The other day Dan Beenken shared with me a link to Forbs Magazine’s interactive county migration map for 2008. What an incredible tool! I only wish that you could look through years 2009 and as much as 2010 as possible to really begin to see longer term trends- but the information captured here in just this year alone is very interesting. I would recommend watching the below video from CBS that recaps what was going on in 2008 before continuing on with the blog.

As you may or may not recall, there was a whole lot going on in the U.S. during 2008. I went through some of the counties in Iowa and found a few worthy of note. First off, Monona County in west-central Iowa did a good job of keeping and even slightly growing their population base. I called Sara Struble, Executive Director of Monona County Economic Development about what she attributed the growth in ’08 to. Sara said that she has been noticing a lot of 30-somethings moving back to Monona County to raise their families. That the community’s safety and high quality education are a big draw to young or expectant parents. She even mentioned local High School Whiting High’s honor of being awarded by U.S. News & World Report as being in the top 8 percent of schools in the US! Sara also said that the county’s proximity to Sioux City makes it an ideal location for many commuters.

Dallas County also had tremendous growth, but this isn’t as surprising given its proximity to Des Moines and the general growth pattern they have been experiencing the past few years. According to their annual 07-08 report, “the [Economic Development] Alliance assisted with new business locations and expansions creating and retaining over 2,400 jobs […]" and “activity looks promising for continued growth, as we continue to work with 28 active projects with high interest in our service territory and nearly 150 projects pending at this time;" this all taken from the opening letter from Clyde Evans, President of the Greater Dallas County Development Alliance.

Not only did we have some major county successes in Iowa, we obviously had some big migrations out of the state as well. If you click on Polk County, you can’t help but be struck by the large streaks of red that seem to flow mostly out to our coasts- California, Florida, New Jersey, Virginia, Texas and Washington (State).

While talking to another co-worker, Courtney Schwitzer, she mentioned that it was interesting to her to find the counties where little movement was present because it probably signaled that people are comfortable with where they are. While thinking about this, I became equally struck with the fact that most people, at least in 2008, only moved a county or two away from where they were originally. It's strange that people who were obviously willing to move, did not move further away where they could presumably get a whole new or higher paying job (this happened all across the Midwest- not just Iowa).

Please checkout Forbe's Interactive Map of Migration for 2008 for yourself and tell us what you think!