5 ms·

Question for anyone who may know from experience: where are all the people coming from? It's a question everyone in my home city keeps asking after seeing all

Question for anyone who may know from experience: where are all the people coming from? It's a question everyone in my home city keeps asking after seeing all the new developments, and never really investigating an answer I guess. They keep squishing in apartments and tract housing everywhere there's a postage stamp of land, and it's sold the next day. Even wayyy out in the rural county. My very quiet road was a traffic nightmare by the time I moved on. The media/government report we're at or below the replacement birth rate, and while immigration exists, the people moving in aren't all exclusively immigrants by appearance. Further, the city reports modest growth on the census. So, where are all the people coming from? I have to assume it's mostly elsewhere in the city due to census numbers, but no idea from where or how that makes sense.

silverquiet 2y ago
Is your home city not one of the big HCOL cities? If so, I assume it's people fleeing them. I live in San Antonio and hear all the time about people coming here, often without even a job lined up. I was talking to someone in a bar the other week about how she had come in from Hawaii. Her husband had found a job before they moved, but it seems like they were going to move even if he hadn't.
- silisili 2y ago
  It's a decent sized city in the midwest, and not HCOL. I thought about that, but the census only reports 6% growth between 2010 and 2020. Unless the census is grossly wrong, which is entirely possible I suppose.
  - silverquiet 2y ago
    2020 definitely shook things up, so it's possible that the situation has changed a lot since the last census.
BadHumans 2y ago
While this isn't a complete answer, remote work has let people move away from tech hubs and spread out more to small towns. Idaho has seen rapid increases because of people moving from California and Washington now that they can work remotely. Big money also buys a lot of real estate. Around where I used to live, Berkshire Hathaway bought almost all the houses in the area.
pavon 2y ago
While the birth rate is currently below replacement rate, it wasn't 20-30 years ago when the now new homeowners were being born. US birthrate hit a local maximum in 2007, so that will continue to add pressure to housing demand over the next several years. Furthermore, life expectancy grew over the baby boomer population, so people are staying in their houses longer than before. Eventually we will get over this hump as the boomers pass away, and new homeowners decrease due to lower birth rate, but that doesn't help today.
- silisili 2y ago
  That's a really good point, not sure why I wasn't thinking of that delay. Thanks!
HDThoreaun 2y ago
Household sizes are shrinking, so same number of people want more homes. Plus the population is growing in many parts of the country.
- cyberge99 2y ago
  Yes, but people are dying as well.
xnx 2y ago
Older generations are "aging in place" and occupying entire 4 bedroom houses instead of a single apartment or room in their children's' homes.

silverquiet 2y ago

Is your home city not one of the big HCOL cities? If so, I assume it's people fleeing them. I live in San Antonio and hear all the time about people coming here, often without even a job lined up. I was talking to someone in a bar the other week about how she had come in from Hawaii. Her husband had found a job before they moved, but it seems like they were going to move even if he hadn't.

silisili 2y ago
It's a decent sized city in the midwest, and not HCOL. I thought about that, but the census only reports 6% growth between 2010 and 2020. Unless the census is grossly wrong, which is entirely possible I suppose.
- silverquiet 2y ago
  2020 definitely shook things up, so it's possible that the situation has changed a lot since the last census.

BadHumans 2y ago

While this isn't a complete answer, remote work has let people move away from tech hubs and spread out more to small towns. Idaho has seen rapid increases because of people moving from California and Washington now that they can work remotely. Big money also buys a lot of real estate. Around where I used to live, Berkshire Hathaway bought almost all the houses in the area.

pavon 2y ago

While the birth rate is currently below replacement rate, it wasn't 20-30 years ago when the now new homeowners were being born. US birthrate hit a local maximum in 2007, so that will continue to add pressure to housing demand over the next several years. Furthermore, life expectancy grew over the baby boomer population, so people are staying in their houses longer than before. Eventually we will get over this hump as the boomers pass away, and new homeowners decrease due to lower birth rate, but that doesn't help today.

silisili 2y ago
That's a really good point, not sure why I wasn't thinking of that delay. Thanks!

HDThoreaun 2y ago

Household sizes are shrinking, so same number of people want more homes. Plus the population is growing in many parts of the country.

cyberge99 2y ago
Yes, but people are dying as well.

xnx 2y ago

Older generations are "aging in place" and occupying entire 4 bedroom houses instead of a single apartment or room in their children's' homes.