Published Sunday | March 9, 2008
Metro area lures from the Midlands, but loses to the nationBY PAUL GOODSELL
WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER

• Migration lands an economic blow

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• Migration lands an economic blow
You know this part of the story: When moving vans rumbled across Missouri a few years ago to transfer Union Pacific employees from St. Louis, the Omaha area got a big boost.

Click to enlarge.But according to a new study of federal tax returns, for every 100 newcomers gained from St. Louis, the Omaha metro lost 154 residents to Phoenix, Dallas and Kansas City. All told, the Omaha area wound up with a net loss of nearly 1,200 over three years to places outside Nebraska and western Iowa.

"We're losing out to larger metropolitan areas," said David Drozd, a research associate for the University of Nebraska at Omaha's Center for Public Affairs Research.

The Omaha area continues to gain population overall through migration, as well as from births. But despite some success stories - including the Union Pacific transfers - the migration gains for the Omaha area have come mainly by drawing people from elsewhere in Nebraska and western Iowa.

And migration to the Omaha area has slowed. For 2006, the most recent year available, the metro area's net gain was about one-third as large as in each of the two previous years.

Meanwhile, suburban development has caused population shifts within the eight-county Omaha metro area. Douglas County, home to the region's largest city, has lost more than 5,500 residents to the seven other counties - including three in western Iowa.

Migration is a fact of American life, with nearly 14 million people on the move each year to a new state or at least a different county. The resulting population shifts are important, partly because they may help or hurt the local economy - including the housing market - as well as government tax collections.

Click to enlarge.Migration also can influence a community's self-image, because it reveals whether people are choosing to move to an area or leave it.

UNO's Drozd analyzed population shifts from data collected by the Internal Revenue Service, which tracks movers through income tax returns. The World-Herald did additional analysis of the IRS data.

Cara James and her family accounted for five of the area's additions when they moved from Oklahoma in early 2006 for her job at First National Bank.

It was tough to leave family and friends, she said, even for a good career move. But Omaha was a comfortable move because the city felt comparable to Tulsa and the schools are good, she said. For her children - now 16, 14 and 12 - moving to a big city such as Dallas would have been much more of a culture shock.

"It was a good option for our family," James said.

Omaha has received a number of big migration boosts recently. From 2003 to 2004, Gallup moved a major part of its operations from Lincoln. The Union Pacific shift came the following year.

"Without that, things would have been different - and not in a positive way - for Omaha," Drozd said.

Click to enlarge.Migration isn't the only way an area grows or shrinks. Natural growth - births minus deaths - tends to be a bigger factor.

The IRS migration figures do not include everyone who moves. Some illegal immigrants file income tax returns, but others do not, for example.

Even with those limitations, however, the IRS migration data paint a vivid picture of how people are moving in, out and around the Midlands:

• Smaller counties are losing thousands of residents to Nebraska's 13 largest cities. Over the past three years, for example, Red Willow County in southwest Nebraska, which includes McCook, saw a shift of 104 residents to the North Platte area and 94 to Kearney. Still others moved to Lincoln.

• Cities such as North Platte, Kearney and Lincoln have lost population to Omaha as well as to other parts of the country.

• Omaha lost people to the rest of the nation. Phoenix gained a net 771 people from Omaha during the three years. Dallas, Las Vegas and Tampa, Fla., in the Sunbelt also lured away Omahans.

Local real estate agents say those patterns make sense. Retirees flock to places with warmer weather and lower taxes, and younger people often want the excitement of a bigger city with more nightlife.

"This is a very family-oriented, couples town," said Van Deeb of Deeb Realty. Omaha's downtown offers more than ever, he said, but still has trouble competing with places with more vibrant images.

The Omaha metro area also fared poorly compared to Midwestern cities such as Kansas City and Minneapolis. St. Joseph, Mo., and Des Moines also had a migration edge over Omaha.

On the other hand, the Omaha area had a net migration gain with some cities. St. Louis was Omaha's biggest single migration source outside Nebraska, thanks to Union Pacific, but Omaha drew people from Los Angeles and Chicago. Omaha also attracted residents from New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.

Deeb said he sees people who are drawn to Omaha by job opportunities but also because the city offers good schools, a reasonable cost of living and friendly people. He said people can live more balanced lives here.

Sometimes people leave the Omaha area when they are young and single, he said, then move back when they have families.

That's what happened to Deeb, who grew up in Omaha and graduated from UNO before moving to Dallas.

"It was a blast," he said of Dallas. "It was a dream, and it was exciting."

But after he became a father more than a decade later, he saw the value of returning to Omaha.

"I think we're very attractive to families," Deeb said.
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Published Sunday | March 9, 2008
Migration lands an economic blow
BY PAUL GOODSELL
WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER

• Metro area lures from the Midlands, but loses to the nation

RELATED

• Metro area lures from the Midlands, but loses to the nation
The Omaha area's suburban growth is taking people away from Douglas County.

Most are moving to fast-growing Sarpy County, where new homes have sprouted in what once were farm fields. Other people are crossing the Missouri River to Iowa.

All told, Douglas County lost nearly 5,600 residents through migration to the metro area's other seven counties in 2004, 2005 and 2006.

The resulting shift in economic strength — $178 million in adjusted gross income, according to federal tax filings — is an important issue for local governments in Douglas County.

Omaha city officials have expressed concern about losing sales tax revenue as new stores open outside the city limits. And Sarpy County's growing school enrollment and property tax base is a major reason that the Legislature made it part of the Omaha area's new learning community education cooperative.

Douglas County's population continues to grow, thanks to births, immigrants from other countries and an influx of people from elsewhere in Nebraska. Suburban migrants may still work and shop in Douglas County, and they remain part of the broader Omaha area economy.

But there's no question that the core county of the Omaha metro area has lost some of its potential economic strength.

All seven other counties took population from Douglas County, with Sarpy alone gaining nearly 4,200 people from Douglas. An additional 700 went to Iowa's Mills, Pottawattamie and Harrison Counties.

Those weren't Iowa's only gains. An additional 400 people moved to the three Iowa counties from Sarpy and Cass in Nebraska.

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