Bright Lights, Not-So-Big Cities: Where Americans Are Moving:
Among today’s urban migrants, Austin, TX, and Riverside, CA, hold more appeal than New York City and Los Angeles. According to the U.S. Census Bureau , about 18% of people who moved last year—that’s 8.5 million people—traded one metropolitan area for another, and a big chunk of them traded down for a smaller city not far away. Los Angeles is still the top destination, with almost 245,000 people relocating from other metro areas, followed by New York City and Washington, DC. However, these big cities are also losing residents—more then they’re gaining. Almost 400,000 people quit The Big Apple last year, and 340,000 fled Los Angeles. (Note that this Census report looked only at people moving between metropolitan areas, and so didn’t count people moving between cities and small towns.) Smaller cities such as Austin and Riverside—and not-so-small Houston —are gaining prosperity, with more people moving in than out. A separate Census Bureau study showed that 10% of U.S. res