Where People Are Moving to in 2023 and Why: Our Latest Report

The pandemic caused major shifts in consumer needs, working habits, and foot traffic—many of these shifts have had a lasting impact on consumer trends. After analyzing the changing habits of Americans after The Great Relocation in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, we wanted to learn more about what’s changing in 2023.

Recently, we published our 2023 report, “The State of U.S. Population Movement,” in which we examined the impact of various factors on population movement trends in the U.S. This helped us learn more about where people are moving to, where they’re moving away from, and some of the possible factors impacting these moves. Here’s how we made our findings:

Our Methodology

This report analyzes how the population of the United States has shifted from Q1 2020 to Q1 2023. Our privacy-friendly and high quality location data allowed us to determine population distribution shifts by observing mobile location signals from counties in every state across the country. We process over 60 billion mobile location signals daily, and with a robust cleansing and preparation process, we were able to accurately interpret how the population has been shifting over the last few years by county and by state. By augmenting this data with U.S. census data about local population size, income, and property prices, we can begin to understand why some areas of the country are experiencing population growth while others are experiencing population loss.

Our full report offers more detail about our methodology, and you can learn more about our data on our website.

Some of Our Key Findings

In our report, we identified the top 10 counties that have been gaining the most population and the top 10 counties that have been losing the most population since January 2020. For example, Sussex County in Delaware has seen the most population growth out of any county in the U.S. This county is home to popular beach towns in southern Delaware, attracting tourists and likely impacting consumer interest in the area. Also on the list of the top counties with growing populations are Kent County, Rhode Island; Worcester County, Massachusetts; and more.?

In contrast, we also determined which 10 counties lost the most population in the last three years. Cook County in Illinois, home to the city of Chicago, lost more people than any other county in the U.S. In fact, Illinois has been going through record-breaking population losses throughout the entire state, not just in Cook County. Here are some more U.S. counties losing the most population in the country: Clark County, Nevada; Multnomah County, Oregon; and Johnson County, Kansas, among others.

Get the complete list with added insights in our full report.

Other Insights

Learning about these population movement patterns over time can help us better understand consumer needs, desires, and preferences. These insights can also help organizations better prepare for any future population movements. By understanding what drives people away from certain locations and what draws them into new ones, researchers can anticipate movement patterns that may impact businesses in the future and maintain a real-world understanding of customer needs. Furthermore, insights like this can inform decisions for site selection, transportation, and even location-based marketing strategy, among many other things.?

Overall, we were able to draw multiple conclusions about the population movement trends we’re seeing today. Similar to our previous population movement report, we found that housing costs continue to drive population distribution across the nation. Overwhelmingly, we found that the counties boasting the most population growth are home to smaller markets with lower average housing costs. Even in some of the most bustling and famous states, like California, housing prices continue to affect consumers’ satisfaction levels, prompting widespread consideration of interstate relocation. In our report, we were able to dig deeper into some of these state changes to glean even more insights into why people are making their big moves.

To learn more about population distribution shifts today, and to dive deeper into the state-to-state changes in population we uncovered, download the full report today and explore the data for yourself in our interactive dashboard.

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