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Front Page » Opinion » Magnet pull of South Florida on US residents is just a myth

Magnet pull of South Florida on US residents is just a myth

Written by on January 31, 2023
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Magnet pull of South Florida on US residents is just a myth

Despite a widely professed belief that people from big cities across the nation are caught in a magnet pull to South Florida, it just ain’t so. Just the opposite.

New census statistics last week revealed we are losing residents to other metropolitan areas of this nation far faster than we are gaining them.
If it weren’t for a constant stream of new residents flowing from other nations around the globe, we would be a donor region, sending out far more people in a mass migration than we are getting back.

A Miami Today analysis of the new census data on migration among the nation’s 384 Metropolitan Statistical Areas found that 30 of those areas each lost at least 1,000 residents to South Florida – that is, to Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties – from 2016 through 2020 in a vast river of humanity flowing our way. It is an impressive influx.

The outflow of our own people, however, is far greater than our gains in new residents. If we compare the number of new residents from each metropolitan area against the number of South Floridians moving there, we actually lost more of our residents to them than the thousands we gained. In 21 of these 30 human exchanges, we wound up with a negative number.

The US Census Bureau did not analyze the tens of thousands of figures it issued in comparing the 384 metropolitan areas against each other one by one, nor did it try to explain the many possible reasons for mobility between metropolitan areas.

But whether they think population growth is a blessing or a curse, South Florida’s leaders need to assess the implications of the figures as they craft policy to see whether we are gaining or losing vital talent that our region needs and to see how we should respond to the surprising facts in this outpouring of data.

The facts show that South Florida is the beneficiary of a vast outflow from the New York metropolitan region, netting 14,326 more residents coming here from that area than left here for there. But at the same time, this region lost more than half that many people in a net outflow to Orlando of 8,018 persons in the same period.

Within Florida, in fact, our losses are clear and convincing: 13 Florida metropolitan areas lost 1,000 or more persons to South Florida in the five-year period, but in 12 of those cases South Florida nonetheless lost more people to them than we gained. The only area where the exchange ran in South Florida’s favor was with the Melbourne region, which sent 1,266 more people to South Florida than it got back from this area.

Overall, South Florida lost 32,910 more residents to the 13 Florida metro areas than it got back. You can attribute that to job opportunities, lifestyle, comfort levels, housing costs or overall cost of living – it costs far more to live in South Florida than in most of the nation, with a 9.9% increase here in the past year that is far above the 2023 national 8.7% cost of living adjustment by the Social Security Administration or the nation’s 6.5% cost of living increase reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Whatever the reason, the outflow is very real.

Other than in exchanges within Florida, the inflow from other US metropolitan areas runs in our favor – but only because of New York. We gained a total of 13,092 persons from non-Florida metropolitan areas during the period, but without factoring in New York we lost a total of 1,234 more residents than we received in return from those other 16 metro areas.

The US areas from which we had net inflows were, not surprisingly, those with high-end costs of living and often where local and state income tax rates are high – and Florida and its cities of course have no individual income taxes at all, making us a real bargain to high-income persons.

We had 4,619 persons arrive from Boston with a net gain of 1,698; 1,466 from Bridgeport with a net gain of 1,056; 3,756 from Chicago with a net gain of 1,155; 1,057 from Hartford with a net gain of 368; 3,253 from Los Angeles with a net gain of 985; 2,553 from Philadelphia with a net gain of 720; and 1,421 from Norfolk with a net gain of 935.

In a separate category was our region’s second-largest net gain exchange, with San Juan, Puerto Rico, from which the influx was 2,988 persons and net gain 2,257. That gain was doubtless part of a long-term influx from Puerto Rico and the Caribbean as a whole to the mainland.

In fact, this area had an influx of 23,395 persons from non-US regions of the Caribbean during the period. The data were gathered in US Census operations, which don’t capture US resident moves abroad, but no doubt the vast majority of that number is a net gain of residents for South Florida.

The same is true for the influx of 27,974 from South America, 10,316 from Central America, 7,579 from Europe, 5,949 from Asia, 5,867 from Canada and Mexico combined, 1,917 from Africa, 537 from US islands and 200 from Oceania.

Nor are these figures all-inclusive: they don’t count smaller exchanges of people with the other 354 metropolitan areas or flows to and from non-metropolitan areas of the nation. Among those non-metropolitan areas, we received 9,245 residents during the five years but lost 12,193, a net loss of 3,948 persons to far smaller communities, perhaps part of the small-town allure.

In decades past South Florida had one magnet to lure population: weather. We still have that, along with new magnets that include better jobs, higher pay, tech growth, a booming financial industry, cosmopolitan and multicultural living, growing arts and culture, higher education, professional sports and more.

On the other hand, concerns about cost of living, public education, transportation, affordable housing, climate change and others can act like the other end of a bar magnet, repelling residents.

All of these should factor into public policy, which can be informed by the new census data showing what has actually been happening to the flow of humanity into and out of our area. It needs careful study in relation to what we should be doing to retain today’s residents and to lure the best and brightest of outsiders.

Unfortunately, the new figures are still too old to capture all but the beginning of changes as a result of the pandemic. We know that the wave of New Yorkers during the pandemic increased while inflows from abroad markedly slowed. Now we are just beginning to see an increased influx once again from abroad. Whether the wave returning to a New York that has lifted covid restrictions will be great enough to weaken the long-time magnet pull from South Florida will be answered in future studies.

What we can conclude from these figures is that South Florida lost 21,350 more residents to all the 30 other metropolitan areas in five years than it got back. Minus the impact of New York and San Juan, those losses would be nearly double that. Factor in losses to small towns and the outflow just gets bigger.

We grow only because of people flooding in from other nations. But too many of our own residents are rejecting us.

We cannot afford to have South Florida as a net loser of human capital and personal financial resources to the rest of the nation. The bottom line is, people aren’t just flocking here because of sunshine. Public policy needs to gear itself to reverse our human capital losses.

One Response to Magnet pull of South Florida on US residents is just a myth

  1. Richard R-P

    February 1, 2023 at 11:22 am

    Specifically within the City of Miami proper – where I live – I can say that I regularly come across people who have moved here from other parts of the United States. It definitely feels like people are migrating to the city core itself. Anywhere beyond that, I have no idea.

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