population center is on track this decade to take a southern swerve for the first time in history, and it’s because of people like Owen Glick, who moved from California to Florida more than a year ago.
The Northeast and Midwest lost residents, and the West grew by an anemic 153,000 people, primarily because a large number of residents left for a different U.S.
In contrast, the South grew by 1.3 million new residents, and six of the 10 U.S.
Experts aren’t sure at this point if the dramatic pull of the South is a short-term change spurred by the COVID-19 pandemic or a long-term trend, or even what impact it will have on the reallocation of political power through redistricting after the 2030 census.
Glick, 56, and his then-partner moved to the Orlando area from metro San Diego in December 2021 after he retired from his job in corporate sales.
Glick was among the 233,000 people who left a Western state and planted roots in a different region from mid-2021 to mid-2022.
If the trend continues through the rest of this decade, by 2030 the mean center of the U.S.
The departures from the West started in 2021, during the first full year of the pandemic, when 145,000 residents moved to another U.S.
A substantial portion of the departures was due to people leaving California, but Alaska, Hawaii, New Mexico, Oregon and Washington also had year-to-year losses in domestic migration from 2021 to 2022.
In Oregon, the jury is still out on whether the phenomenon of more than 17,000 departures to other U.S.
“If we aren’t seeing that growth in labor force as we normally do, that means economic activity will be slower, state revenues will be lower.
William Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Metro think tank, also wants to see if the trend is only related to the pandemic or has legs through the rest of the decade.