Wendell Cox at New Geography has a really smart post about how people are actually moving in droves to so-called “Flyover Country.” He measures domestic migration and finds that “what residents of Elitia reject, millions are embracing.” He notes that 3,500,000 Americans have moved to Flyover Country since 2000.
I thought it was a really interesting stat and a cool story, and so I dove into the demographics. As you can see on the map I made below, the coasts are indeed hemorrhaging residents (aka taxpayers, aka voters – I wrote in the Politico last year that the once mighty Empire State will finally drop below the once swampy backwater of Florida in congressional representation after 2012 reapportionment).
But while the South and Mountain West are gaining many people, is it accurate to say that Flyover Country as a whole is booming? I think if you asked most people which state represents Flyover Country, they would point to Kansas. It’s the quintessential middle American state: the Land of Dorthy and rejecter of Darwin. But this state experienced -2.4% domestic migration between 2000 and 2008.
Looks like not all of Flyover Country is doing well.
At the same time, Cox’s analysis is fascinating and he successfully debunks the myth that everyone is fleeing the bumpkinism of Middle America for a shot at the Big City.
But the question remains: What constitutes Flyover Country? … And does it include Florida?
Stephen
8 January 2009 at 9:10 PM
“Despite popular opinion?” It’s pretty well-documented that the South, the West and the Sunbelt have been gaining internal migrants, while the Northeast, Midwest and California have been losing internal migrants. This is not shocking news, as much as Wendell Cox may want to cast himself as the underdog upending conventional wisdom.
New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and many other cities in some of the “losing” states remain immense immigration magnets, thus balancing out their internal migration losses by maintaining a high “churn rate.”
Your map also shows 2000-2008 data. It will be interesting to see if the housing bust has any impact on internal migration in the future.
Cartophiliac
9 January 2009 at 8:28 AM
Of course, that begs the next question: What will be the political implication of this shift in population?
Are more Democrats or Republicans moving from the Blue States to the Red States?
Patrick Ottenhoff
9 January 2009 at 8:38 AM
Well, in past years I’d say that it’s a shift to Red States, but Virginia, Florida, North Carolina, Colorado and Nevada are voted Blue in 2008, so it’s tougher to cleanly say one or the other. And one interesting aspect is that the loss of congressional seats in New York, New Jersey and other Midwestern and Northeastern states is actually having a worse affect on the GOP since the Democratic legislatures are choosing to axe Republican seats.
Adam
22 January 2009 at 2:50 AM
Very interesting discussion. “Flyover country” is more a concept than any contiguous block of states. Of course, to some in the BosWash region, it would include everything between NYC and San Francisco, but that is rooted more in elitism than demographics. It does NOT, by any reasonable definition, include Florida. The state has 4 large cities (including South Florida, one of the nation’s largest urban agglomerations) and a population that will very soon surpass New York state’s. I would also argue that North Carolina and Virginia would no longer fit the mold due to patterns of urbanization. Kansas, Nebraska, Wyoming, Kentucky, Iowa, Wisconsin – those are the types of states that I think of when I envision “flyover countries.” Largely rural, lacking larger urban areas, not diverse, etc.
Indeed, the biggest concern that many progressives have is what the consequence will be of shifting electoral votes from the urban Northeast to states like Colorado, Nevada, and Georgia. It seems to be moving these states to the left (which is quite logical, if you reason that the people moving to these states are largely East Coast liberals), but only time will ultimately tell.