More Immigrants Skip Cities For The Suburbs

"About 4 in 10 immigrants are moving directly from abroad to the nation's suburbs, which are growing increasingly diverse, according to census figures released yesterday."

"The Census Bureau's annual survey of residential mobility also found that after steadily declining for more than a half-century, the proportion of Americans who move in any given year appears to have leveled off at about one in seven."

"The 2006 Current Population Survey found that nearly 40 million people had moved in the preceding year, or about 14 percent. Residential mobility has remained at that rate for several years now after declining steadily from a high of 20 percent since the census began measuring it in 1948. While the census count of movers from abroad includes returning citizens, the bulk of movers are foreign born."

"Audrey Singer, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, said traditional gateway cities like New York, Chicago and Los Angeles were still magnets for immigrants who move to join friends and relatives. But particularly in the South and West, where central cities were less likely to develop dense cores, immigrants are following jobs to the suburbs and settling there first."