Where people moved to/from when moving from/to the Capital Region
A clip from a "heat map" of where people from the Capital Region moved, according to Census Bureau estimates recently released.
Updated with better maps.
You know how people often talk about moving from the Capital Region to someplace warm? Well, according to recently released Census Bureau estimates about migration flows, the most popular state to move to from the Capital Region is Florida.
But Florida is also one of the states people most frequently move from to the Capital Region, too.
That, and whole bunch of other bits we turned up while going through the numbers this week, after the jump.
And you know there are charts and maps. Of course.
Be sure to check out the maps above in large format -- click or scroll all the way up.
Important technical stuff
About the update: We switched out the original map with points for each county in the estimate for heat maps of Capital Region inflow/outflow. After some more consideration, we decided the original map just wasn't very good because it gave a(n eve more) distorted view of the Census Bureau estimates. The heat maps do a better job of representing the general estimated trends.
We pulled these numbers from "County-to-County Migration Flows: 2007-2011 ACS" The numbers are based on 5-year American Community Survey estimates (as opposed to an attempt to count every single person). They're not super recent. And with estimates -- especially for small samples -- the margins of error can be relatively big, so they should be taken with grains of salt. The best way to view these numbers is not as definite counts, but more like impressions of trends. And as mentioned before, when the numbers are small, the impression can be smudgy.
Want to see the numbers we used for yourself? Here are the spreadsheets: raw | filtered. Corrections and suggestions always welcome.
A quick note: In this case, Capital Region = the four core counties.
Top 10 states Capital Region inflow
Top 10 states Capital Region outflow
Non-US states Capital Region inflow
Out-of-state counties to Capital Region inflow, top 25
Out-of-state counties Capital Region outflow, top 25
New York counties to Capital Region net flow
A few things
+ A big chunk of the people moving to/from the Capital Region are moving within in New York State. And based on the Census estimates, the Capital Region gained about 3300 people from the rest of the state.
+ And, of course, the biggest chunk of people moving were people moving within the Capital Region itself -- about 14,600 people, according to the estimates. (We've adjusted the state numbers to account for intra-Capital Region moves).
+ If you would have asked before this whether the Capital Region had a net positive or negative flow in relation to the New York City area, we would have probably guessed net negative before working up these numbers. But Brooklyn, Queens, Westchester -- even Manhattan, narrowly -- were positive flows for the Capital Region core. (Correction: Manhattan actually registered a very small net positive.)
+ The conventional wisdom is that people often move from New York to someplace warmer. And Florida was the top destination for people moving from the Capital Region out of state. But the Capital Region also picked up a fair number of people from FLA, resulting in a net population loss of 600 people.
+ The next most popular move-to states after Florida for people from the Capital Region: Massachusetts, North Carolina, Connecticut, Virgina.
+ Biggest net inflow states for the Capital Region: South Carolina, New Jersey, New Mexico, Delaware, New Hampshire.
+ Odd (to us) migration bit: Iowa was logged as getting 120 people from the Capital Region -- with none in return.
+ The numbers for out of country flows only include inflow, but it's still interesting. The Census estimates almost 2,000 people migrated from Asia to the Capital Region during the period studied. (The Census notes that one of the five largest inflows in the whole country were 35,000+ people from Asia to Los Angeles County.)
+ The top of the county-to-county flows are dominated by New York State counties as you'd expect. And as also, as expected, counties near the Capital Region: Washington, Montgomery, Warren all rank near the top. See the map above for in-state county-to-county flows.
+ Surprises (to us) near the top of the county inflow rankings: Berkely County, (South Carolina); San Diego County, California, Orange County, Florida.
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Comments
Thanks, AOA, for taking a closer look at the migration patterns out of, and into, NYS. It's refreshing to see a more complete picture.
As reported by TU's Capital Confidential, Governor Cuomo said, in an interview with Maria Bartiromo of Fox Business Network:
“In terms of people moving to Florida, Maria — this is not a new thing, right?,†Cuomo continued. “They didn’t discover a new migratory pattern. As a kid, I remember people getting older, starting to retire, buying a second house in Florida. The weather was an obvious attractions. So it’s not new for New Yorkers to see people move to Florida.
The Governor missed an opportunity to talk about the folks moving from Florida to NYS.
Perhaps he should start reading AOA.
... said Bob on Feb 25, 2014 at 5:17 PM | link
My wife, daughter and I are among those 120 new Iowans, after 19 years in Greater Albania, and as hard as it was to leave friends and colleagues back east, the quality of life in Des Moines is truly exceptional in many ways, and very, very affordable.
I suspect that the reason that few Iowans go to Albany and the Capital Region is because they don't know it exists. When I say I lived in New York before coming here, people either think Times Square or Central Park or (maybe) Niagara Falls if I stress Upstate. The thought that much of New York is actually as agricultural as Iowa is often comes as a shock, and the though that the State's capital city is actually smaller than Des Moines is a mind-blower . . . .
... said JES on Feb 25, 2014 at 5:30 PM | link
"If you would have asked before this whether the Capital Region had a net positive or negative flow in relation to the New York City area, we would have probably guessed net negative before working up these numbers. But Brooklyn, Queens, Westchester -- even Manhattan, narrowly -- were positive flows for the Capital Region core."
Really? I would have guessed right away that more people move here from downstate than vice versa. In my experience, it seems like the two largest population groups around here are natives and downstate transplants.
(And a quick nitpick: If that table above is accurate -- I didn't check it against the source spreadsheets -- Manhattan actually had a slight outflow, not inflow.)
... said Tim in Waterford on Feb 25, 2014 at 6:32 PM | link
@Bob: I should look up to see what the estimate is for net migration between New York State and Florida. I suspect it's probably in favor of Florida overall, if only because of retirees. But, yeah, people are also moving the opposite direction, too.
@JES: Sometimes I think the rest of New York needs a "Hey, there's more than NYC in New York" marketing campaign.
@Tim: Yep, you're correct about the Manhattan/Capital Region estimate. Correction made.
As far as the net flow between NYC and here, I guess my expectation was that a lot of people from here go to college and then head to the NYC for a job. But as you point out, there's a good chunk of people who do something like the opposite.
... said Greg on Feb 26, 2014 at 8:32 AM | link
A big chunk of that 2000 inflow from Asia may be the Burmese refugee population that has been placed in downtown Albany.
... said maryelise on Feb 26, 2014 at 9:55 AM | link
More on the Iowa piece, made more clear with the revised maps . . . . it looks like the lion's share of imports from the Capital Region are going to Ames/Story County, which is where Iowa State University is. ISU is a land grant university and the state's primary science and engineering school (we only have three public colleges in the whole state, as opposed to 66 or so in the SUNY system), so I suspect that a lot of folks coming here from Capitaland are tech folks, either to go to school at ISU, or to teach/work in its labs and other facilities. Still interesting . . . and apparently they are not doing a good job convincing the natives here that there's more to New York than Manhattan!
... said JES on Feb 26, 2014 at 1:12 PM | link
@maryelise- much of the population you just described is actually Cambodian- not Burmese.
... said MMK on Mar 5, 2014 at 9:05 AM | link