In today’s dispatch:
pandemic migration trends from big cities is slowing
beneath the headlines, there’s some actual good news, but also some headfakes
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Daily Data: High cost metros gaining people?
Are pandemic migration patterns going in reverse?
Data on migration patterns suggests that the flight from the Old Guard of Coastal and Midwestern cities to the New Centers of Attention in the South (as well as some more affordable spots in the Rust Belt) has slowed, or even reversed.
Net-migration is still negative for the “High Cost Metros,” but it’s less negative than before (via Cleveland Fed):
Net-outflows from the New Yorks, LAs, and Chicagos, etc. are even a little bit better than the pre-pandemic trend.
That’s generally good news for the bright lights and big cities, but the story is a bit more nuanced than it appears.
In some cases, there appears to be a genuine reversal or improvement of a trend.
In other places, the change seems related to the change in interest rates that started in earnest in early ‘22, i.e. outmigration slowed not because conditions improved, but because the housing market is locked up.1
In yet other cases trends, for better or for worse, seem unmoved entirely by interest rates, which is different, I suppose.
Let’s dig in.
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