Survey finds families abandoning the Northeast

Families apparently left the northeastern portion of the U.S. in droves in 2011, supplanting the Great Lakes as the national region with the most outbound migration, according to the 35th annual migration study conducted by United Van Lines.

By contrast, the moving company’s survey found that the District of Columbia (62.5%) was once again the top destination in the U.S. for the fourth consecutive year, followed by Oregon (60.8%), Nevada (56.9%), North Carolina (56.4%) and Florida (55.1%) as the leading states with a high percentage of inbound migration.

Carl Walter, United’s vp, said the company has tracked migration patterns annually on a state-by-state basis since 1977. For 2011, United’s study is based on the more than 146,000 interstate household moves handled by the company among the 48 contiguous states and Washington, D.C., he added.

Illinois (60.8%) captured the top spot on the high-outbound traffic list, followed by New Jersey (60.5%), which claimed the top spot for high-outbound migration in 2010. Illinois, by contrast, was ranked fifth on the outbound list in 2010.

Yet the Northeast region of the U.S. saw the most high-outbound traffic list, United found. In addition to New Jersey, New York (58.3%), Rhode Island (56.3%), New Hampshire (56.1%), Connecticut (55.8%) and Maine (55.8%) all registered high outbound traffic in 2011.

By contrast, Michigan (58.0%) fell from third on the high-outbound list in 2010 to fourth place in 2011, after claiming the top outbound spot every year from 2006 to 2009.