Florida, Nevada Shed People; Texas Gains

The recession has turned migration patterns on their heads in the last year. So-called magnet states in the West and South aren't so magnetic anymore, with Florida and Nevada starkly illustrating the trend. Earlier this decade, they both topped the growth charts, but now see more people on the way out than on the way in. Florida “was a growth machine,” a demographer tells the Washington Post. “And it just sort of stopped.”

Texas saw the biggest population increase in the year ending July 1, with 478,000 new residents, says the Census. Wide open states like Utah and Wyoming had even higher growth rates. Urban locales like California, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and New York are doing better after years of decline, while states such as Arizona, Idaho, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia are on the downswing.

(More Florida stories.)