New demographic trends revealed at ULI meeting

“New” Sun Belt states

Jon Boyd, Oct 25, 10.

Early results from the 2010 Census might indicate changing distribution of baby boomers and international immigrants, William H. Frey said at the annual fall meeting of the Urban Land Institute (ULI). Aging baby boomers are migrating to the mountain west and the southern Atlantic, while international immigration is flowing to the “melting pot” states of California, Florida, Illinois, New York and Texas, he said. The so-called “new Sun Belt” states and Melting Pot states have positive net migration, according to the article:

Two of the major demographic groups reshaping how America is growing are immigrants, who are radically changing the ethnic composition of the United States, and baby boomers, who are delaying retirement and staying active as they age. The result: new “Melting Pot” and “Sunbelt” states that will reap the economic benefits of in-migration by the two groups. So says William H. Frey, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.

Frey discussed some of the implications of early findings from the 2010 Census at ULI’s annual Fall Meeting last week in Washington, D.C. According to Frey, the way immigrants and baby boomers are “spatially rearranging themselves” provides an indication of which states might reap the most development and investment opportunities leading up to the midpoint of the century.

The new Sunbelt states—including Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia – are drawing the most domestic migrants (mainly baby boomers). The new Melting Pot states – including Texas, California, Illinois, New York and Florida – are drawing the most immigrants. Meanwhile, the Heartland states—including Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, Arkansas and virtually all in the Midwest other than Illinois – are neither drawing immigrants nor retaining baby boomers, leaving them with a predominantly elderly white population.

“Domestic migrants follow jobs and immigrants follow families,” Frey noted. In cities in both the Melting Pot and Sunbelt states, centrally located neighborhoods will be the “windfall gainers,” he predicted, with more people likely to live as close to employment hubs as they can afford.

(Photo credit: National Park Service)