Shift of Net Domestic Migration to Smaller MSAs and Outside CBSAs

Wendell Cox — Fri, 22 Mar 2024 11:46:41 -0400

From the early 2010s to 2022, net domestic migration in the United States has evolved strongly toward less populated areas. In 2022, the annual net domestic migration has been reduced in all population categories in metropolitan areas with 1,000,000 or more population (2010). Further net domestic migration has increased in all population categories with less than 1,000,000 population (Figure).

Note: CBSAs include all metropolitan and micropolitan areas.

Wendell Cox is principal of Demographia, an international public policy firm located in the St. Louis metropolitan area. He is a founding senior fellow at the Urban Reform Institute, Houston, a Senior Fellow with the Frontier Centre for Public Policy in Winnipeg and a member of the Advisory Board of the Center for Demographics and Policy at Chapman University in Orange, California. He has served as a visiting professor at the Conservatoire National des Arts et Metiers in Paris. His principal interests are economics, poverty alleviation, demographics, urban policy and transport. He is co-author of the annual Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey and author of Demographia World Urban Areas.

Mayor Tom Bradley appointed him to three terms on the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission (1977-1985) and Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich appointed him to the Amtrak Reform Council, to complete the unexpired term of New Jersey Governor Christine Todd Whitman (1999-2002). He is author of War on the Dream: How Anti-Sprawl Policy Threatens the Quality of Life and Toward More Prosperous Cities: A Framing Essay on Urban Areas, Transport, Planning and the Dimensions of Sustainability.

population density

Shift of Net Domestic Migration to Smaller MSAs and Outside CBSAs