Destinations of 'baby boomer' migrants in the metropolitan U.S.

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# Destinations of 'baby boomer' migrants in the metropolitan U.S.
      

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## The 'back to the city' hypothesis

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<img src=assets/img/boomers.jpg style="width: 750px">

<span class="footnote">Source: *The Washington Post*</span>
      

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## 'Baby boomer' migration

* General findings: migrants tend to move "down the urban hierarchy" to smaller cities as they age (Plane et al. 2005; Plane and Jurjevich 2009)

<img src=assets/img/plane.PNG style="width: 700px">

<span class="footnote">Image source: Plane, D., and Jurjevich, J. (2009).  "Ties That No Longer Bind?  The Patterns and Repercussions of Age-Articulated Migration." *The Professional Geographer* 61(1), 4-20. 
      

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## Research questions

* Central question: how to reconcile conflicts between anecdotes around boomer migration & scholarly literature?

* Topics to cover: 
 * Geography of boomer growth & decline in U.S. metropolitan areas
 * Analysis of metropolitan boomer migrants' destinations



      

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## Methods

* Exploratory data analysis of demographic & migration trends of baby boomers since 2000

Data sources: 
* Census tract-level data on baby boomers from 2000 and 2010 Censuses
* Microdata on baby boomer migrants from 2005-2011 ACS PUMS
      

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## Boomer gains and losses, by metro (2000s)

* Most large metropolitan areas lost baby boomers during the 2000s

Top gainers: Phoenix, Las Vegas, Tampa-St. Petersburg, Orlando, San Antonio

Top losers: New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco/Oakland, Detroit
      

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## Tampa, FL

<img src=assets/img/tampa.png style="width: 800px">
      

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## Tampa, FL

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## Chicago, IL

<img src=assets/img/chicago.png style="width: 800px">

      

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## Chicago, IL

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## Population trends, 2000-2010

* Overall: boomer population losses in closer-in neighborhoods, growth on urban fringes
* Significant growth in select inner-core neighborhoods

Question: who is moving to city cores?
      

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## Migration trends by age group

<img src=assets/img/genplot.png style="width: 800px">
      

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## Boomer migration by education

<img src=assets/img/educbar.png style="width: 800px">
      

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## Boomer migration by income

<img src=assets/img/incbar.png style="width: 800px">
      

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## Conclusions and future directions

* Overall, most growth in baby boomer populations occurs away from urban cores
* Growth taking place around downtowns of major cities; higher proportion of inner-core migrants have very high, very low levels of education, income

Further research: 
* Where are inner-core boomer migrants moving from?  
* How do characteristics like education, income, etc. influence moves up and down the urban hierarchy?  
      

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## Contact

* Email: <kyle.walker@tcu.edu>
* Twitter: [@kyle_e_walker](https://twitter.com/kyle_e_walker)

Presentation available on GitHub
* Link: http://walkerke.github.io/aag2014
* Code: https://github.com/walkerke/aag2014