Tweet
April 23, 2009
As Housing Market Dips, More in U.S. Are Staying Put
By SAM ROBERTS
Fewer Americans moved in 2008 than in any year since 1962, according to census data released Wednesday, and immigration from overseas was the lowest in more than a decade.
The Census Bureau reported that the annual rate at which people moved dipped last year to 11.9 percent, compared with 13.2 percent in 2007 and a recent high of 20.2 percent in 1984-85. It was the lowest rate since the bureau began measuring mobility six decades ago.
The declines appeared to be directly related to the housing slump and the recession.
“It represents a perfect storm halting migration at all levels, since it involves deterrents in local housing-related moves and longer distance employment-related moves,” said William H. Frey, a demographer with the Brookings Institution.
Moves from one state to another plunged the most, to half the rate recorded at the beginning of the decade. There were fewer total moves than in any year since 1949-50, when returning veterans and others streamed to the suburbs and the nation’s population was about half of what it is today.
“It does show that the U.S. population, often thought of as the most mobile in the developed world, seems to have been stopped dead in its tracks due to a confluence of constraints posed by a tough economic spell,” Dr. Frey said.
He predicted that the foreclosure crisis might spur more local mobility, within or between counties, as families are forced to rent or move in with relatives.
In 2008, the bureau said, 35.2 million people changed residences, compared with 38.7 million the year before.
People who moved were more likely to be unemployed, renters, poor and black. Those surveyed listed their reasons for moving as housing, family and job, in that order.
In all, 2.2 million people moved to the suburbs last year, while the major cities lost 2 million people.
The South recorded the largest net gain of people moving in, including a large influx of blacks. While the South also drew more children than any other region, it also lost more.
The Northeast lost the most residents of any region, as it has for years, but the West also registered a decline.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/23/us...s.html?_r=1&hp
Missing: immigration from abroad that was not from overseas (such a generic term
) and movement from exurbia to suburbia would have been useful.
The Census Bureau reported that the annual rate at which people moved dipped last year to 11.9 percent, compared with 13.2 percent in 2007 and a recent high of 20.2 percent in 1984-85. It was the lowest rate since the bureau began measuring mobility six decades ago.
The declines appeared to be directly related to the housing slump and the recession.
“It represents a perfect storm halting migration at all levels, since it involves deterrents in local housing-related moves and longer distance employment-related moves,” said William H. Frey, a demographer with the Brookings Institution.
Moves from one state to another plunged the most, to half the rate recorded at the beginning of the decade. There were fewer total moves than in any year since 1949-50, when returning veterans and others streamed to the suburbs and the nation’s population was about half of what it is today.
“It does show that the U.S. population, often thought of as the most mobile in the developed world, seems to have been stopped dead in its tracks due to a confluence of constraints posed by a tough economic spell,” Dr. Frey said.
He predicted that the foreclosure crisis might spur more local mobility, within or between counties, as families are forced to rent or move in with relatives.
In 2008, the bureau said, 35.2 million people changed residences, compared with 38.7 million the year before.
People who moved were more likely to be unemployed, renters, poor and black. Those surveyed listed their reasons for moving as housing, family and job, in that order.
In all, 2.2 million people moved to the suburbs last year, while the major cities lost 2 million people.
The South recorded the largest net gain of people moving in, including a large influx of blacks. While the South also drew more children than any other region, it also lost more.
The Northeast lost the most residents of any region, as it has for years, but the West also registered a decline.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/23/us...s.html?_r=1&hp
Missing: immigration from abroad that was not from overseas (such a generic term
) and movement from exurbia to suburbia would have been useful.
Comment