Recession Surprise—Net Migration Still Favors the Inland Empire Over Los Angeles

Given the common tales of foreclosure-ridden housing tracts and some of California’s worst unemployment rates, the Inland Empire managed to draw more new residents away from Los Angeles County during the recession than the other way around, reports Emily Alpert Reyes. In fact, new Census Bureau estimates reveal the net migration to be “the nation's biggest net county-to-county movement from 2007 to 2011.”

Although the rate of migration slowed during the recession period from earlier years, the trends were consistent across a broad swath of demographics and occurred despite poor economic conditions in the Inland Empire: “Roughly 35,000 more people poured into the Inland Empire from Los Angeles County than moved in the opposite direction. The migration occurred even as Riverside and San Bernardino counties lost some 144,000 jobs. The people who moved included rich and poor and Angelenos across educational levels, according to the newly released Census Bureau estimates.”

The article includes testimonies from experts who claim that cheap housing accounts for the persistent allure of the Inland Empire.