People From These 3 Areas Are Relocating to Nearby Cities

• Most pandemic movers are staying local, a new report from Placer.ai shows.
• Rural, suburban, and city dwellers are moving to places like Philadelphia, Phoenix, and Raleigh.
• All three cities are generally affordable and play home to growing tech hubs.

About 10% of Americans relocated during the pandemic. 

Many people moved away from metropolises like New York and San Francisco to sunny southern cities like Austin and Miami, whose frenzied housing markets and high prices have dominated real-estate headlines for more than two years. These spots have been particularly popular with out-of-state movers who’ve packed up from places hundreds or even thousands of miles away.

Long-distance, cross-continent moves like this have been in the spotlight. 

But there is another type of mover which has contributed to the growth of several big cities over the past year. That is the local mover, who has made up the greatest share of relocators since the pandemic began, according to a new paper from location-analytics company Placer.ai.

Placer.ai compiles foot-traffic tracking data via cellphone-location services to compile information about where people live. 

“Over the past two years, many people moved to cities — or to growing neighborhoods within cities — in search of convenience, job opportunities, and social connection,” data analysts from Placer.ai wrote in the report. 

Local movers are choosing large, affordable cities with emerging tech industries. New residents come from other major cities, suburbs, and rural areas.

For example, new residents coming from another state — or from somewhere else within the state — have largely been responsible for population growth in Phoenix, Arizona; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; and Raleigh, North Carolina. 

These cities have commonalities. Among them, each is an emerging or growing technology hub with median home prices hovering around the national average. The cities are attracting new residents from a variety of places from large cities to tiny towns.

While all three of these places might be considered “big cities,” they vary widely in size. But what’s certain is that each of them are smaller than New York and Los Angeles, both of which have been losing residents to two of the growing cities on this list.