Immigrants, Domestic Migrants Head For Different Metropolitan Magnets

An analysis of the flow of domestic and international migrants into and out of the nation's 81 most populous metropolitan areas between 1995 and 2000 indicates that the nation's largest metropolitan areas gained the greatest number of migrants from abroad in the late 1990s, but lost the most domestic migrants. Residents leaving the nation's immigrant magnet metropolitan areas were more racially and ethnically diverse than in previous decades. "Domestic migrant magnets" in the Southeast and West attracted the largest numbers of migrants from other areas of the U.S. And while immigrants drove population growth in and around the core urban counties of metropolitan areas, domestic migrants fueled the fast growth occurring in outlying suburban counties.