Who moved in when your neighbors left?

By Morton Marcus

Last week’s column left some readers unsatisfied. “It’s all well and good to know about people moving in and out of Indiana, but I want to know about my county,” one person wrote.

I appreciate his interest, but it would be difficult to represent Parke County and the other 91 Indiana counties in the allotted space. Hence, I’ll hit the high and low points.

Remember, the U.S. Census Bureau calls these data the 2015 Vintage. This means they depict a representative year from 2011 to 2015.

Hold on; this merry-data-go-round is taking off.

Of the 6.5 million Hoosiers living in Indiana, 5.5 million (85 percent) stayed in the same house or apartment as they lived in the preceding year. In 12 counties, more than 90 percent of the population stayed put. In only four counties, (Putnam and the three college counties — Delaware, Tippecanoe, and Monroe) did fewer than 80 percent remain in place.

Churning, that is a change of residence within the same county, was greatest in Monroe, where 19 percent of its residents changed their place of residence. Next in line, all above 10 percent, were Tippecanoe, Delaware and Madison, followed by 11 other counties. Franklin, Posey and Crawford each had less than four percent churning.

Next consider intra-state migration, the movement of people from one Hoosier county to another. Marion, Hamilton and Monroe had the highest number of in-migrants from other Indiana counties. Marion, Hamilton and Lake were the leaders in sending people to other Indiana counties.

Monroe, Tippecanoe and Delaware again led the state in net intra-state in-migration.

LaPorte, Vigo, Johnson, Knox and Hamilton followed in order with in-bound movers exceeding the number of out-bound movers by 1,000 or more.

At the other end of the line were Marion, Lake, Allen, Elkhart and Floyd counties with more than 1,000 each of net intra-state out-migrants.

Net inter-state in-migration, the excess of people from other states over the outward moves of Hoosiers, favored Lake County by more than 1,600 persons. Next in order were LaPorte, Grant, Bartholomew and Howard counties. Trailing all others with net deficits were Marion ( minus 5,400) and Elkhart (minus 1,400).

Finally, 23,800 persons moved to Indiana from abroad. Three counties (Marion, Tippecanoe and Monroe) accounted for 43 percent of this in-migration. We do not know how many people left Indiana for other countries.

Take all of these numbers together and we had nearly 660,000 people moving in or out or both of a Hoosier residence during a one-year period. If we assume 2.56 persons per household in the state, that’s 258,000 homes or apartments for sale or rent.

It’s enough to keep real estate agents, home furnishing and appliance stores, trailer rentals and many others nicely busy.

Morton Marcus is an economist, formerly with the Indiana University Kelley School of Business. Send comments to [email protected].