bostonbubble.com

[jfunk138]

Not sure if this has been posted here before but I think it will appeal greatly to the folks on this site.

http://images.forbes.com/jb/migration/m.swf

Based on 2008 IRS data, shows where people _who filed tax returns_ moved during the year. Middlesex and Worcester county sure have alot of red (outward migration ). At least compared to Wake County, NC or Dallas County, TX where it's almost completely black ( inward migration ).

[admin]

Very nice. Thanks for sharing.

- admin

[GenXer]

Very interesting, simply because I thought (based on anecdotal evidence) that there there are many people moving into MA, and not the other way around. It now appears that the ones moving in are being 'noisy', i.e. they are active a lot more than those who are staying put or leaving, but in reality, there are a lot more people leaving than coming in. It may also be the case that those who lost jobs may be moving to states where there are jobs, and others are moving in to fill some existing jobs - this may skew the unemployment rate a bit (downward). Also, if the newcomers come from states like CA, they don't seem to mind overpaying for houses here based on what they paid in CA. I also heard that some CA transplants have homes in CA that they have to sell first...yet they are out to buy houses in MA. Go figure.

[balor123]

The general trend is for people to move away from the high cost areas to the low cost areas. I think the Great Recession has amplified this trend. People are moving away from CA, Northeast, and FL. The only exception is NY, which isn't surprising given the amount of money they extorted the rest of the country for. It's not just the cost of living I think but also the failure of governments in these places. CA, IL, and NY are so desperate for money they've stopped funding schools and building roads and are running Ponzi pensions. MA isn't listed unfortunately but other sources suggest that we've been a loser too but not nearly as much as other places.

[GD]

I suspect MA isn't on most radars not because it's safer or better, but on the whole it's much smaller than others. We're not even top 10 now, by population or GDP. We were 6th in US in GDP in 2005 according to this.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_by_GDP

NY LA, Chicago, Philly, DC, Boston.

I didn't find any more recent reports, but will anyone leave out San Jose or SF or Dallas and keep Boston or Philly still?

What I'm trying to say is, things haven't been too good in MA for a while, but we're not important enough and the decline was rather too gradual to make for news headlines.

[balor123]

Yeah I don't quite understand that. May just be because it's not all encapsulated within one city. Same problem for Boston.

[john p]

I found this to be really cool as well.

Does it capture the immigration?

I thought it was interesting that many of the rural counties around the nation had very localized migration patterns i.e. people would move to and from adjacent counties.

[jfunk138]