Where’s everyone going?

The rise of e-mail came just in time. My friends have changed residences so much over the past few years that I no longer bother to maintain an address book. The restlessness of my social circle got me wondering about the most frequent destinations for moving vans, and the Census Bureau has a detailed, if belated answer. If you have the patience, you can download charts that estimate every move from one county to another between 1995 and 2000. I’ve summarized the highlights below. Top 10 population shifts between counties, 1995-2000 Below are the biggest shifts of people from one county to another. Almost all of the shifts were from major urban areas to more suburban counties, and once-booming Los Angeles County was, by far, the biggest exporter of people (though there seems to have been some backwash from Orange County). 1. Los Angeles County, CA, to Orange County, CA: 146,044 2. Los Angeles County, CA, to San Bernardino County, CA: 135,657 3. Miami-Dade County, FL, to Broward County (Fort Lauderdale), FL: 89,915 4. Cook County (Chicago), IL, to DuPage County, IL: 80,286 5. Baltimore city, MD, to Baltimore County, MD: 77,991 6. Orange County, CA, to Los Angeles County, CA: 77,760 7. St. Louis city, MO, to St. Louis County, MO: 76,154 8. Los Angeles County, CA, to Riverside County, CA: 74,919 9. Kings County (Brooklyn), NY, to Queens County, NY: 63,603 10. Queens County, NY, to Nassau County (western Long Island), NY: 61,802 Top 10 population shifts between counties in different states, 1995-2000 The biggest migrations across state lines were, again, mostly from urban to suburban areas. But my own state’s Essex County, which includes Salem and Cape Ann, was the only example in the top 10 of a mostly suburban county exporting people to a more suburban county. 1. Los Angeles County, CA, to Clark County (Las Vegas), NV: 55,857 2. Washington, DC, to Prince George’s County, MD: 38,754 3. Los Angeles County, CA, to Maricopa County (Phoenix), AZ: 32,598 4. Cook County (Chicago), IL, to Lake County (Gary), IN: 23,396 5. Washington, DC, to Montgomery County, MD: 18,448 6. Cook County (Chicago), IL, to Maricopa County (Phoenix), AZ: 17,057 7. Prince George’s County, MD, to Washington, DC: 14,771 8. Jackson County (Kansas City), MO, to Johnson County, KS: 14,220 9. Multnomah County (Portland), OR, to Clark County (Vancouver), WA: 13,475 10. Essex County, MA, to Rockingham County, NH: 12,994 Top 15 population shifts between counties in non-bordering states, 1995-2000 Finally, here are the biggest long-distance shifts, between counties in states that don’t touch. New York and Chicago seem to have a give-and-take relationship with Los Angeles, even if they still lose more people than they gain in the deal. Otherwise, all the big shifts are to counties in the South and West. 1. Cook County (Chicago), IL, to Maricopa County (Phoenix), AZ: 17,057 2. New York County (Manhattan), NY, to Los Angeles County, CA: 12,965 3. Los Angeles County, CA, to King County (Seattle), WA: 12,575 4. Cook County (Chicago), IL, to Los Angeles County, CA: 12,270 5. Los Angeles County, CA, to Cook County (Chicago), IL: 11,292 6. Queens County, NY, to Broward County (Fort Lauderdale), FL: 10,460 7. Cook County (Chicago), IL, to Clark County (Las Vegas), NV: 9.963 8. Los Angeles County, CA, to Dallas County, TX: 9,824 9. Los Angeles County, CA, to Harris County (Houston), TX: 9,852 10. Kings County (Brooklyn), NY, to Broward County (Fort Lauderdale), FL: 9.053 11. Nassau County (western Long Island), NY, to Palm Beach County, FL: 8,859 12. Los Angeles County, CA, to New York County (Manhattan), NY: 8,446 13. King County (Seattle), WA, to Maricopa County (Phoenix), AZ: 7,906 14. Honolulu County, HI, to San Diego County, CA: 7,757 15. Honolulu County, HI, to Clark County (Las Vegas), NV: 7,738 Florida is an interesting case in that migrants from the same area tend to settle together. So people from Queens and Brooklyn dominated the Fort Lauderdale area, but ex-Long Islanders were more likely to end up around Palm Beach. And the Gulf Coast counties that include St. Petersburg, Tampa, and Sarasota got more residents from Chicago than from New York.