This is the start of a few posts on regional comparisons and regional economics.  Since Dayton is becoming engrossed into a SW Ohio urban system I thought it might make more sense to start to look at things regionally.

 

I will be looking at, roughly, the mid-Ohio Valley, plus Fort Wayne and Toledo (as comparisons for Dayton), the metro statistical areas, or MSAs,  on this map:

 

 

This post will sort of finish up with that Charlotte Observer county-to-county migration database for 2000-2005.  What I will be looking at is net in or out migration for these MSAs, but I won’t be looking at raw numbers.

 

Raw numbers are really related to the size of the metro.  Big metros will have big numbers and small ones small numbers, usually.  Instead  I’m interested in magnitude or impact.  Is the migration stream big or small relative to a MSA’s population? 

 

So I look at the net in and out migration for an MSA (adding up the net numbers for the counties), and then express that as a % increase or decrease for the MSA’s 2000 population.    Negative % indicates an MSA lost , positive % shows a gain.  I use the 2000 numbers for the counties on the above map.

 

So lets look at what counties gained population first.  Most did.  But these gained the most, over 10% of the 2000 population.  Note here some odd things, such as the very rural Spencer County, KY, with a 2000 population less than 10,000.  A moderate increase in population moving in from, say, Louisville, means a big % increase in population.

 

 

But in most cases these are expected.  Warren north of Cincy, Hamilton (Carmel) north of Indy, and Delaware north of Columbus all are top gainers.

 

Next, out migration.  These counties saw a net out migration.  What’s interesting is that all the core counties in this region, the ones with the “old city”,  lost population. 

 

 

What’s interesting, too, is probably a mix of rural depopulation going on, plus some MSA counties that have smaller industrial cities that push them over into outmigration (like Anderson /Madison County IN, Covington/Kenton County, etc).

 

Looking at metros as whole, MSA with net in-migration in green , net out-migration in red (in Toledo’s case I cheat a little and include Monroe County, MI net in-migration from Lucas and Wood in the total for Toledo MSA, since I figure this is really more part of Toledo than Detroit or Monroe itself)

 

 

And some raw numbers, rank-ordered.  This comparison demonstrates why raw numbers, though interesting, aren’t a good measure of relative magnitude.

 

 

I guess a surprise was how well Indianapolis does in terms of attracting in-migration to the MSA. 

 

Fort Wayne did better than I expected; losing people, but less than then Dayton in both raw numbers and %.

 

Lexington MSA also has an impressive performance in terms of attracting in-migrants, both in raw numbers and as a % of MSA population.  Maybe more equivalent to mid sized cities elsewhere in the South, like the Carolina Piedmont?

 

A final note is how large these MSA’s are, in area.  Louisville MSA has extended out to include Nelson County KY  (Bardstown) and Washington County IN (Salem?).  Columbus includes Morrow County.  Cincinnati has extended out to Brown County OH and Franklin County IN. 

 

This indicates either sprawl, or country folk staying put and just doing long distance commuting for work, into the inner counties.

 

 

 

 

 

The KY metros still seem to have a lot of rural to urban migration. Campbell Cty is an outlier because it missed the residential boom of the last decade due to water issues even though it was well placed to receive population. Indy gets the numbers as always as the big city for the state (esp. if you don't want to move to Chicago). I think dropping Chicago into the mix would be fascinating, because that is the big draw for many midwesterners who want to leave home but not the area.

I ran the migration figures between the Indianapolis MSA and Chicago.

 

To Indianapolis: 16,228

To Chicago: 9,274

Net flow from Chicago to Indianapolis: 6,954

 

I have a hypothesis that much of this is second order Hispanic migration.  Hispanics come first to a traditional port of entry such as LA, Chicago, or Houston, then migrate to interior cities like Indianapolis.  I'd love to test this against data, but haven't had the leisure to track down the best source or do the analysis.

 

Nice work Jeffrey.  What about adding Dayton's statistical twin Akron to your charts.  They have a great many similarities in size and growth and being in the shadow of bigger Ohio cities.

^

Id probably do Akron as part of a NE Ohio look.

 

@@@@

 

The big gap in all this illegal  immigration.  Assuming that a lot of the Mexicans are illegals they might be off the books in re taxes, so would show up on thise counts, which are based tax data.

 

 

 

I know at least a few people from Cincinnati who met partners in Chicago and settled in Indy because it is basically half-way between the kinfolk.