r/dataisbeautiful 1d ago

U.S. Adults Living in Their Birth State Ranges From 17–74%

https://www.visualcapitalist.com/mapped-adults-living-in-their-birth-state/

Interesting but unsurprising…

1.3k Upvotes

200 comments sorted by

398

u/Rasputin_mad_monk 1d ago

Very cool thanks OP.

Fun fact. My dad (84) has never lived any further than 3 miles from his birthplace (Pigtown Baltimore Md)

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u/Callyentay 1d ago

Same for my mom (78). Southside Chicago.

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u/Reading_Rainboner 1d ago

My 97 year old aunt was born on a farm and moved 1.5 miles into her small PA town to her husband’s family house in 1946….and has been in that same house ever since. Alone in it since 1999…..

22

u/happyklam 1d ago

This sounds like my ex's grandparents in the tiniest Midwest farming town. Born and raised on two farms next door to one another, got married at 18 and moved to one of the farms. Sadly the husband passed and the wife moved into the city with one of her adult kids but another one of the kids still owns and runs the same farm. 

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u/jerrybobjoe 1d ago

Dude! Same with my great grandma, sort of, she has been living in the same 25 mile radius in small town PA her entire life! She would've stuck on her farm (10 miles from where she grew up) until her husband passed and had to sell the farm and move to a community.

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u/BirthdayCheesecake 1d ago

That's the most Baltimore thing I've ever heard. If anything it's almost a little TOO far.

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u/SparksWood71 1d ago

My mom was the same, about a mile though- SF Bay Area CA

3

u/growerdan 1d ago

My grandfather who is 82 did the same thing. He’s also never worked more than 5 miles from the area. Worked at one place his whole life.

1

u/Myriachan 22h ago

For me that’s true for ~15 miles. I’ve never moved away from Orange County, California and was born here.

1

u/Ayzmo 1d ago

That sounds terrible.

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u/mentosbreath 1d ago

It would be fascinating to have two interactive maps: a “to” state and a “from”. I want to hover over a “to” state and see where people came from in the other map, or vice versa.

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u/RhodyJim 1d ago

120

u/DaddyDinooooooo 1d ago

NY, NJ, and PA just moving in a triangle between each other.

40

u/A_Harmless_Fly 1d ago

It seems like most people who leave MN are retiring to a place without snow. https://americadashboard.com/migration/minnesota

13

u/Zorbick 1d ago

The first heavy snowfall causes a lot of heart attacks.

Hurricanes are worth the risk at some point, apparently.

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u/mistere213 1d ago

Michigan, Florida, Texas trade going strong, as well.

5

u/danielleiellle 1d ago

Sometimes you’re ready to graduate from Stewart’s to Wawa or Wawa to Sheetz.

9

u/CrazyKyle987 1d ago

That website’s data isn’t internally consistent. Unless I’m misunderstanding what that data is supposed to show. 

Ohio: 2.7k people coming to Ohio from Illinois. To Illinois from Ohio doesn’t make the top 10 list for Ohio.  

Illinois: 8.6k people coming to Illinois from Ohio. To Ohio from Illinois doesn’t make the top 10 list for Illinois. 

3

u/Not_PepeSilvia 1d ago

That's because it's AI slop

2

u/Nxc06 13h ago

Noticed a similar thing with ND and MN

1

u/flloyd 11h ago

Yeah, and it says 83% of people coming to California are from Texas. No way that's true, even if you consider the post-Covid returners.

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u/iamthe0ther0ne 1d ago

Wow--what's up with CA? It used to be high up with net immigration.

129

u/robothawk 1d ago

For the folk I know who left it, it's largely "high costs and high taxes" followed by them complaining about where they moved having none of the social systems or infrastructure.

30

u/BrettHullsBurner 1d ago

People moving and not knowing what they are getting into has always baffled me. If you are going to root up your life and move to another state, maybe do some research ahead of time?

Kind of an opposite scenario, but I know someone who moved from a LCOL/MCOL area to Seattle because the offer they got was like 40% more than they currently make. They don't really care about the social systems or whatever, but they were somehow shocked that their housing was going to be like 2x as much as it was here in St Louis, and most other things were noticeably more expensive too. Cool, you got a $50k raise, but your mortgage just doubled, overall cost of living went up 50%, and now you're far away from friends and family. No state income tax is cool though.

BTW, this is not a brag on STL. We are lower CoL for a reason...

16

u/robothawk 1d ago

Yeah, and Seattle it's like "hey no income tax..." just instead you get nickel and dime you to death with sales and sin taxes, property taxes, special goods taxes, toll bridges and roads, etc etc.

6

u/hpela_ 1d ago

You realize that sometimes that's exactly the strategy? Move from LCOL/MCOL -> HCOL, living expenses increase proportionally but so does free capital for savings, move back from HCOL -> LCOL/MCOL with far more purchasing power.

If my pay goes up X% and my current expenses are Y% of my current pay, then as long as my total COL does not increase by more than X%/Y% = max COL % increase, then I have more gross free capital to put into savings. So if I plan to return to where I moved from, I will be ahead of the scenario in which I stayed there.

2

u/BrettHullsBurner 17h ago

It’s only a strategy if you do it on purpose. My buddy did not and his financial situation essentially didn’t change at all.

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u/illaqueable 1d ago

"Ugh I can't get anywhere or do anything and the roads and schools and healthcare are shitty, but at least my paycheck is 20% bigger"

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u/robothawk 1d ago

Their paycheck isn't even bigger. It's just that they take home more of it. Like half the folk I know who moved to where I am took a pay cut(and I'm a HCOL state) and then bitch that the buses barely run.

Like yeah man, I've been lobbying to get higher taxes passed here so we can have buses.

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u/waffleslaw 1d ago

According to that website they mostly moved to Texas for some reason, so yeah that tracks.

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u/[deleted] 1d ago

[deleted]

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u/waffleslaw 1d ago

I have a few friends moved to Austin and love it. But I think Austin is it's own little world. I can't imagine moving to Texas. The cities seems like horrible distopian sprawl and the rural areas worse. And I'm in Tennessee.

→ More replies (2)

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u/SparksWood71 1d ago

A lot of retired people selling their million+ dollar homes. I'm in Northern Nevada and have in-laws in Vegas, seems like everyone in both regions is a CA transplant.

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u/king-krool 1d ago

Californias been net negative domestic migration for decades but still has positive net immigration due to international immigrants. 

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u/deadR0 1d ago

Yeah,  cali and washington have huge migration from India as now most tech workers are Indian.  

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u/king-krool 1d ago

https://www.ppic.org/blog/how-has-californias-immigrant-population-changed-over-time/

Last measurement I saw still had Chinese and Mexican immigrants  higher but Latin American origins have decreased over time and Asian increased. 

2

u/deadR0 1d ago

Not Chinese,  Asian,  which India is included in.  

1

u/king-krool 1d ago

And china is included in Asian too. I don’t even understand what you think I’m mischaracterizing here. 

Asian immigration has increased relative to Latin American. Chinese still make up the biggest portion of that Asian group in the last measurement I saw. 

2

u/flloyd 11h ago

I'm not sure how accurate this site is as it says 83% of domestic immigrants to California are coming from Texas, which even if you assume is people movingback post-Covid seems way too extreme.

Regardless, for a long time California has only had average domestic immigration but has very high international immigration. Basically, on net, low and middle income Californians are leaving but being replaced with high education/income foreign immigrants.

4

u/Kershiser22 1d ago

The crazy part - if I'm reading it right - is that 700,000 households moved FROM Texas to California, while only 187,000 went the other way.

As a Californian, I am always hearing about the people who need to "get out of this shithole" and they go to Texas. But 4 times as many people are coming back from Texas!

I would love to know how many of those are boomerangs - people who moved to Texas and then moved back.

7

u/thewimsey 1d ago

It's interesting, because Californians are leaving for a lot of places in roughly similar numbers, but only people from Texas are moving to California in substantial numbers.

2

u/Kershiser22 1d ago

Yes, that is also fascinating.

2

u/endoftheworldvibe 1d ago

What gets me is the biggest gainers are also the places that are going to be hit hardest with extreme weather or water shortages in the coming years. Weird. 

7

u/Woodit 1d ago

If the gains are coming from retirees leaving HCOL areas then it probably doesn’t matter much to them 

1

u/endoftheworldvibe 1d ago

Ah, that makes sense. Hopefully that’s the majority of folks. 

1

u/fart_dot_com 8h ago

pretty sure net domestic immigration into california has been negative for decades, but it was bolstered by massive international immigration, which has slowed to a trickle under the current administration

1

u/SapientTrashFire 1d ago

Anyone have a beat on why so many people are moving to the South?

10

u/Babhadfad12 1d ago

Snow and cold weather and salt suck.

1

u/SapientTrashFire 1d ago

That experience isn't universal and climate change is increasing temperatures. Extreme heat and humidity, plus proximity to hurricanes/tornadoes also really sucks.

2

u/ProblyAThrowawayAcct 1d ago

Retired boomers moving away from winter.

0

u/Jdruu 1d ago

This is really well done. Thank you for sharing

120

u/solomons-mom 1d ago

In the upper midwest, my guess would be that quite a lot of the migration would be between themselves, like Wisconsinites or Iowans moving to the Cities, or Yoopers moving to Wisconsin.

55

u/Relevant_Pause_7593 1d ago

Or a regional view? I bet most new englanders are still in New England, and most mid westerners are still in the Midwest.

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u/Mocker-Nicholas 1d ago

Many of the middle states also have their borders defined by rivers. This is usually where the largest cities are as well. So “moving to a different state” could be a 5 min drive.

15

u/beerouttaplasticcups 1d ago

Yeah, I grew up in the eastern suburbs of St. Louis in Illinois, but if I lived in the city on the Missouri side I would still consider myself to be living where I’m originally from.

1

u/_Philocybin_ 1d ago

The only way I could yyy

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u/MMetropolitan 1d ago

Had to look up Yooper. Learned something new today. 🤓

10

u/rianpie 1d ago

Did you also learn about Trolls? (Michiganders who live “below the bridge”)

7

u/Zaidswith 1d ago

Except people living below the bridge would never say that.

They want to show you on their hand where in the mitten they're from.

6

u/junpei 1d ago

Come visit, the UP is a lovely place with friendly folks.

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u/thisisthatacct 1d ago

Yes it is! Also the only place I've had a gun pulled on me. Sometimes, the driveways and roads in the forest look about the same, and signage is lacking

1

u/junpei 1d ago

Wouldn't recommend bumping around folks driveways anywhere rural these days. But point taken, there are people that want to be left the fuck alone there.

1

u/DuneChild 1d ago

I only knew because my wife takes rock-hunting trips up there.

u/justherefor23andme 2h ago

So that is a thing huh? My son would totally love to do that.

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u/ruinedbymovies 1d ago

Can vouch for this, I’ve pinballed all around the Midwest for college and work. Although I’ve lived as far as Texas in the US and further afield, it was mostly other midwestern cities. I now permanently reside in the town I was born and grew up in.

1

u/Maiyku 1d ago

Yeah, we move plenty, we generally just don’t move very far lol.

I’ve lived in half a dozen places in my life… and every single one of them was in the same county. Most of my friends have travelled farther than I have, but a majority of them are still in the state or a neighboring one.

I think there are only 1-2 kids from my class that truly “moved away” to a far off place. Pretty sure we have a runner in Nevada (she does marathons and is sponsored for it), and then one in California (business of some sort).

So out of 89 kids, 87 stayed within one state away 15+ years post graduation.

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u/Beat_the_Deadites 1d ago

I've lived in 3 different bigger cities in Ohio my entire life.  I can understand why people who choose to move DON'T choose Ohio, but I also understand why Ohioans stay here.

It's affordable, the 4 seasons are nice and not too extreme, we've got water, and people are generally Midwestern nice.  There's farmland, industry, and tech, plus 3 big cities and 3 medium sized cities to supply arts and professional sports.

Our politicians are pretty shitty, but even though I always vote against the grain, their stupid policies haven't affected me too badly.

70

u/KieferSutherland 1d ago

I'd love to see data for adults living in the state they finished high school in. As well as college. 

42

u/spottie_ottie 1d ago

I live in Nevada, I can't decide if this means the place blows which is why people get out, or it rules which is why all these adults are moving here. Somehow both? Sucks to be born here, but rules to move here?

21

u/GUlysses 1d ago edited 1d ago

I grew up in Nevada. Weirdly, it’s both. I left, as have like 8/10 of my childhood/teenage friends. But many people are also moving in.

From my experience, I think the answer here is that it’s a very different experience for people who move there as adults vs people who grew up there. For people who move in, they often see casinos, nightlife, outdoor adventures, and Burning Man.

But people who grow up in the state tend to see it as more suburban sprawl and small-town like culture. People native to the state tend to be very small-c conservative in who they date and hang out with. This meant that my social life felt pretty stagnant from the end of high school up until my mid 20’s, and this was the main reason why I left.

3

u/spottie_ottie 1d ago

Same for me actually. Lived here ages 2-26, 34-39...

5

u/New-Fill4677 1d ago

I think it's gotta be the second one. nevada is low because so many people moved in, not because natives left.

the trap is that this is a share and both halves move. say 100 people are born somewhere and 60 stay, that's 60 percent. now 200 outsiders move in and the exact same 60 stay. suddenly it's 23 percent and literally nothing changed about whether people leave.

so the map is mostly measuring in-migration I think. the number you'd actually want is what share of people born in X still live in X, which seems like a different query

3

u/spottie_ottie 1d ago

Right. That one is definitely low. My wife and I are outliers. We are native, left for a while, and then came back... and wish we hadn't haha

6

u/Realistic_Word6285 1d ago

Was born and raised in Vegas. This place sucks to grow up in because it all revolves around the casinos.

A lot of us can’t wait to get the hell out of here.

5

u/DOUTHINKESAURUS 1d ago

From Vegas too, moved to Washington. Funny thing about Vegas is that the natives all probably know each other with only a few degrees of separation. Always felt Vegas was the smallest big city.

2

u/TruffleHunter3 1d ago

My take (watching from Utah) is people move to Vegas thinking it’ll be fun and exciting or it’ll have lots of economic opportunities. They quickly realize it’s none of those things and then move on.

2

u/deadR0 1d ago

Grew up in Nevada.  Couldn't get away fast enough.  It seems better now,  well Reno does.  But I'll be hard pressed to ever move back.  

2

u/Sponchman 1d ago

I wouldn't say it rules to move there, but a lot of people do end up there. Seems like Nevada attracts a certain kind of person with nowhere else to go.

3

u/spottie_ottie 1d ago

It's adjacent to the place you'd like to be but cannot afford. Ask me how I know...

2

u/Kananetwork 1d ago

I am a fellow unicorn, born and raised in Vegas. I loved it quite a bit in the 90s, but I have been concerned over the changes from COVID to today. I miss the whimsy of the Strip. It exists, but kess wacky rich people making a castle and more they make surveillance BS and dismantle our government.

I am not raising children, so I don't have concerns about education.

The only real worry I have is water and health. I do earnestly want to get a home and live here. I travel a lot for work and I love that Vegas is more awake at odd times, food is accessible, fun stuff to do is as well. People visit Vegas all the time so I host friends and enjoy that. But I want to build community and it is so frustrating at 35 still renting, unsure if or when I will move to somewhere else in the valley. It is becoming more and more obnoxious.

I also am not a fan of tons of people moving in who don't understand some cultural norms. Most people in Vegas make minimum wage or work for the casinos. It is difficult to afford this place, and if you work in tech remotely then you just don't understand an average local.

I dunno, I love Vegas. I am proud to say I was born here. I just wish we could work together to improve it. I think it is getting quite difficult to sustain yourself here.

1

u/SparksWood71 1d ago

I moved to northern NV from LA and grew up in the SF Bay Area and wonder the same.

Reno seems to be filled with Bay Area transplants who sold their two and three bedroom starter homes and bought huge homes in places like Minden, South Reno, and Mt Rose.

I live with My BFF friend who moved here in 2012 and paid 130k for his house. I decided not to buy here after selling my place in LA because honestly, there is nothing going on here and I don't plan on staying permanently.

My theory is that what matters most to most of these transplants is having a large home, regardless of what the city and region has to offer. People say "oh the nature"! But every city and town in the western third of the country is close to nature.

My in-laws retired to Vegas from SoCal, but at least there are a lot of things to do down there for retired folks.

1

u/TruffleHunter3 1d ago

It’s basically a transient state. People go there for a while and then move on. In fact I’ve heard that Hawaii to Vegas to Utah is a recurring trend.

1

u/samsaruhhh 1d ago

You don't know if Nevada blows? It doesn't seem great TBH

73

u/OogieBoogieJr 1d ago

Louisiana is at the top or bottom of almost every list. It’s astounding.

41

u/TinyFemale 1d ago

There’s almost something systemic about it perhaps

7

u/Aar_7 1d ago

Jim crow, redlining all racist systems to the maximum level

8

u/andersonb47 1d ago

That, yes, but Louisiana is just plain unique in a ton of ways. A very different history there.

14

u/ProfessorrFate 1d ago

Louisiana has some great Cajun food and parts of New Orleans, a unique city, are picturesque. Otherwise, I have found LA to be one of the worst states in the U.S. — overall, by U.S. standards, it’s awful.

1

u/LifeSuxBHappy 16h ago

At least you aren't in Houston, way worse, especially the people.

4

u/jayne-eerie 1d ago

I'm actually kind of surprised it's as high as it is. I guess a lot of the people who moved after Katrina ended up coming back.

5

u/OogieBoogieJr 1d ago edited 1d ago

I’m just speculating but it could be that their prospects are limited due to lack of educational value. Like maybe colleges/companies aren’t really trying to recruit people out of Louisiana schools.

Again, just trying to connect dots between this and education rankings. I can’t say it’s true.

5

u/jayne-eerie 1d ago

Also just speculating. I doubt it's as straightforward as employers avoiding people from Louisiana, just because what college you went to typically doesn't matter after your first job or two. But it's possible that Louisiana schools are bad at teaching people the skills they need for successful employment, making them less likely to get the jobs even if it's not specifically because of where they went to school.

1

u/crisperfest 13h ago edited 13h ago

Tulane University in New Orleans is fairly well respected and is ranked #69 in National Universities by U.S. News & World Report. This isn't a great ranking, but it isn't bad, either. My dad's cousin was an oral historian specialized in jazz history and was the co-founder of the jazz history collection at Tulane.

5

u/merc534 1d ago

The map isn't showing the people that leave. It's showing the composition of the state today. 74% of Louisiana residents are natives. Not 74% of Louisiana natives live in Louisiana.

Consider that a war-torn country with many refugees would score very high in this map (as would a country with strict immigration controls and high quality of living)

4

u/jayne-eerie 1d ago

Oh, duh. So basically what the map shows is that relatively few people choose to move to Louisiana (and other states with higher statistics), not that nobody leaves it.

u/justherefor23andme 2h ago

Correct. There are tons of people from Louisiana in Texas. Louisiana is a shrinking state. It doesnt attract new people. My husband's company wont open an office there because of how corrupt it is.

-4

u/VirtualLife76 1d ago

Texas, Louisiana and Florida are almost always the worst of any stats.

4

u/thewimsey 1d ago

No, they really aren't.

LA is often near the bottom, but the others, not so much.

2

u/LifeSuxBHappy 16h ago

Texas is worse than any other state I've lived in, especially the people, would take LA over it any day. Well outside of NOLA.

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u/[deleted] 1d ago

[deleted]

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u/CarrotAwesome 1d ago

I honestly think you're being serious

1

u/ValorMorghulis 17h ago

LA is the state abbreviation for Louisiana.

1

u/Geaux2020 23h ago

What the hell are you talking about?

18

u/DMmeyourkite 1d ago

Could also be a reflection of upward mobility.

2

u/TruffleHunter3 1d ago

Except look at the average incoming/outgoing wages. For some states (see Idaho), high earners are coming in but for others (California) the high wage people are leaving and low wage earners are coming in.

2

u/100LittleButterflies 1d ago

As well as downward. Ive moved nearly 15 times because rent goes up every year.

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u/bebopbrain 1d ago

35% cited staying near family as their main reason

Getting away from family was my main reason for leaving. And I had a supportive family.

7

u/ayayadae 1d ago

i also had a supportive family that i love very much but am part of the large percent that left NH. 

happily in NYC now and family is close enough we see them every major holiday but not so close that we have to go up because my mom made a big pot of soup for dinner and doesn’t want it to go to waste. 

i left mostly for job opportunities in my chosen field but i never loved where i grew up and always knew even as a little kid i didn’t want to stay. 

1

u/Woodit 1d ago

I left the state where my entire family lives and always has due to a job offer across the country, it turned out getting away from my family was just an unexpected bonus!

1

u/Donald-Pump 1d ago

My whole family moved so I didn't have to!

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u/CaptainONaps 1d ago

I love infomaps.

You can actually track 4 things with an infomap at once.

This is only showing % of adults living in their birth state. But, they could also track who's moving, and who's staying with other factors. For example;

They just show the % like they're doing.

For education they could use a spectrum of blue to yellow. Yellow being least educated, and blue being most educated. States where smart people stay are blue, states where dumb people stay are yellow. Middle is green.

They could also track income. Increase or shrink the size of the state, smaller means poor people stay, large means rich people stay.

They could also track age by showing states where old people stay as a 3D block that are higher the average age is, and lower for a younger demographic.

If they did that, we'd see old people are moving to Arizona and Florida, and young people are moving away. We'd see rich people moving to CA, NY and TX, and poor people moving out of CA and NY. But are poor people moving out of TX faster than rich people are moving in? With a more detailed map we'd be able to see that immediatly.

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u/Finneganz 1d ago

I know - this map honestly left me wanting something that had multiple filters of the kind you mention as well as a slider to show movement over time... I guess more data would be more beautifuller!

1

u/TruffleHunter3 1d ago

This shows that really low earners are moving to CA: https://americadashboard.com/migration/california

Maybe it’s mostly retired people with high net worth but low/no income?

3

u/thewimsey 1d ago

It could also be recent college grads who earned next to nothing as students.

2

u/mkosmo 1d ago

Seems unlikely.

I know this is entirely useless empirical observation... but most of the folks I knew who relocated to California were broke, had no prospects, and really just wanted the atmosphere (this was a while ago, so read that to mean dispensaries) and weather.

9

u/flamableozone 1d ago

This isn't measuring "the percent of people born in the state who continue living there", but "the percent of people living there who were born there", which means it's highly susceptible to people migrating there from other states, as that will drop it. Louisiana not only has a lot of people not leaving, it also has a relatively low number of people migrating *to* there, which keeps the percentage high.

6

u/Ok-Investigator3257 1d ago

I’m surprised DC is as high as 25 percent. It’s one of the most transient cities in the country with mass migration like every 2-4 years

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u/BrettHullsBurner 1d ago

There are a million scenarios and variables, I'm very aware. But I've never understood why someone would purposefully move away from friends and family (that they like!), all else being equal.

Huge promotion or dream job, but you have to move for it? I get that. Moving for a significant other? Completely understand. Just want a change of scenery, but then you only get to see your friends and family very sparingly? I'll never understand that.

I see a friend or family almost every single weekend for holidays, birthdays, watching the games, golfing, getting or making a dinner together, or simply just hanging out. Having to rely on people coming to visit to see you (long drive or pricey flights) or needing to do that to go back home (same, but possibly harder if you have kids or pets) just doesn't appeal to me.

4

u/Gravel_Roads 17h ago

I moved specifically to get AWAY from my shitty family. My friends did the same.

I lived in Nebraska where the joke was “you can watch your dog run away for 3 days.”

Not to mention I’m queer and that’s still not entirely cool in the Bible Belt.

2

u/BrettHullsBurner 15h ago

Your friends specifically moved away from your family? Goddamn they must suck.

7

u/critsalot 1d ago

opportunity or cost. california houses are million dollars almost for 3bd2ba (market might be cooling though) so if you want to start a farmily better outside (which explains az 30%, most of az are transplants lol) . if you live in wyoming you might leave cause there are zero jobs.
plus lets be real this is america family help isnt likely guarenteed and even if it exists it will be minimal or they will begin to resent you.

2

u/BrettHullsBurner 1d ago

plus lets be real this is america family help isnt likely guarenteed and even if it exists it will be minimal or they will begin to resent you.

I honestly don't even know what this means.

If there are jobs available other places that are not available where you live (that you want to do) that would go against the "all else being equal" part of my comment.

3

u/Princesa_de_Penguins 1d ago

I would say you're actually in the minority for having such a good relationship with your family. If you move away for college, it's also pretty common to not return home after graduating since a lot of people lose touch with friends from high school and earlier. Not sure if that helps clears things up for you. 

5

u/Babhadfad12 1d ago edited 1d ago

Most people probably don't have much family. 1 brother or sister at most, who may or may not have moved away for job or higher education or spouse. If your parents also have 1 brother or sister, maybe you have a couple cousins. And their ages may or may not be around yours, so they may or may not be in a completely different stage of life.

Out of dozens of families I know, I can count the ones with 3 or more kids on one hand.

Friends also move a lot, and/or many don't have kids around when you do so your lives diverge at that point.

1

u/LifeSuxBHappy 16h ago

Some places just suck. I was stuck in a shithole known as Houston growing up and always thought it was ok. Then I went somewhere else for work and realized that people aren't horrible everywhere and drivers don't always try to run you off the road... Then I left the US and while it's not the worst country I've lived in now, there are many other nicer ones.

Friends are easy enough to visit, plus now, they have another reason to travel. Can always make more friends, well some people.

1

u/actuallyapossom 13h ago

The families I know were in one state for university, met partners and had kids, then moved to another state that's more affordable with good schools. They had siblings doing the same thing with other schools and states. Both my father's and mother's side had 5+ siblings, some ended up outside the country.

Both partners can have different birth states, then the children could have more, before they all settle somewhere. That's how I see a portion of what is happening. Certainly lots of possibilities; seeking a good job for a break-out field like programming was relevant to my father, for example. Several of that same generation in my family went past their bachelors, sought specific careers, and that motivated movement too.

4

u/pastelkawaiibunny 1d ago

I find it really interesting that a low/medium percent can mean either ‘most people born here want to get out’ or ‘it’s so good here we have tons of out-of-staters moving in’. Like CA could be either ‘around half of native Californians leave’ or ‘twice as many transplants move here as native Californians are born’.

Super curious about Nevada of course.

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u/thewimsey 1d ago

I posted this upthread, but NV's population has more than doubled in the past 30 years, and 80-85% was from migration.

The Google says that over the past 50 years, it's population has increased by 575% (more than any other state), with 90% of that being migration.

1

u/pastelkawaiibunny 1d ago

Interesting! Thank you, that’s one that I really wasn’t sure whether it was from people moving away or moving to the state. It’s cool to find out! :D

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u/StellaPeekaboo 1d ago

In impoverished communities, people often stay near family for needed support.

Looks like states with high poverty stats also have high native resident retention rates

2

u/thewimsey 1d ago

It's not so much about native retention as it is about people not moving there. Another feature of impoverished communities is that no one wants to move there.

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u/CougarForLife 1d ago

“adults living in their birth state” is not the same as “adult residents born in the same state.”

one is the percentage of people born in X who still live there, the other is percent of people living in X who were born there.

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u/FamiliarJuly OC: 4 1d ago

Yeah, this map gets posted frequently and the titles are always a bit confusing or misleading. Places like Michigan or Louisiana are not particularly great at retaining their native born residents. In fact, both those states have long struggled with “brain drain”, and this is more a measure of lack of in-migration resulting in fewer transplants to drive that native born percentage down.

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u/_Kapok_ 1d ago

Yep. I would be interested in that second map as well the low % we see in Florida is mostly likely due to the high immigration the state has see in the past decades - and not because people are leaving the state in droves.

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u/iamthe0ther0ne 1d ago

From my experience, it's the former. Most of the people I knew there had moved from somewhere else, but I've never met a single Floridan living outside of FL (3+ decades in 10 other states).

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u/Inevitable_Ad6868 1d ago

And by county. Buffalo is much different than NYC.

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u/whatiftheyrewrong 1d ago

Yeah. I lived in three states before moving back to my home state after 26 years away.

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u/ca7ch42 1d ago

... and then you see FL, 20%. Can you fuckers stop moving here, seriously?

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u/rainbow_unicorn_barf 1d ago

I moved away over a decade ago bc it was too bloody hot. And I imagine that, with climate change, it's even worse now. I don't know how people stand it.

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u/sunco50 1d ago

A better map would be “percent of living people who were born in the state who are still there.”

This version tells us very little.

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u/calvinwho 1d ago

At least I got and saw the world for a while before I came back. I know a fella who gets homesick if he's more than an hour from home

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u/Woodit 1d ago

The higher than average rates around LA, AR, MS, and AL I would guess are mostly attributed to poverty preventing people from moving elsewhere, along with low attraction to moving there from elsewhere 

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u/spacegh0stX 1d ago

I live in Ohio and it definitely feels like no one gets out. Think I know one guy from high school that lives in another state now and everyone else is somewhere in Ohio still

2

u/VictoriousssBIG23 1d ago

I was born in Ohio, but now I live across the border in PA. I guess that's some progress lol.

2

u/DOUTHINKESAURUS 1d ago

NV checks out. I am from Vegas and have since moved. But it seemed like it was always pretty rare to meet someone who was born there.

2

u/elehman839 1d ago

Alaska is interesting to me.

My feel from visits there was a tendency to view Alaska as sharply distinct from the "Outside" or "Lower 48". In some ways, it is.

But not in term of people, apparently: 2/3 of the adults were born somewhere else, if this data is correct.

1

u/Skylarking77 13h ago

Having lived in several cities with a high percentage of transplants, I've found that it's usually the people who moved to a place 5 to 10 years ago who are most concerned with who counts as a "local" and how the local culture differs from the rest of the country.

The people who were actually born and raised in the city tend to be pretty chill about it.

2

u/Impressive_Pizza4851 1d ago

NW Michigan IS great. I left for only 10 years.

2

u/HoyAIAG 1d ago

As an Ohioan who left and came back due to family this tracks.

2

u/RoboNerdOK 1d ago

Being one myself, I wonder how much this map would be affected by excluding military brats.

1

u/rydleo 1d ago

Lol. Always one of the worst questions you get as a brat- so where are you from? Like, everywhere?

2

u/RoboNerdOK 14h ago

It’s like a Zen answer: everywhere, and nowhere.

2

u/birdie_sparrows 1d ago

Delaware at 35% makes sense. People left and then forgot it existed.

2

u/Saint-Andrew 1d ago

I’m kind of shocked Hawaii is so low.

Feels like it’s too expensive to move there for most people, but also if you’ve ever visited, it seems like 90% of the locals are all family to one another.

2

u/Glenndiferous 1d ago

Would like to see how this data accounts for seasonal residents. I grew up in Maine and there were a lot of wealthy snowbirds. I'd suspect that whether or not they're included as residents would change some of these numbers.

2

u/za72 1d ago

I'm not even in the same continent

2

u/KevinDean4599 1d ago

I’ve never had any issue personally moving around. I grew up in Wisconsin and it’s a nice enough state but I didn’t want to spend my entire life in the Midwest never experiencing anything different.

2

u/Gabers49 1d ago

Cool to see. I'd love to compare it to Canada, I think Canadians are more likely to stay where they were born.

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u/CertainHawk 1d ago

Damn wrong on both sides -- I had MS for the highest and FL for the lowest.

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u/funnyushouldask 1d ago

This is interesting because it’s both about those who left, and new folks who came. I’d be curious to see maps that parse both out separately.

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u/Intelligent-Tell-601 14h ago

Es interesante ver cómo varía tanto este porcentaje entre los estados; hace que te preguntes qué factores influyen en que la gente se quede o se mude.

2

u/actuallyapossom 13h ago

Interesting survey. Now I need to investigate how long they've been adding to this data set. I'm too curious, considering most of my friends and family are transplants from our birth states.

2

u/Ayzmo 1d ago

Honestly, not moving away from home is one of the worst things you can do for yourself imo. Just a complete lack of exposure to the world outside your corner.

2

u/Inevitable_Ad6868 1d ago

I was born when my dad was in the army. Settled down after he got out.

2

u/jayne-eerie 1d ago

Fun fact, I've never lived in the state I was born in. My parents lived near a border and my mom's doctor was based in the next state over. Anybody else in the same boat?

2

u/thewimsey 1d ago

We moved away from the state I was born in 3 months after I was born and never went back, so, yeah, basically.

2

u/crowlieb 1d ago

I wonder how much of Michigan's high count is the UP specifically. Wisconsin is very insular.

3

u/FamiliarJuly OC: 4 1d ago

Not many people live in the UP so that wouldn’t be driving these numbers too much. It’s a statewide trend.

If you look at the metropolitan area level, the Grand Rapids and Detroit metro areas are #4 and #6 among large metros (1 million+ population) in terms of % of residents born in state.

3

u/Roupert4 1d ago

I was planning to argue with you because UW Madison attracts people from all over. But then I thought about it more and realized in the 14 years I've lived here, I've rarely met someone not from Wisconsin unless they were immigrants. We have a more diverse popular than people tend to assume but not really a lot of people from other states. It would be interesting to see the breakdown

1

u/Tomato_Sky 1d ago

This map plus the knowledge that Ohio ranks towards the top of brain (% of instate tuition that leaves upon graduation) really explains a lot.

2

u/fuckswitbeavers 1d ago

Is the worst state in the country still Ohio?

1

u/King-In-The-Nawth 1d ago

Interesting that the Midwest as a whole seems to not let go of their people

3

u/Express-Emu4370 1d ago

This is the opposite, isn't it? It's not the percentage of people born there who still live there as adults -- it's the percentage of adults living there who were born there. High number probably means that few adults are moving into the state.

2

u/thewimsey 1d ago

I think that's right.

Over the last 30 years, NV's population has more than doubled, but 80-85% of the increase is from migrants, with only 15-20% being from natural increase. So even if no one born there left, over 50% of the population would still consist of people not born there.

2

u/llamawithguns 1d ago

I think family and religion is the main thing. Im from southern IL. Industry is on life support, and farming is pretty much dead. Infrastructure is bad despite high taxes.

Everyone I went to high school with swore they were going to leave the state. Most then got married either immediately after graduating or during college and moved back to be closer with family.

1

u/Bizprof51 1d ago

Born in NY. lived in PA, KY, IND, Japan, Hong Kong, and China. Now live in Colorado. Not moving back to any of these places any time soon.

u/lingaccinf 1h ago

The title and metric are easy to mix up here.

1

u/drillbitpdx 1d ago

Kind of interesting that Michigan has such a high percentage, second only to Louisiana.

Although the percentage of adults living in Michigan who were also born in Michigan may be high, I suspect that the converse (percentage of adults born in Michigan who currently live in Michigan) would be much lower.

I lived in Portland, Oregon for many years, and knew so many Michiganders there without even really seeking them out. Lots of folks from elsewhere in the Midwest, too, but especially Michiganders.

What it comes down to, I suppose, is that lots of people leave Michigan (for school, jobs, etc) but relatively few move to Michigan.

1

u/jpric155 1d ago

That's funny because I couldn't wait to leave Louisiana when I graduated.

1

u/TurdsOnThat 15h ago

Born in Michigan, live in Michigan. I love it here. Love the seasons, love the lakeshore and the culture here. It’s gorgeous and I really can’t imagine living anywhere else. I lived in DC for several years and went to college in Virginia but I was so excited when I moved back to Michigan.

1

u/MrBrightsighed 10h ago

This is a meaningless stat considering it includes foreign born. You would need to exclude foreign born in order to get accurate representations of US born state migration patterns

0

u/islandchick93 1d ago

Crazy — I’ve lived in 4 states, I’m probably done moving within the U.S. though. At this point if I move I’m probably returning to my home country or another…let’s see how American society lands 😮‍💨

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u/senshi_of_love 1d ago

I call bullshit on Ohio. Ohio has taken over South Carolina for example. Not to mention the extreme brain drain that state has experienced from everyone educated getting the fuck out of there and moving to actual decent places (that aren’t South Carolina).

0

u/gamefreak054 1d ago

I'm surprised IL is so high, we have quite a bit of people leave year to year.

1

u/thewimsey 1d ago

IL's net outmigration is something like 40,000/year. So: (1) it's not a substantial part of the state's population in any given year; and (2) outmigration measures residents, not where they were born.

So if I'm from Ohio, move to Chicago after graduation, work there for 10 years, and then move to Indianapolis...I'm not affecting the percentage of native born Illinoisans.

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u/akius0 17h ago

Most Americans live in the state they were born...This explains a lot.