From the cities to the heartland: a new American exodus?

 

Joel Kotkin and Wendell Cox have published a two-part investigation into internal migration patterns in the USA.  They demonstrate that more and more people are choosing to move out of or away from big cities, and move to smaller towns and rural areas, largely due to quality-of-life considerations.

The first article is "Exodus: Affordability Crisis Sends Americans Packing From Big Cities".

Urban cores have started to shrink, losing first to the suburbs, then to ever further exurbs, and now to small towns and even rural areas. For the first time since the 19th century, America’s growth pattern favors smaller metros – Fargo, North Dakota, as opposed to Portland, Oregon – many of which once seemed out of favor.

This transformation can be hard to detect because demographers often discuss metropolitan regions, which put city centers at their cores. But this method of classification masks the trend that much of the growth is at the edges of these areas. In virtually all the fastest-growing metros, it has been the further-out exurbs, themselves until recently rural areas, that have experienced most of the expansion.

. . .

Between 2010 and 2020, the suburbs and exurbs of the major metropolitan areas gained 2 million net domestic migrants, while the urban core counties lost 2.7 million. The pandemic, which normalized remote work and encouraged people to keep their distance, turbocharged this movement to smaller, less crowded, less expensive housing markets.

The second article is "Revival: Americans Heading Back to the Hinterlands".

More than faux urbanism is driving this shift. For many, there’s a “back to roots” movement to return home or to someplace that seems less anonymous. Millennials, one commentator suggests, may be more “socially conscious,” but they do not necessarily favor the ideal top-down structure embraced by earlier generations; they prefer smaller units of governance to larger ones. A recent National Journal poll found that less than one-third of millennials favor federal solutions over local ones. They are far less trusting of major institutions than their Gen X predecessors.

Like millennials, immigrants are also moving to smaller cities and towns for affordable opportunities. Their attraction to areas – like the movement of African Americans to the South – belies common media and academic narratives that these areas are rife with intolerance, “dying from whiteness.” 

Wandering around a park in downtown Omaha on a Sunday, you can find diversity no less present than in Los Angeles or New York.

. . .

These smaller communities throughout the country are poised to play an outsize role in forging our future. They are shedding their reputations as closed and intolerant enclaves while attracting a stream of investment from both domestic and foreign sources. The middle of the country now accounts for the states rated by Site Selection Magazine as the best for manufacturing investments.

Both articles are worth reading, and provide a perspective on America today that one doesn't often see in the mainstream media.  Recommended reading, particularly if you're wanting to move away from big cities with their toxic stew of political, social and cultural extremism and to a more family-friendly community.

Peter