Progress 07/01/24 to 06/30/25
Outputs
Target Audience:July 2024 - Peter Nelson and John Cromartie both attended the Rural Sociological Society's Annual Meeting in Madison, Wisconsin. They co-presented a paper using a modified version of migration efficiency to reveal changes in system wide urban-rural migration flows during the COVID-19 pandemic. This meeting is attended by rural sociologists, geographers, and professional practitioners concerned with rural socioeconomic dynamics. July 2024 - Peter Nelson attended the American Applied Economics Association Annual Meeting in New Orleans and presented on a panel focused on Applying for USDA NIFA funding with 4 other NIFA PIs. That conference draws mainly applied economists and practitioners. July 2024 - Peter Nelson attended the NIFA principal investigators annual meeting in New Orleans where he gave a one-year project update to other NIFA PIs from a broad array of fields. September 2024 - Peter Nelson and John Cromartie attended the annual meeting for the W5001 Multi-state project, "Rural Population Change and Adaptation in the Context of Health, Economic, and Environmental Shocks and Stressors" in Kansas City, MO. This annual meeting brings together demographers, sociologists, and geographers working on rural demographic change. Spring 2025 - Peter Nelson incorporated results generated from this project into a unit for his Population Geography course focused in contemporary urban-rural migration flows. This course draws students from across all liberal arts disciplines. March 2025 - John Cromartie, Peter Nelson, and Helena Gu (undergraduate RA) presented research papers at the American Association of Geographers Annual meeting in Detroit. Attendance at the paper session included other academics from the US, Europe, Canada, and Asia along with community development professionals and policy makers. April 2025 - Helena Gu and Isaiah Bennett presented work at the Middlebury College Annual Spring Research Symposium. This event draws faculty and student audiences from across all disciplines at the College. Changes/Problems:
Nothing Reported
What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?During PY2 both Peter Nelson and John Cromartie continued to develop RStudio skills using the markdown notebook features to more easily share and collaborate on the analysis. Peter Nelson employed three different undergraduate research assistants to support project goals throughout PY2, specifically goals # 2 and #3. In addition, data provided through this project was used in two undergraduate senior capstone projects one of which was presented at the American Association of Geographers annual meeting in Detroit. This undergraduate will be pursuing a Master's Degree in Social Policy and Data Analytics at the University of Pennsylvania next year. The other senior project developed new techniques for geo-visualizing migration flows. This student showcased these techniques in a campus-wide research symposium and earned a prestigious Dangermond Fellowship doing geospatial analysis for the Audubon Society for next year. The project also enabled Peter Nelson to attend the Rural Sociological Society's annual meetings in Madison, Wisconsin. Rural sociologists are keenly interested in demographic change across rural America, so through this conference, Peter Nelson was able to broaden his network of professional contacts. Peter Nelson taught his Population Geography course in spring of 2025 and used both data and results from this project to expand course content on domestic migration. 32 students enrolled in this course from all class years and a wide array of academic disciplines benefitted from this expanded content. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?Peter Nelson and John Cromartie are active participants in the W5001 multi-state project examining"Rural Population Change and Adaptation in the Context of Health, Economic, and Environmental Shocks and Stressors". We both attend the annual meetings to keep other scholars from Sociology, Geography, and Demography informed about this project. Peter Nelson taught a senior seminar (fall 2024) on population migration, and he used this project as a model to guide the 16 students in the course through the research design process. He also taught a Population Geography elective to 32 students (spring 2025). A sizeable portion of the course explores contemporary geographies of migration, so content derived from this project reached a diverse array of undergraduates from both the United States (representing 16 different states)and abroad (Philippenes, China, Hong Kong, Canada, Thailand). Both PIs along with undergraduate research assistants have presented papers, posters, and panels at Geography, Rural Sociology, and Applied Economics conferences to reach a broad array of academics and practitioners. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?PYs 1 and 2 have focused primarily on analytical goals determining the shifting temporal and spatial dimensions of urban-rural migration systems during the pandemic. These results have formed the basis for several distinct presentations at professional meetings. For PY3, we have two primary goals. First, we plan to replicate the two case study analyses (Berkshire and NYC) for other places to determine the extent to which migration responses in these cases are similar to those in other locations. In addition, during PY3, we intend to focus on writing and submitting manuscripts based on the results to date. Ambitiously, we hope to submit three manuscripts for review during PY3.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
Goal #1 In project year (PY1), we determined that in-migration from urban to rural regions accelerated as early as April of 2020, two to three months sooner than the typical summer peak in rural in-migration. In PY2, we used Rogerson and Bagchi-Sen's (2023) weighted migration efficiency measure to determine that system-wide urban-rural efficiency declined as the pandemic progressed. Declining migration efficiency indicates more movement back and forth between urban and rural places or increased population circulation. Efficiencies dropped to particularly low levels for nonmetropolitan recreation dependent destinations that tend to experience net migration gains - suggesting even more circulation and temporary relocation in these areas. In PY2, the analysis explored the temporal dimensions to migration responses in greater detail. Tracing the complete residential record for each mobile device in the database allows the analysis to classify moves as temporary or permanent. Work done related to this research goal determined that moves initiated in February of 2020 were much more likely to be temporary. It is likely that movers who had recently arrived in a destination when the pandemic hit in March of 2020 made return moves to places of origin. In contrast, moves initiated in March of 2020 showed a greater degree of permanence. In this case, it is likely that the pandemic triggered households that had been thinking about moving to act on their migration intentions. The unique temporal scale (monthly) of these data allows for greater assessment of seasonal migration rhythms. In PY2, the analysis determined a much more muted seasonality in migration flows between urban and rural regions. In 2019, temporary urban to rural migration shows a pronounced summer peak (between June and August). This summer seasonality diminished considerably in 2020 and 2021. Temporary urban to rural migration accelerated in April of 2020 and remained at levels higher than before the pandemic throughout the year. The diminished seasonality is most pronounced in the nonmetropolitan Northeast and Midwest. Goal #2 The tract-level analysis related to research goal #2 took the form of two in-depth case studies, one focusing on out-migration to rural regions from NYC and the second examining migration down the urban hierarchy into the Berkshires of western Massachusetts. The NYC case study reveals uniquely different migration responses from affluent neighborhood origins compared with those flows originating from lower income neighborhoods. Devices from affluent neighborhoods were more likely to move greater distances and toward high amenity recreation destinations. In addition, flows from affluent neighborhoods were more likely to follow established out-migration paths indicating these flows as 'onward moves'. Flows originating from lower income tracts were more likely to move shorter distances and be directed toward the southern states of North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia. In addition, these flows from low income tracts were drawn toward counties that have been long-established origins for migration into NYC indicating the possibility that these households were making return migrations. Tract level analysis from the Berkshires highlights the unique challenges that these migration dynamics pose in the context of rural and small-town housing markets. The largest pandemic induced outflows from Berkshire County originated from tracts with the highest housing cost burdens measured in terms of the ratio of income to housing costs. Out-migrants from these tracts disproportionately moved into adjacent counties with lower housing costs relative to income. In contrast, the Berkshire case study further determined that, during the first year of the pandemic,there were highly efficient inflows to the county from metropolitan origin tracts with high incomes relative to housing costs. These origin tracts were most concentrated in core areas in regional metro centers (i.e. NYC, Boston). This income-to-housing differential is likely to drive up housing costs down the urban hierarchy. Goal #3 Work related to research goal #3 reveals temporary migration is quite common, and migration data based on annual estimates of migration is likely to overlook considerable movement within any given year. Over the three year period, 6.7 million devices of the ~35 million devisesin the databasemoved 2-3 times, and 1.48 million devices moved 4+ times. Therefore, using annual estimates of migration masks considerable amounts of short-term temporary migration. Moreover, temporary movement shows slight increases during the first two years of pandemic, and these increases were more pronounced in the Northeastand Midwest. These increases were most common in recreation-based counties. The analysis related to goal #3 further reveals temporary migrants into rural regions increased the lengths of their stays in their rural destinations, particularly those classified as recreation based counties. Stays in recreation-based counties of 4-6 months nearly doubled between 2019 and 2020, and stays greater than 6 months increased more than 30%. Once more, these increases longer duration stayswere most pronounced in the Northeast and Midwest census regions. Goal #4 - Nothing to report Goal #5 - Nothing to report
Publications
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Progress 07/01/23 to 06/30/24
Outputs
Target Audience:September 2023 - Peter Nelson and John Cromartie attended the annual meeting for the W5001 Multi-state project, "Rural Population Change and Adaptation in the Context of Health, Economic, and Environmental Shocks and Stressors" in Nashville, TN. We announced the award and gave a brief project update to group members representing local, state, and federal government agencies as well as researchers at both public and private universities and colleges. January 2024 - Taught 12 undergraduate students a Data Science for Geography course using datasets developed as part of this project. April 2024 - John Cromartie gave a lunch time talk to members of his research branch at USDA's Economic Research Service April 2024 - John Cromartie and Peter Nelson both presented research papers at the American Association of Geographers Annual meeting in Honolulu, Hawaii. Attendance at the paper session included other academics from the US, Europe, Canada, and Asia along with community development professionals and policy makers. Changes/Problems:
Nothing Reported
What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?The data acquisition and pre-processing stage of the project required Peter Nelson and his two research assistants to develop new data science skills, particularly those related to data management and cloud-based storage/computing. Through this project, John Cromartie has transitioned to using RStudio as his primary data management, analysis, and visualization software. Using this open-source software facilitates easier collaboration across the research team and allows for a greater degree of replicability of research procedures. More researchers at ERS are using RStudio for analysis, so acquiring these skills through this project has benefits for Cromartie's work beyond this specific project. In January of 2024, Peter Nelson taught a Data Science for Geography course, enrolling 12 students, and these students worked extensively for four weeks on applications drawing on project data. These students developed data management, analysis, and visualization skills as well as techniques for building interactive web-based applications for querying and visualization these migration data. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?Thus far, we have disseminated results from this project through three public presentations. Working Research Seminar given to researchers in the Rural Economy Branch of USDAs Economic Research Service, April 2024. Cromartie, John (2024) Regional and rural-urban differences in migration efficiency before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. Presentation given at the American Association of Geographers Annual Meetings, Honolulu, HI, April 17. Nelson, Peter B. and Jorre Dahl (2024) Temporal shifts in urban-to-rural migration during the COVID-19 pandemic. Presentation given at the American Association of Geographers Annual Meetings, Honolulu, HI, April 17. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?For project year #2, our efforts will be focused on the following objectives: Draft a manuscript for submission to Population, Space, and Place based on the results from Peter Nelson's AAG presentation. Begin to replicate the county-based analysis completed during Project Year 1 at the tract scale (Research Goal #2). Build more detailed case studies focusing on flows between specific places (Research Goal 1-5). For example, how did the volume and timing of flows between New York City and rural destinations in northern New England change throughout the pandemic? Or, from where did the primary flows into recreation counties originate, and how did these flows vary across regions? Once we have a prototype for these more specific place-based case studies, we can reproduce these case studies for any number of possible origins and destinations. Begin to build a template for the project website to more broadly disseminate results (Research Goal 4).
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
The first month plus of the project was spent acquiring the mobile phone location data from the vendor (Veraset) and developing procedures for processing this unusually large dataset containing well over 1 billion observations. After this acquisition and pre-processing state, the majority of effort in this initial project year focused on Research Goals #1 and #3, and in doing so, we have also made progress toward Goal #5. Below we briefly describe specific results pertaining to these particular research goals. Additional detail, including slide decks with images of results is available upon request. Goal 1-1 Describe how the timing and geography of migration responsesvaried throughout the first two years of the pandemic. When and where did urban-to-rural migration begin to accelerate and how did these flows change over time? Initial county-level analysis of these mobile phone data utilizes the concept of 'migration efficiency'. The analysis reveals how the pandemic sparked an earlier onset of urban-to-rural migration than in a typical year. Data from 2019 show, as expected, urban to rural migration increases in June and July corresponding to summer holiday movements, and migration flows return to rural-to-urban movements as summer ends. In 2020, at the onset of the pandemic, urban to rural migration peaked in April, two full months before the typical summer shift and there was sustained urban to rural migration over a longer time-period in 2020 persisting further into the fall months. By late 2020 and through the first 6 months of 2021, there was a prolonged period of urban-to-rural migration, though not as pronounced as the initial surge during Spring of 2020 as the pandemic swept across space. Goal 1-2 Identify and mapplaces wheremigration responses werepermanent versus temporary.For some, the pandemic-induced migration initiated a permanent move to a new residential location while for others the migration response was temporary with an eventual return to their place of origin. Where were these temporally different migration responses more common in terms of regional location and position along the urban-rural hierarchy? We disaggregated the results pertaining to Goal 1-1 for each US Census Region and for the various county typologies defined by the Economic Research Service. These earlier peaks in urban-to-rural movements were consistent across all US Census Regions, yet the peaks were most pronounced in recreation dependent counties. The more pronounced flows arriving in recreation dependent counties at the onset of the pandemic areconsistent with other work on this topic. Goals 3-1, -2, -3 Bring to light new temporal forms of migration invisible within conventional migration data sources in order to distinguish betweenpermanent movers- those devices that changed locations and then remained at that new location for the remainder of the study period - andtemporary movers? We successfully developed procedures to identify temporary movers who cycle back and forth between origin-destination pairs, and our initial analysis focuses on those who moved between sets of urban and rural destinations. This new window into temporal dimensions of migration shows the rhythms of temporary urban-to-rural migration shifted during the pandemic. For example, the volume of temporary urban-to-rural movers increased two-fold in April of 2020 when compared with April of 2019, and these April 2020 movers remained in their rural destinations for longer durations (by several months) before returning to their urban origins than similar temporary movers from spring of 2019. Goal 5-1 Strengthen regional research networks within Vermont by leveraging the skill sets and expertise of scholars from different institutions within Vermont throughout the duration of the project. Collaborators from Middlebury College and University of Vermont worked closely together during the initial data acquisition stage of the project. Specifically, Eric Clark, Data Scientist at University of Vermont established the procedures for secure data transfer from the data vendor to Peter Nelson's Amazon Cloud Storage so Nelson and his research assistants could begin the processing and analysis. The data transfer would not have been possible without Clark's collaboration.
Publications
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