Introduction

One topic that is extremely relevant in the United States right now is migration of people between states. While growing up in Texas, I have witnessed a trend in movement of people from California to Texas over the last between 2005 and 2022. I was interested to see how the migration of people to Texas correlates with a state’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP), which refers to a state or country’s economic activity. A high GDP is an indication that the economy in that state or country is doing well and is successful. On the other hand, a low GDP suggests that the economy is not doing well. This study will use maps to analyze how people have moved across the United States between 2005 and 2017. This dataset was found via the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. Link to datasource: link

Hypothesis

As it was previously mentioned, this study will use maps to analyze who is migrating and when people are migrating to Texas from other states. We can predict that people who are migrating from Texas will either be from states that are equally if not more successful economically.

Process

For this project, we created two maps and one graph to show migration of certain states to Texas, the growth of certain industries in the United States, and each state’s GDP.

State-to-State Migration Patterns

The first map below shows the migration from different states to Texas between 2005 and 2017.

As we can see from this map, the top 3 states with the most migrants to Texas included California, Louisiana, and Florida in 2005. In 2017, most people that migrated from Texas also came from California, Louisiana and Florida. We can assume the large number of Florida migrants might be able to be explained by their similarities in political stance and structure. In addition, it makes sense that many people from Louisiana migrated to Texas in 2005-2006 following Hurricane Katrina. However, it is interesting to see Louisiana as still one of the top 3 states to migrate from in 2017. The large number of migrants from California is most likely due to the growth of similar industries in both Texas and California.

GDP by State

The second map we’ll analyze shows the GDP of each individual state in the United States between 1997 and 2020.

As mentioned above, this graph shows each state’s GDP between 1997 and 2020. This allows us to see how it has changed, and we can also see that Texas had a GDP that increased significantly between 1997 and 2020. It is interesting to see that California and Texas have some of the highest GDPs in the country. Although this is not a surprise, it could impact why people are moving to Texas from California. This is evident through the growth of each industry there, which we can view in the following graph.

Top 5 State GDPs by Industry

Next, we’ll look at the GDP by industry for the four states with the most people migrating to Texas: California, Florida, Louisiana, and New York. We will also compare this to the GDP by industry in Texas.

As mentioned above, this graph shows the GDP by industry for each state with the most people migrating to Texas. The industries with the highest GDP in Texas are trade, professional and business services, real estate, manufacturing, and manufacturing and information, the last of which is considered to be the technology industry. It is interesting to see the amount of overlap between these industries and those with the most growth in California and New York. What is especially interesting about this graph is that the industry with the highest growth in both Texas and California is manufacturing and information. This is most likely why we are seeing more migrants coming to Texas, in addition to the growth in real estate and other industries.

Conclusion

This project provided information about the different migrants from other states to Texas. We aimed to analyze why people are migrating to Texas. Although it is difficult to assume that the rise in the tech industry in Texas is the reason for migration from California, we do know that many tech companies like Apple and Google have moved their headquarters to Austin, Texas, where much of the technological growth is taking place. It will be interesting to see whether these industries continue to grow in Texas or if once companies relocate to other states, if people will follow these companies in large numbers.

However, this project did have some limitations, as we were only able to find migration data from 2005 to 2017. It would be beneficial to further studies if this data could be expanded to at least the 1990s. It would be interesting to see a more in-depth study of different factors that motivate people to move to and from Texas. As for now, this study provides others with more information about state-to-state migration and how this migration is affecting industries in Texas.