© 2024 WYPR
WYPR 88.1 FM Baltimore WYPF 88.1 FM Frederick WYPO 106.9 FM Ocean City
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Long Standing Migration Trends Remain in Place - 5/4/16

For generations, U.S. population and economic activity has been moving away from the Northeast and the Rust Belt and toward the South and the West.  The nation has also tended to become more suburban over time. 

The last few years have felt a bit different, however, with home prices rising faster in cities than in suburbs, with a number of Northeastern cities, including New York, undergoing major revivals, and given the fact that Southern and Western metropolitan areas were among the hardest hit during the housing market collapse. 

But as pointed out by economist Jed Kolko, long standing trends remain in place.  For instance, the share of Americans living in urban neighborhoods fell from nearly twenty two percent in two thousand to twenty percent in twenty fourteen.  While headlines regarding educated young adults flocking to Brooklyn and San Francisco are broadly accurate, these communities are not representative of broader trends. 

Other demographic groups are suburbanizing faster than the young and rich and piling into cities.  As pointed out by Bloomberg, the states that have experienced the fastest rates of job growth since nineteen ninety are Nevada, Utah, Idaho, Arizona, Colorado, Texas, North Dakota and Montana.   

Anirban Basu, Chariman Chief Executive Officer of Sage Policy Group (SPG), is one of the Mid-Atlantic region's leading economic consultants. Prior to founding SPG he was Chairman and CEO of Optimal Solutions Group, a company he co-founded and which continues to operate. Anirban has also served as Director of Applied Economics and Senior Economist for RESI, where he used his extensive knowledge of the Mid-Atlantic region to support numerous clients in their strategic decision-making processes. Clients have included the Maryland Department of Transportation, St. Paul Companies, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra Players Committee and the Martin O'Malley mayoral campaign.