funny, I don't hear a giant sucking sound

I was reading a recent post at Burgh Diaspora last night, and it looked at the top metros that people from the Pittsburgh region choose for relocation.

The data originates from this paper by Christopher Briem at the University of Pittsburgh's Center for Social and Urban Research. Briem uses addresses from IRS income tax returns to track employees in the years 2000 to 2006. The top 10 areas Pittsburghers move to are:

1. Washington-Arlington-Alexandria (9,009 people)
2. Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington (7,708)
3. New York-Northern New Jersey-Long Island (6,378)
4. Indiana (PA) (5,093)
5. Youngstown-Warren (4,912)
6. New Castle (4,900)
7. Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater (4,157)
8. Cleveland-Elyria-Mentor (3,918)
9. Columbus (3,579)
10. Atlanta (3,451)

Alternatively, the report lists where people are coming from to live in the Pittsburgh region. In this table as well, Youngstown-Warren is ranked 5th, with 4,658 people making the move to the land of the Steelers Nation.

That means in the past six years . . .
4,912 people left Pittsburgh to come to Youngstown, and
4,658 people left Youngstown to come to Pittsburgh.

resulting in a net difference of only 254 people.

Here are my conclusions from this information:

a. Compared to other large metro areas, Youngstown absorbs a relatively high number of people from Pittsburgh. (more than Cleveland surprisingly)

b. Compared to the number of people going between the two metros, the difference between them is relatively small.

c. The economies of both regions, especially when adding New Castle into the mix, shows some interdependencies between regional economies.

d. New people are moving to Youngstown.

This data does not differentiate for the type of job - if someone is an engineer, or bartender, or fireman, etc - so it does not make conclusions on what type of people are making these movements . . . only if they are making these movements.

But within the Pittsburgh region, the population is redistributing. More people are shifting to the Youngstown neighbor counties of Lawrence, Beaver and Butler (home of the technology in Cranberry Township) than leaving.

Even though this is one slice of data from one time period, maybe it provides proof that the local economy is stabilizing and that people don't just leave Youngstown,

they come to Youngstown.