Immigrant and Domestic Migration Magnets, 1990-97

Newly-released migration statistics for the 1990-97s reinforce a new regional division that we have been tracking for more than a decade. It is occurring because of the continued clustering of foreign-born immigrants into a few multi-ethnic urban areas, as native-born and longer-term mostly white and black residents disperse to new employment opportunities in other parts of the country. These separate migration processes are creating a demographic divide across space that could be just as monumental as well-known past demographic divides: rural versus urban, city versus suburb, snow belt versus sun belt. The new one will separate those regions of the country which serve as "immigrant gateways" from the remainder of the national territory, and the former will become increasingly younger, multi-ethnic, and culturally diverse -- a contrast to whiter or white-black regions of the country with older and more middle class populations. This report presents statistics for 1990-97 immigration and domestic migration components of change for all individual states and metropolitan areas.

Dataset(s): 1990-97 US Census Bureau Postcensal estimates. (Note: Immigration and Net Domestic Migration components, 1990-97 of all individual metropolitan areas, States and Metro-nonmetro categories compiled by the author, are listed in the Appendix tables of this Report.).