Pricey American cities are starting to attract more residents who can afford those prices.
Research from economist Issi Romem has found that new residents coming into cities like New York, Miami and Los Angeles are making significantly more money than residents who are leaving, according to the Wall Street Journal.
The trend is strongest in San Francisco, where the people moving to the city and nearby Silicon Valley earned almost $20,000 a year more than the people who left the area in 2016. In Los Angeles, the income gap between people leaving and people arriving was $7,600.
Former industrial cities like Detroit and Cleveland are seeing the opposite trend, where new arrivals are making less than people leaving the cities.
New arrivals to cities also tend to be younger, more likely to rent and less likely to have children than people leaving.
Romem told the Journal the trend was somewhat concerning, as high housing prices driving away residents could lead to some lost opportunities.
“If people don’t live in the most productive coastal cities and end up living somewhere else, they’re not going to be producing the same stuff,” he said. “There’s something lost there.” [WSJ] – Eddie Small