moving to and from atlanta: the facts

I spent the afternoon knee-deep in tables from the U.S. Census, I.R.S. and American Community Survey doing research for a possible article.

I found some interesting stuff when comparing Fulton & DeKalb Counties to the counties that house cities with comparable populations: Denver, Detroit, and Cleveland.

• Fulton & DeKalb had the highest percentage of people both moving TO another state (3.1%) and FROM another state (3.6%).
• They had the second lowest median age (28.1) for people moving TO another state. Wayne County, Michigan (home of Detroit) beat them with a lower median age of 26.
• They had the lowest median age of all the counties I looked at for people moving FROM another state—25.2. (Wayne County's median age was 34.5.)

Of course, it is really difficult to compare Atlanta's population to any other city's because:

1. Atlanta has an enormous metro area (5.5 million—the 9th largest in the country) compared to its relatively small city population (541,000—33rd largest).
2. The American Community Survey and I.R.S. collect data by county rather than city, and Atlanta exists in 5 different counties.

I used Fulton & DeKalb Counties because I was interested in how Atlanta's migration patterns affect its culture. So even though DeKalb also contains the city of Decatur, I consider it more part of the "essence" of Atlanta than, say, Gwinnett or Cobb County.

I also found a couple of interesting maps that show migration patterns.

This one came from a maps blog; the guy made them for a ton of large cities (but not Atlanta, sadly). Each city's map shows the origin counties for people who moved there, color coded by how many people migrated.


This one, from Forbes, Brian showed me. When you hover over a county it displays the county's migration to and from Atlanta (or whatever city you choose) as well as the county's income per capita. (I think Forbes added those features in response to commenters... don't believe they were there when I first looked at it.) Go to the site to use the interactive component; this is just a screen grab.

Interesting stuff. Still don't have a clear picture of how Atlanta ranks as a transplant city, but I'm a little closer.