Don't click on this link

Don't click on this link unless you have some time to spare. The Where Americans are moving interactive map of the ten million who moved to a different county in 2008 at Forbes.com can be addicting. It is based on IRS statistics. Moves into a county are shown with black lines, moves out with red.

There is a huge fan of red spreading out from Wayne county, Michigan (Detroit) and a black funnel into Harris county, Texas (Houston). Florida seems to have had mixed outcomes. People came in from the northeast and Midwest, but there was also a large exit, often to other states in the Southeast. I can attest to that, Here is western Carolina it is pretty much assumed all newcomers are Floridians unless they state else wise. California shows a similar pattern. A great many people moved out in all directions, but there was also a large influx of people from the Northeast.

Recently I heard of more than one old friend from Minnesota moving from the Twin Cities area to live full time to the North woods. This map shows that there is indeed a small migration of people from the Twin Cities to the resort areas of Northern Minnesota and Wisconsin in progress. If that migration of newcomers was one factor in Wisconsin Congressman David Obey's decision to retire after 40 years in Congress, does it have implications for another Congressional dinosaur, too? James Oberstar has been in Congress longer than any other Minnesotan, having been first elected in 1974. His Minnesota district is adjacent to Obey's and the map shows lots of change in his stronghold of St. Louis county.