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Florida No. 1 in new
resident gain
From 2000 to 2004, the number of
people moving to Florida from within the United States
made the Sunshine State the national leader in
population gain from domestic migration.
BY LISA ARTHUR, TIM HENDERSON AND
DARRAN SIMON
J. ALBERT DIAZ/MIAMI HERALD STAFF
It will be a year on Saturday since
Abena Osei, a Houston native, moved to South Florida. It
was the 27-year-old's first major move.
She came here for a job as a program director at a Fort
Lauderdale prep school. The weather was a big draw, too.
''I was at a point in my life where I didn't have any
ties,'' she said. ''It was easy for me to pick up and
move to a new city to try something different.''
For Osei and tens of thousands of others across the
country, Florida remains a magnet for those relocating
within the United States, according to the Census
Bureau. A study released Thursday found that the
Sunshine State led the nation in average yearly net gain
of new residents from other states between 2000 and
2004.
During the five-year period, the number of people moving
to Florida outnumbered those who left the state by a
yearly average of 190,894.
In a distant second: Arizona, with an average yearly net
gain of 66,344.
But people aren't flocking from elsewhere in the country
to Miami-Dade or Brow-
ard counties. In a trend that began more than a decade
ago, tens of thousands more people leave Miami-Dade for
other states than move here each year.
Broward has historically had more people coming in than
leaving, but the net gain has dwindled from 14,898 in
2000 to 2,384 in 2004.
The figures do not include those who move here from
abroad, which continues to fuel South Florida's
population growth.
Those who do come to the state from other states come
for the weather and for jobs, according to Florida
demographers.
HOUSING COSTS
Some demographers also believe the desire to escape
spiraling housing costs -- yes, higher than the recent
skyrocketing real estate prices here -- has begun to
drive people's decisions on where they will relocate.
''It's all relative,'' said Marc Perry, who wrote the
Census study. ''Housing costs might be high is some
small pockets in Florida, like South Florida, but many
of these people might be coming from places with even
higher costs.''
Look at the trends in Florida, and you have a microcosm
of the affordable housing link to migration patterns
happening throughout the entire country, said William
Frey, a demographer with the Brookings Institution, a
Washington public policy think tank.
''On the one hand you have Miami, which is comparable to
New York, Chicago, Los Angeles as far as housing
costs,'' he said. ''Then you have the counties in
Central and Northern Florida that are more affordable
and growing rapidly like the smaller, more affordable
metro areas in the interior of the country.''
High housing costs in the Northeast continue to be a
population windfall for Florida's more affordable
counties and even metro areas like Orlando and Tampa, he
said.
Stan Smith, director of the Bureau of Economic and
Business Research at the University of Florida, said he
doesn't believe housing costs are a big factor when
people decide whether or not to move to Florida.
''Housing might be a contributing factor at a local
level -- like the situation in South Florida -- but at
the state level I can't see it being an issue in the
near future or even the foreseeable future,'' Smith
said.
''When we survey new residents, they say jobs and
climate.''
But Tony Villamil, a consultant with the Coral
Gables-based Washington Economic Group and chairman of
the Beacon Council's Economic Roundtable, worries about
housing costs.
The region has to act quickly before it starts losing
more of its population to other Florida counties or to
other states and before it becomes harder to lure people
from other states because of housing costs, he said.
RETHINK STRATEGY
Both Miami-Dade and Broward need to shift their
strategies when looking for businesses to entice to
relocate.
''We need to focus on places with higher housing costs
than ours, so the employees moving here will be getting
a break, making us more attractive,'' he said. ''So less
Cincinnati and more New York, New Jersey, Chicago, Los
Angeles and San Diego.''
South Florida also has to try to attract higher-paying
jobs and start changing zoning laws to give builders an
incentive to go vertical, developing affordable projects
with more living units on smaller parcels of land.
'We can't sit still and say 'Business as usual and
they'll keep coming,' '' he said. ''Because they won't
keep coming.''
They might start leaving, too.
Abena Osei, the Houston native who rents a room in an
Oakland Park house, recently embarked on a search to buy
her own place.
She was too late in applying for a program in the city
of Plantation offering $40,000 in down payment
assistance for middle-income earners. She made an offer
of $161,900 for a one-bedroom, one and a half bath
condo.
But before she could close, the program ran out of money
and her deal fell through because she couldn't afford
the condo without the assistance.
She has toyed with the idea of just going back to
Houston, with its kinder housing market. Not yet,
though. She's grown to appreciate South Florida's
diversity, being in striking distance of a vibrant city
like Miami. And there's the weather.
''I am a little disheartened but I haven't fully given
up.'' |