Southern exodus and white flight to the suburbs

Note: This is the second in a two-part series exploring the findings of "Demographic Trends in the Manchester-Nashua Metropolitan Area," a report presented Oct. 26 by the Carsey Institute at the University of New Hampshire.

Though I didn’t notice it at the time, I reckon my now wife and I must have passed a veritable mass exodus of Manchester, NH, area seniors as we were driving a U-Haul with all of our possessions from Tennessee to New Hampshire five years ago.

At least that’s the idea I got after reading a recent Carsey Institute report that found that between 2000 and 2007, some 25,000 Hillsborough County residents left New Hampshire for the cheaper and warmer South.

The loss was mitigated somewhat by the influx of 15,000 Southerners, including me and the missus, who made the move north to Hillsborough County, NH, during this time.

In all, the report notes, 127,000 domestic migrants moved into the Manchester-Nashua metro area between 2000 and 2007, while 129,000 left the area. That the migration of more than quarter of a million people resulted in a net change of only 2,000 people is pretty incredible, methinks.

The largest group of domestic migrants leaving the area during this time – about 50,000 folks - left for the remainder of the state, that is to say, the more rural portions of New Hampshire. Following these New Hampshire migrants are the aforementioned ones who headed South. The rest went, in decreasing volume, to the Boston metro area, the rest of New England, the West and Midwest and, finally, the Mid-Atlantic. To wit:

Likewise, those already living in New Hampshire made up the largest group (40,000) moving to the metro area, followed closely by folks moving up from the Boston metro area.

But domestic migration into the Manchester-Nashua metro area tells only part of the story. If you take into account immigration, the metro area actually saw a net migration gain of 4,400 people. Manchester, however, still saw a net migration loss of 2,500 people as more people (domestic migrants) moved from the city to the suburban parts of the county than moved into the city.

On a related note, the report notes that while the minority population of Manchester, NH, grew by 5,200 (32 percent) between 2000 and 2007, the city’s non-Hispanic white population declined by 2 percent. While some minorities also moved to the suburbs, “most of the suburban population growth was fueled by non-Hispanic white growth of 11,000”:

 

Sounds like white flight to me.