
Where We Came From, State by State - acdanger
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/08/13/upshot/where-people-in-each-state-were-born.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&version=LargeMediaHeadlineSum&module=photo-spot-region&region=photo-spot&WT.nav=photo-spot
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araes
I used to live in Idaho, and its interesting to me to be able to track back
trends that we anecdotally could see happening, but had no hard numbers on.
For example, one of the major trends has been the population volatility, and
particularly California immigration due to the lack of population and low land
cost.

In 1950, 1% of Idahoans were from California. In 1960, 2%. In 1970, 4%. In
1980, 7%. In 1990, 7%. In 2000, 9%. In 2012, 12%.

To me, this is particularly cool when compared to a state like Alabama or
Tennessee. Literally no change in relative immigration from neighbors except
for a slow loss of native children.

In fact, you could create a volatility scale for states (how homogeneous is
their immigration over time) and it would go from almost zero in the East to
crazy in the West. Oregon, Arizona, and Nevada being particularly interesting
/ volatile states.

I wonder if there's a correlation to the volatility and the general political
leanings of those locations. IE, does politics diffuse along these same lines?
If California, was 75% "liberal" and 25% "conservative" over time, could we
estimate that Idaho has gotten about 7% more liberal in the last 40 years? or
is the immigration self selecting? (people want to live near folks like them?)

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jtzhou
There are two big trends:

\- External immigration to large population centers in New York, California,
Washington state, the Washington DC area and Illinois.

\- Inward migration of Americans leaving those denser areas to states such as
TX, Oregon, Idaho, Utah, etc. where land is cheaper and the standard of living
is higher for the middle class. This is not represented in the graph because
it only shows the origin of state residents. [http://www.governing.com/gov-
data/census/2010-census-state-m...](http://www.governing.com/gov-
data/census/2010-census-state-migration-statistics.html)

~~~
edgyswingset
I can speak towards migrating to Oregon. My cost of living has dropped by
about 25% while my overall quality of life, sans anything money-related, has
gone up.

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brewdad
SSHHH! You can't let the secret out. Remember what we tell the outsiders:

"It rains here. All the time. We never see the sun. You'd hate it here."

\--says the Oregon resident from Michigan by way of Arizona. :)

~~~
seanmcdirmid
Shhhh, this is our line in Seattle. Also, it doesn't apply to the eastern
parts of either state.

\--says Portland-born but long time Seattle resident who now lives
in...Beijing (BTW, the pollution is real and not a story just made up to keep
you away).

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ryan_j_naughton
The NYTimes groups all immigrants as "Outside the United States".

If you are interested in where the immigrants from each state come from, check
this out:

Map: Where The Majority of Immigrants Come From By State
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8179477](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8179477)

It also plots it excluding Mexico, as Mexico is the #1 for most states.

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compare
I've been looking everywhere for the inverse of these graphs = states that
former-residents of each state moved to.

I used to live in a state that many went to college in, but none of those
stayed after graduation.

~~~
jobeirne
Is this along the lines of what you're looking for?
[http://www.governing.com/gov-data/census/2010-census-
state-m...](http://www.governing.com/gov-data/census/2010-census-state-
migration-statistics.html)

------
ulfw
Interesting to me was that there were plenty of foreigners in multiple states
before 1960, it then dropped mostly to it's lowest in around 1970 and then
grew again to today.

So what happened in the run to the 70s that so few foreigners live in CA, NY,
WA etc...

~~~
tokenadult
Tight immigration restrictions were put into federal law in the 1920s, and as
people born before that decade aged, they made up a smaller and smaller
percentage of people in each state. The peak period of immigration to the
United States, as a percentage of people who had already arrived, was about
the turn of the century between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The
Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 loosened a lot of restrictions on
immigration that formerly applied to whole regions of the world, resulting in
a new increase in net immigration (but still not all the way back to
historical peak levels).

One pattern that is long-lasting in these data is the extremely low rate of
settlement of foreign-born persons in most states in the deep south (that is,
the states of the old Confederacy). States that attracted more immigrants
tended to be those that were more dynamic and with more personal freedom, and
then the presence of immigrants in those states helped preserve the dynamism
and personal freedom, setting up a virtuous cycle that attracted other
immigrants.

Disclosure: my family background is one of ancestors who arrived in the United
States well before the Ellis Island immigration station in New York harbor was
even built, well in advance of the first major federal restriction on
immigration, which was the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. My ancestors through
whom I gain my family name arrived, father and son, after being born in New
York state and then settling for a while in Wisconsin Territory, to Minnesota
Territory sometime in the early 1850s. My wife, by contrast, is a first-
generation immigrant herself, who first arrived in the United States in 1985.

~~~
cafard
The extreme low rate of settlement etc. in the deep south had a good deal to
do with the weak economy.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
Also racism and lack of air conditioning, problems that have gotten better.

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AlexanderDhoore
I would love to see something similar about Europe. I've always heard
Americans move around more. I wonder if it's true.

~~~
tormeh
Straight from Eurostat via
([http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/statistics_explained/index....](http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/statistics_explained/index.php/Migration_and_migrant_population_statistics)):

[http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/statistics_explained/images...](http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/statistics_explained/images/b/be/Main_countries_of_citizenship_and_birth_of_the_foreign_foreign-
born_population%2C_1_January_2013_%281%29_%28in_absolute_numbers_and_as_a_percentage_of_the_total_foreign_foreign-
born_population%29_YB14_II.png)

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sp332
Wow, 25% of people in New Hampshire came from Massachusetts! No wonder our
politics have been shifting recently.

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rboling91
I wonder how relocations along towns near state boundaries, such as moving
from the Arkansas side to the Texas side of Texarkana, reflect overall
interstate migrations.

~~~
curun1r
According to Google, Texarkana has 32k residents, so I'm betting not much.

But examples of moving within a metro area that has a larger population
(NYC->NJ/CT, DC->MD/VA) might actually be statistically meaningful.

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lotharbot
Arizona, Colorado, and Nevada were the most interesting to me. They all had
considerable migration from every region of the US, plus international.

~~~
orbitur
For CO and NV, I'd say it's the Rockies/skiing and Las Vegas respectively,
which attract a specific personality type respectively.

Arizona, I have no idea.

~~~
lotharbot
I know Arizona is big for retirement. Mild weather, low taxes, lots of outdoor
leisure activities like golf.

