In a surprising turn of events, small towns in America, reminiscent of the idyllic Mayberry from the 1960s television series 'The Andy Griffith Show', experienced an unprecedented influx of new residents in 2023.
This marked the first time in several decades that these smaller locales surpassed their larger counterparts in terms of in-migration.
The shift towards remote work, which initially emerged as a response to the pandemic, has continued to influence migratory patterns, according to Hamilton Lombard, a demographer at the University of Virginia. Lombard's research indicates that an estimated 291,400 individuals relocated to America's small towns and rural areas in 2023. These areas, defined as metropolitan regions with a population of 250,000 or fewer, saw a higher net migration than larger areas for the first time since the 1970s.
Lombard's research, which utilizes data from the US Census Bureau, reveals that areas with populations ranging from 250,000 to 1 million experienced a net in-migration of 266,448 individuals in 2023. Meanwhile, regions with populations between 1 million and 4 million saw only a modest increase. In stark contrast, areas with over 4 million residents experienced a significant population decline, losing nearly 600,000 individuals.
Lombard attributes this shift to the increased geographical flexibility provided by remote work. "With a third of workdays being done remotely in 2023, Americans have more geographic flexibility and have been increasingly willing to move far from large population centers if their destination offers a good quality of life," he wrote.
However, this study only considers domestic migration and does not account for immigration from outside the US. The influx of new residents is already transforming the quaint, Mayberry-like character of America's small towns. For instance, Martinsville, a small town in southern Virginia, once known as the world's "Sweatshirt Capital" for its textile industry, has experienced significant wage growth and ranked second in Virginia's domestic migration rate last year.
The continued growth of small towns is contingent on the persistence of the work-from-home trend, Lombard noted. He cited a study from Stanford University, which estimated that about 28% of paid workdays in the US as of March were remote. Although this is a decrease from the pandemic period, it is significantly higher than pre-COVID-19 levels. "If remote work sticks around, it seems like this trend will stick around," Lombard concluded.
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