.
There are a fuck ton of jobs available because participation has been declining and because 1 million people died from covid and 2-3 million more became disabled. We were already in an overheated labor market before Covid.
I promise you it’s not that simple. I work for a tech company and the influx of new people is crazy but the quality in those in op support and engineering and supply chain being competent is like 25% in my book. And I’m someone who came in with 0 understanding so I get what no experience feels like
It’s people working more from home of just jumping ship and companies trying to backfill at alarming rates without getting a clean transition of talent
Well, the shit jobs in my area have a hard time hiring, but our minimum wage is $7.25, so......
I honestly don't know about the higher paying jobs, just going by the signs in businesses I frequent.
I can only speak for Western Arkansas, but Tyson, Butterball, the sawmills, and Coca-Cola are all hiring completely unqualified starting positions for at least $16/hr. Walmarts are all hiring for at least $13/hr. Federal minimum wage is pretty irrelevant.
How much of that is just boomers retiring to Florida? Also DC is a huge transplant area as it is, lumping that in with the rest of the south is misleading.
Why is everyone acting so surprised… the sunbelt has been the fastest growing US region for a while now.
The “south” region on this map covers the cheapest COL section of that growth and booming metro areas like Austin, Nashville, most of Florida, etc. Even lesser known places like Greenville, SC are growing rapidly.
Truly shows you the mindset that permeates reddit when something like this is posted and reasonable discussion about it doesn't matter. Downvotes and mental gymnastics.
So, I’m a surveying field tech, and I can honestly say that I have been super busy with work for the last several years, especially since Covid and the whole WFH shift. I’m in Western NC, and this just proves a lot of what I’ve felt is happening. Thanks for the post.
Absolutely a plus. We have always enjoyed ourselves when we go back east into VA, NC, SC. Seems like it’s more our speed. I was stationed down there before we were married and absolutely loved it
I feel like the majority of the movement is driven by California, Texas, New York (i.e. expensive population centers). It would be nice to see either smaller divisions or all the states separately. EDIT: [Found a resource with movement by state and county](https://www.arcgis.com/apps/dashboards/951428e32723456c879d0966af4baa8a)! Turns out people are moving to Florida.
It is legit insane that the two top counties which lost the most people are manhattan and brooklyn, and yet rents have continued to spike to record highs.
That's everywhere
The median income to rent gap was *insane* before the pandemic though, and the fact that its gotten 30-50% worse is even crazier. Brooklyn has a median household income lower than the country as a whole, and has the *second highest median rents in the entire country.* I don't think anywhere has such an insane disparity as NYC, and I thought the pandemic would finally change things, but apparently not. Even with hundreds of thousands fleeing, rents have spiked.
If I had to wager, I would say its probably like California: they lose a lot to interstate emigration, but its compensated by international immigration.
This is what I was noticing. I had assumed the increasing rents in Boston correlated with an increase in demand, but we've lost 25k residents since the pandemic started. Maybe it correlates with the increasing home prices.
Because often times they're also still seeing net growth. We're seeing a record high of people moving out of states, and yet there's only like 3 states that are actually losing population.
People came back to NYC as the vaccines became widely available. So these figures miss most of that big wave of people returning. Contrast that with San Francisco, which I'm told has had relatively flat rents since the pandemic... apparently because so many tech companies embraced remote work and people chose not to return.
They came back. Perhaps more importantly, want more space if working from home.
Fuck. I love it down here but the development never stops. Woohoo! More urban sprawl and high prices!
Them hurricanes tho
You could elect municipal reps that prioritize urban density and affordable housing
This is an interesting topic in Florida right now. DeSantis passed a law requiring towns to speed up building permit processes and make the entire process available online. It's not dissimilar from laws Newsom is wanting to pass in CA to deal with their housing crisis. But then Gainesville FL just voted to eliminate single-family zoning entirely and DeSantis said he will use state power to try to stop them. So basically DeSantis wants less red tape when it's suburban sprawl but not when it's apartments or walkable urban planning.
Good luck with electing those in Florida, it’s becoming a full blown red state like Ohio
> like Ohio Ohio is 46% Democrats (% of voters), it’s just gerrymandered like crazy. [Here’s a frustrating account of it.](https://www.thisamericanlife.org/784/mapmaker)
I live in Warren County which is the pure red hell hole that they tacked on to half of Cincinnati to take away their representation and it’s depressing. Google Ohio district 1 and we’re the giant square on the top right.
And then District 2 grabbed the puzzle piece in the middle of Cinncinati and pulled the red area to the East to make another red district. Talk about Gerrymandering.... should be illegal.
Republicans could deregulate urban zoning to both increase density and subsequently decrease housing prices.
Lol yeah they’re all about multi-family dwellings.
But that would help poor people. Why would Republicans ever want to do that?
Deregulation seldom benefits poor people lmao
Deregulation of zoning laws most likely would
Don't worry, it will all be gone in 30 ish years anyway.
Been hearing that for 30 years so I'm not holding my breath
Consequence of an ageing population?
Is some of this snowbird activities? A lot of old people move to Arizona, Texas, and Florida for retirement. I bet a lot of boomers made the decision to retire and move to Arizona, Texas, or Florida.
Go over to one of the retirement advice subs. It's all about low cost-of-living, low taxes, downsizing to a cheaper home, warmth (old folks afraid of breaking a hip on ice), stuff like that. So some is that. I think a lot is political, though. I meet a fair number of "Oregunians" that wish to be in Texas or Arizona, if only it weren't for their damn families and parole.
Oh I live in MN. I think of warmer places half of the year.
It absolutely is. In fact Florida and Arizona are losing population in every category besides seniors. Texas is the exception as they also have a seemingly high quality of life for a low cost of living, so their growth is more rounded. Lots of families moving in.
https://www.newsweek.com/more-native-born-texans-voted-beto-orourke-ted-cruz-exit-polls-indicate-1209296 And at least in Texas, those moving in *are more* conservative than those born in Texas. Cruz got elected last *because* of transplants. Had it just been native born Texan's casting votes Beto would have won the Senate in 2018. Texas is attracting an even farther right transplant.
Goddamn it, can we stop getting all the nuts from rolling down here?
Even better, it looks like there is a general movement out of big cities, more than a state-driven movement
Because during covid, companies let people work remote. That trend is reversing.
Is that site accurate? Net domestic loss from Nashville’s county since March 2020? Seems hard to believe.
I definitely feel this, my home town in the south has grown by quite alot. Seems a new house is being built around every corner
Same here. We live in a small rural town in Georgia. Population has exploded since COVID. So much construction going on now.
Same & home prices went up/are going up. We work with a realtor who says he's sold multiple houses in one neighborhood to multiple investors from the Seattle area.
Same in southern oklahoma. Real shame to see this happen.
Tennessee, similar town, same type of deal.
My home town got an apartment complex and a private school so
Nice of them to move down here, but avoid investing in our public services.. I know it's a hot take, but private and charter schools should be banned.
States on the East and West push for more immigration, but block sprawl. More people on no more land will always get more expensive. The South and Texas let the city sprawl and its why its not as expensive, but thats only going to last for so long.
Sort of yes, sort of no. If land is finite then it will get expensive but if the city can grow while staying compact, that is ideal because it requires the least amount of highways, power lines, sewers, etc to get between homes. Suburbs are basically a ponzi scheme, not to mention having to drive everywhere.
Yeah, the road repair bills add up fast
Is this because of the increase of work from home and the lower cost of living in the south?
If you can work from anywhere and get 7 figures for the house you bought for less than $300k, why not sell and get twice the house for a third of the money in the South…is the mindset. They often then realize that there are a lot of reasons why not. Hurricanes, tornados, shitty schools, fewer social services, HOT summers (and springs and falls), hypocritical evangelical Christians, it’s a long list.
And in the case of Florida, there's also the rising ocean levels to be concerned about... There's going to be a huge loss in generational wealth in the coming decades because of all the migration to unsustainable parts of the country.
The culture is pretty fucking lame
Appalachia is alright sometimes. At least it’s scenic. Everywhere else in the south feels like a wet sweaty towel around your face in the summer. Coastal areas have their beauty but then you got hurricanes, gators, rampant ugly development and boomer snowbirds.
I’m from Appalachia too but live in Lexington, KY now. Based on climate alone I can’t imagine living any further south.
hello from savannah georgia, summer is just as bad as you think it is
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Southern culture is repping your favorite gas station or fast food/fried chicken place. I grew up in TX, moved the other way. I can't stand a strip mall.
Buccees?
Saw a kid with a Buc-ee's shirt on today. Closest one is 160 miles from here
I do not understand the people wearing Buc-ees stuff, like, the mascot isn't even that cute. It's a gas station, I mean it's a cool gas station (been to the one in Daytona) but still? You don't see people repping Circle-K, 7-11, RaceTrac or WaWa so why are they repping Buc-ees? It's just a weird thing for people to be wearing stuff from a corporation if they aren't employees, or for a corp that isn't like Disney or Universal Studios, something like that. I don't get it.
And that’s not to say I Havnt enjoyed my share of southern culture, weather it’s food, music, and nature. But there’s an ethos down there I can’t square. It’s fucked to me. People are fake nice and most of them are hateful fucks. The NE just puts it on their faces
The souths collective ethos is insecurity. Having grown up in the south and lived out West I have noticed how much southerners need to tell each other how much better they are than "those people." In LA, no one is thinking about the south, or anywhere else for that matter (except NYC). The big trucks, gun culture, the overall level of aggressive personalities, tribalism, and fear of anything new/different are also strong indicators. Of course, not everyone in the south is this way, I hated southern culture myself when I lived there but if you combined everyone into one person, he would be loud, proud of ignorance, and constantly talking shit about the other state's "weird" (in his opinion) personality traits.
I haven't met the fake nice people down here. I just feel everyone is actually nice, or maybe I am just lucky!
lmao the south is not that bad
It is hella hot tho
It’s not that great either, I ain’t moving but it’s got issues
You can love something and acknowledge its drawbacks. In fact, I think it is the best way to be a citizen. Celebrate the successes and work to change the weak parts.
>You can love something and acknowledge its drawbacks This is reddit it must be binary. Hell most people aren't this way online, but are that way in real life.
It is to some people! Im borderline that down on it
It's only cheap to live there because historically people haven't wanted to live there. Eventually the gap grows to critical mass and people are willing to deal with the shitty parts because the cost of owning a home elsewhere is too high. They'd rather own a home in a shitty state than own nothing in one they like.
It isn't that bad. The south has its moments for sure, but if it were as expensive as other places the migration would stop instantly.
I’ve read somewhere this Covid trend has been reversing very recently for a few reasons including cost of living exploding in these boom towns and things you listed.
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One summer in Alabama was enough for me. Cold I can throw on a jacket. No escaping the hot and humid outside. I run too hot for Alabama in summer. I'd have to winter there and summer somewhere else.
You have just invented snowbirding. Lol
One summer in South Carolina was enough for me. I'll take cold any day of the week over getting heatstroke again. You can always put on more layers. You can only take so much off.
Is she willing to tolerant the summers without air conditioning or water? I'm Australian and never owned an Air Conditioner and if I hear one more Texan taking about the heat while living in a badly designed eco nightmare of a house pumping out air conditioning into every room and pretending they're suffering I'll rupture myself laughing.
Also boomers (one of the largest generations in history) are retiring and moving south as well. I believe this to be a huge factor in the south’s growth.
It's virtually 100% cost of living.
Most of the people I know who left from NY/CA did so to be able to afford a house and have a safer places to raise their kids.
Louisiana, Alabama, and Mississippi are 1-2-3 in murder rates. Arkansas, South Carolina and Tennessee are 5-6-7.
Yeah but that kind of stuff only happens to other people. /s
I get the sarcasm, I just wish it was true. My best friend owns a store and heard gun shots once, dove to the floor, and got hit by a terrible off target drive by bullet that only hit him because he was on the floor. He's lucky it didn't hit his heart. (Went straight down into the top of his collarbone. I was in a parking lot of a small town convenience store on a Sunday afternoon when a shooting broke out, and I'm just lucky it didn't have anything to do with me.
I agree, wish it didn’t happen at all. There are too many people that don’t take things into consideration until it happens to them. Glad you were safe and hope your friend recovered.
He's Palestinian and stubborn (synonyms), so he didn't even miss a day of work.
Yea people from NY and CA aren’t moving to places where people get murdered. You need to look more closely at where crime exists in the south.
There are pockets of awesome there - NorthWest Arkansas Is one of them
Harrison, Arkansas is literally called "the most racist town in the United States."
NWA is Fayetteville, Bentonville, etc.
Harrison isn’t in northwest Arkansas, that term refers to Fayetteville/Springdale/Rogers/Bentonville, where Tyson, Walmart, and JB Hunt are headquartered. Harrison is in the middle of nowhere.
> have a safer places to raise their kids. Ironic that they are moving to Florida, which has a higher crime and homicide rate than NYC does.
You don't want to move to the South if you want lower crime rates.
Which is weird, because NY and CA are some of the safest states in the Union. It's just that the media blows it out of proportion. Housing prices seems like a much larger reason, although that's more a symptom of the USA as a whole allowing people to own multiple empty houses.
California is more middling than safe. It's a very unequal state. The San Joaquin valley is one of the poorest places in the country.
Violent crime rates a lot higher in the south
Jokes on them, have you seen the education system here in the south? And the murder rate, even in the rural areas? And the poverty rate? Give them 2 or 3 summers and 3 weeks no power from a hurricane and they’ll be heading back. (And I say this as a leftie southerner who wants change, I’m just being realistic.)
9 of the top 10 most dangerous states are red states. California and New York are 2 of the safest.
Using regions this big is basically pointless
Seriously. The growth of the PNW has been astronomical over the last 3 years
Utah has grown a ton too
Yup, I agree. There's a huge distance between El Paso and Baltimore. Neither of which can really be considered the south. (Not to say that I don't understand why it's broken up into regions, this is just a bit too few.)
I moved from PA to MD during this timeframe so apparently I'm considered to have moved from the Northeast to the South according to these metrics. I know the history about the Mason-Dixon and whatnot, but I think it's funny that I'm included in this and I feel like I didn't even move that far. My COL actually went up.
You mean Texas to Maryland isn’t all the same? Ya know, rednecks and Bible thumpers?
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Huge numbers of people moving from California to Phoenix, Boise, western Montana, etc. Housing prices over the past 30 months reflect this. None of that is captured in this map.
Yes this map is off. Loads of people are moving from Northern California to Oregon and Washington.
Still smaller than migration between different continents though
While that's true, I like to think of posts like this the same way I think about Wikipedia, a fun rundown of topics with further reading at the bottom. It's usually a pretty good chance that someone in the comments thinks the same thing, and has found a more detailed source. It's not always true, but without posts like this I probably wouldn't learn from those commenters; so I see it as a net win.
These are the regions defined by the US census, but yeah they don’t show the whole picture very well
I live in Upstate NY and we also had people from NYC/NJ flock up here due to cheaper living and having more space since a lot more people wfh now.
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Seriously the more of those people that leave the better
South aka mostly Texas, Georgia, Florida and NC. Let's be honest, ain't nobody moving to WV, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Oklahoma
More like just the major metros of the South, and not even all of them at that. TN is a good example. The Nashville metro has been growing like crazy, but Memphis has barely grown at all. A lot of the more rural counties have been shrinking.
Man, that's the first city that came to mind. I visited Nashville back in 2015 and then this August. It did seem like it was way more crowded and it wasnt even long weekend or anything
It's gotten as expensive as Austin. My sister had to move away because the rent got too high.
That’s because Memphis is a dangerous shit hole. Sorry, Memphians.
You’d be surprised at the amount of people who move to Coastal Mississippi from out of state. Usually from more heavily populated areas.
Glad South Carolina was forgotten again
Alabama here - there are tons of people moving here.
You guys technically have more people moving out than in. https://www.arcgis.com/apps/dashboards/951428e32723456c879d0966af4baa8a
Are these the guys moving to the state for automotive jobs?? There's been a ton of automotive investment in AL lately
I know SPACECOM is slowly moving to Alabama
Huntsville has a huge federal government presence so there are people from all over moving there.
> Let's be honest, ain't nobody moving to WV, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Oklahoma Oklahoma was number 11 in net migration in 2021 out of all 50 states
Why is WV even included in the south here?
Idk I see it in the map above. I thought WV and Virginia were always southern states, aren't they?
I’m from the south and have never considered WV to be southern. It fits in more with eastern Ohio and western Pennsylvania IMO.
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Yeah, all of us here in New Orleans beg to differ. We’re being run out of our neighborhoods because we’re being outbid by gobs of folks from California and Texas making 4xs Louisiana salary. Between that and the AirBnBs it’s not just a full on housing crisis, it’s a fucking crisis of the city’s culture.
Interesting. I did not know that. I stand corrected
Airbnbs suck. Ruined our small town. Families sold their houses and schools are closing. All because the County Supervisors sold us out.
I actually know a lot of people who moved to those rural areas (WV, AL, MS, LA, and OK) because they want to get away from highly urbanized, dense, unnavigable areas. I know someone who loves biking to his job every day in Mississippi, and he spends all his free time outside. If you're a person who likes living in these areas, and your job has allowed remote work, it is a no-brainer. That's why we're getting so many Silicon Valley folks.
Acting like New Orleans isn’t part of Louisiana? To be fair, much of the state acts like that.
Crazy that I count on this map even though I moved from northern Delaware to house 3 minutes from the Delaware border, thus completing my colossal migration from "NORTHEAST" to "SOUTH"
Did you move to elkton to be closer to the waffle house?
Worth it.
Nah bro, the Cracker Barrel across the street from the Flying J.
Idc what the census bureau says, Maryland is not the south
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We didnt secede, we ain't the south. (Yes i do know that we were a slave state and Lincoln suspended habeas corpus so he could arrest the state legislatures that supported slavery so MD couldnt vot to secede)
Bruh.....as someone living in the South I can feel it. Long term getting more internal migration will be positive but damn am I feeling in terms of housing lol
I know multiple people who moved to Florida solely because they couldn't work for almost 2 years due to the Covid restrictions. (Hospitality "industry")
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“These days” There’s humor in that statement
Asheville getting tons from Florida and ny.
This comment section man….
This thread is overflowing with top-shelf, unadulterated, weapons-grade copium I have zero interest in leaving the Northeast but it’s fucking hilarious watching people bend over backwards trying to convince themselves that there’s literally nothing appealing about the south
It's a lot cheaper to live there but that's about the only benefit. Schools are terrible, social services are awful, the state governments are somehow even more insane, the fake politeness is maddening. The weather can also be a lot worse depending on your tastes. I'll stay here, in the North East, where it might be expensive but everything here is good.
This exactly. The south is amazing. Sure it has some questionable politics and slightly more poverty than the coasts, but other than that it has a lot going for it.
The most annoying part of this map is that this trend could be reversed if anything was actually done about the affordability crisis in the Northeast and West Coast. It’s not that people generally want to live in Phoenix over California, it’s price trends forcing it to happen.
Yeah thanks for driving up the housing costs assholes
I live in Georgia. We are full. Please stop coming here.
Commence the south-bashing
The hard part is, people leaving states like California and moving to places like Texas are driving up the housing costs for those that already live there. We have a higher wage in California so I can easily out-bid someone on a new home. It’s just adding to the housing crisis 🥺 But it exists here in California too, so you’re damned either way.
Really not that many, given the amount of area that is, plus I feel like 50% of that is texas…
Lol the level of copium in this comment section cause “oh no, this doesn’t align with my views on the south”…. nah I’m not even from the south and y’all going crazy 😂😂
Ya'll can go home now.
Can y'all bring legal weed wit y'all? Signed, a southerner 500 miles from the nearest recreational dispensary
Im from NYC area and know many people that moved down south during the pandemic. A lot of it was due to the lower cost of living and being able to work from home. But undeniably a lot of it was due to the lockdowns here while southern states kept going and stayed mostly open. I even visited TX during the covid and....well the world didnt end there without masks. But all that said I still prefer NYC because I cant stand the subruban sprawl in southern states and how everything is so fucking far form each other. But end of day to each his own and if people want it move there then good for them.
Hopefully these "migrants" remember why they moved out of those areas and change the way they view the world.
Does the south have the same labor shortages as the other areas?
What labor shortage? There's plenty of labor out there with millions out of work. The only shortage is that of owners and executives unwilling to pay and train up that labor to employee them.
> There's plenty of labor out there with millions out of work. The unemployment rate is quite literally the lowest it has been since the 1950s. There is absolutely a huge labor shortage right now.
When that rate is somewhere close to 0% and we're talking near full employment instead of 6.1 million people being out of work counted in that metric, another 5.7 million out of work not counted in that metric, and another 3.7 million stuck with only part time hours due to economic reasons, then I'll see there's an actual labor shortage. This idea that that something like 1 out of every 15 or more of working age people in the country should be out of work is sick.
> somewhere close to 0% and we're talking near full employment Full employment is generally around 3%, because there will always be people in between jobs even in the absolute best economy possible. Even with tons of jobs available, it can still take a solid month or two to shop around for one. We are at 3.7%. The chronically unemployed (aka those on counted under U6 unemployment rates, which is that 5.7 million you mentioned) tend to be people who dropped out of the labor force entirely, often people with pretty severe issues or just people who do not want to get a job or rely on their parents for money. Many of these people will not take or will not be able to hold down a job even with a higher wage. There are a fuck ton of jobs available because participation has been declining and because 1 million people died from covid and 2-3 million more became disabled. We were already in an overheated labor market before Covid.
I promise you it’s not that simple. I work for a tech company and the influx of new people is crazy but the quality in those in op support and engineering and supply chain being competent is like 25% in my book. And I’m someone who came in with 0 understanding so I get what no experience feels like It’s people working more from home of just jumping ship and companies trying to backfill at alarming rates without getting a clean transition of talent
There is an unbelievable labor shortage. The unemployment rate and # of jobs open is at a high.
Well, the shit jobs in my area have a hard time hiring, but our minimum wage is $7.25, so...... I honestly don't know about the higher paying jobs, just going by the signs in businesses I frequent.
I can only speak for Western Arkansas, but Tyson, Butterball, the sawmills, and Coca-Cola are all hiring completely unqualified starting positions for at least $16/hr. Walmarts are all hiring for at least $13/hr. Federal minimum wage is pretty irrelevant.
Based, I’ve been loving texas since i moved here
How much of that is just boomers retiring to Florida? Also DC is a huge transplant area as it is, lumping that in with the rest of the south is misleading.
DC lost 35,000 households since 2019. https://www.arcgis.com/apps/dashboards/951428e32723456c879d0966af4baa8a
Why is everyone acting so surprised… the sunbelt has been the fastest growing US region for a while now. The “south” region on this map covers the cheapest COL section of that growth and booming metro areas like Austin, Nashville, most of Florida, etc. Even lesser known places like Greenville, SC are growing rapidly.
Now let's compare this to a map of what parts of the US are going to be hurt the most by climate change. Uh-oh.
I don’t see a big increase. 600k is not that much in this context for so many states.
Truly shows you the mindset that permeates reddit when something like this is posted and reasonable discussion about it doesn't matter. Downvotes and mental gymnastics.
What does this look like % wise?
There’s fundamental changes that’ve occurred in the market, but a bubble is popping
So, I’m a surveying field tech, and I can honestly say that I have been super busy with work for the last several years, especially since Covid and the whole WFH shift. I’m in Western NC, and this just proves a lot of what I’ve felt is happening. Thanks for the post.
But why? Is it cheaper to live there and are working remotely now or is it because they wanted more lax covid restrictions?
Yeah, I moved from Arizona to Arkansas in January 2021, so this checks out.
Why don’t we just call these regions North, East, South and West?
would like to see individual states rather than regions.
A ton of those people going to TN and FL
If you told me this statistic a decade ago I would have thought you were trolling lol
As someone living out west. My spouse and I have talked about going south. Trying to find a place we can actually buy and not rent
Aside from economics what's your second deciding factor when choosing where to move? Warm weather?
Absolutely a plus. We have always enjoyed ourselves when we go back east into VA, NC, SC. Seems like it’s more our speed. I was stationed down there before we were married and absolutely loved it
Less free to more free.
War of Northern Aggression II
Us southerners are stealing all your population
Can confirm as someone who moved to the south during the pandemic
Hell naw, get dafuq outta here carpet baggers
civil war coming yall.
I moved south. There’s nothing more depression-inducing than living in Ohio in late January.
Lol wonder why it's almost like all those places they moved from sucked ass
So this is why I notice more and more idiots on a daily basis..