Dayton Out-migration (mostly to Florida)

Daytonians must be a bunch of parrotheads, given their preference of a place to leave for.

Since the employment numbers here were so dismal I decided to check on out-migration based on this website hosted by a Charlotte, HC newspaper. This is a great little site permitting you to run the numbers on in- and out-migration by county for 2000 thru 2005. The numbers are based on yearly IRS data, so a different thing than the census estimates.

This is really good as it covers the period of big job loss here in the Dayton region, so one can see people wanting to leave the area.

Looking at Montgomery county, at net migration (people moving in minus people moving out), one can see the obvious popularity of counties surrounding Dayton, but also people moving to Columbus (Franklin County).

But what’s really noticeable is the big out of state migration, with Florida leading by far, followed by the South. The only region that actually and a net outmigration to Dayton was the Northeast.


Net in & out-migration flows by state, with the states getting the most people from Montgomery County at the top, then running down the list, to finally include the few states actually lost people to Montgomery County.





Then mapping it out by region, state, and number of migrants. Noticeable the Upper South, Texas, and California lead. And also ironic that Kentucky is one of the big destinations. Most of the Kentucky flows are to the metro areas and larger communities, so its not a move back to the mountains. The era of big population transfers between Appalachian Kentucky and Datyon is over.





Wasting Away Again in Margaritaville

Florida is such a special case I looked at it separate.

Here is a list of counties that significant migrant flow to and from Montgomery County, with the most largest net out-migration from Dayton at the top. The only county that lost people to Dayton was Leon County (Tallahassee).



Then mapping it out showing intensity of net in-migration. It seems the Gulf Coast is pretty popular, with the Sarasota, Fort Myers, and Tampa/Saint Pete areas being big destinations, followed by the Cape Canaveral/Titusville and Jacksonville areas.

There’s also a concentration in mid Florida, the Orlando/Lakeland/Ocala area.


One has to wonder how much of this is retiree moves. I think that a lot of this is also people moving down for work, too. I guess they know the state was booming from word-of-mouth or vacations, and moved down for work when they couldn’t find any in the Dayton area.

Sort of like the Bob Dubois character in the 1980s novel Continental Drift.