TECHNICAL REPORT SERIES:

METROPOLITAN MIGRATION TRENDS, 1996-2001

May 2003

Knoxville Area Population Inflows and Outflows

It’s a nice place to visit...and I would want to live there!

According to recent migration statistics from the Census Bureau and the Internal Revenue Service, more people move into the Knoxville area than leave each year, and that has resulted in a net gain of 16,000 new residents since the late 1990s.

Knoxville’s six-county metropolitan area, or MSA, as the Census Bureau calls it (comprised of Anderson, Blount, Knox, Loudon, Sevier, and Union Counties), has attracted people from across the United States and other countries. Among the U.S. movers, newcomers to Knoxville are former residents of Midwest centers like Detroit, Chicago, and Dayton, and Sunbelt capitals such as Fort Lauderdale, Tampa, and Orlando. Residents of Tennessee cities have also made the move to Knoxville, coming in largest numbers from Memphis and the Tri-Cities. In total, more than 130,000 people relocated to Knoxville between 1996 and 2001, bringing $2.5 billion in income or $38,000 per household.

While the Knoxville area has been an attractive draw for newcomers, other cities across the country managed to lure away many locals. About 113,000 Knoxvillians departed for favorite Southern stops like Atlanta, Nashville, and Charlotte, while many others moved much further to top destinations such as Washington, Dallas, Oakland, and Seattle. Out-migrants took about $2.1 billion with them, averaging nearly $36,000 per household. Table 1: Net Migration Flows to Knoxville MSA, 1996/97-2000/01

Map 1: Where They Come From, Top 10 US Cities

TABLE 2: Top 25 Positive Flow Metropolitan Areas:
Net Flows To Knoxville MSA From Other Metropolitan Areas, 1996/97-2000/01

Map 2: Where They Go, Top 10 US Cities

TABLE 3: Top 25 Negative Flow Metropolitan Areas:
Net Flows From Knoxville MSA To Other Metropolitan Areas, 1996/97-2000/01

Agents of Change
Growth or decline of a city’s population can be boiled down to three basic forces: births, deaths, and migration. In Knoxville, the number of births and deaths has been very stable and predictable over the past several years. The metro area reported between 8,000 and 8,600 births each year of the last 10, and deaths ranged between 5,400 and 6,500 per year. But migration is a different story. The number of people that have relocated to Knoxville each year has fluctuated widely. Foreign in-migration ranged from a low of 227 in 1991 to a high of 502 in 1997. Domestic in-migration (movement of people from some other part of the U.S.) was as low as 1,800 in 1998 and as high as 8,500 in 1992. Migration and its rates of variation are a direct function of the attractiveness of Knoxville and the perceived unattractiveness of the places people choose to leave.

FIGURE 1: Demographic Components of Change:
Births, Deaths, and Migration

Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Population Estimates Program.

FIGURE 2: Knoxville MSA Employment by Industry

Source: Tennessee Department of Labor and Workforce Development, 2002.

Quality of Life
The most recent edition of the Places Rated Almanac, a nationally-recognized barometer of metropolitan quality, ranked Knoxville 13th best city for overall livability amid 353 competitors. Among centers with less than one million population, Knoxville topped the list. Its high scores were the result of an impressive showing in job growth, health care, recreation, education, and cost of living.

Not surprisingly, the cities that managed to steal away some of Knoxville’s best and brightest were also among the nation’s most favored cities. Washington, D.C. ranked number two in the survey. Seattle was third. Atlanta, one of the South’s leading service-industry centers, earned high marks, as did Nashville, the finance, insurance, and real estate capital of Tennessee. San Jose, California, in the heart of the Silicon Valley, and Raleigh-Durham, home to the Research Triangle, were also front runners on the list of America’s best places to live. (Salt Lake City, Utah received the highest ranking, but migration numbers showed very little exchange with Knoxville – a net trade of only three persons over the past several years.)

While facing stiff competition from these major service and research centers, Knoxville has performed well in attracting new migrants in part because of its own solid economic base. The area is home to several national and international business leaders. Some notable examples are Regal Cinemas, Clayton Homes, and Goody’s Family Clothing. Knoxville also boasts a high-tech research corridor extending from the Pellissippi area of Knox County to the national laboratory complex of Oak Ridge in Anderson County.

Moving … But Staying Home
A lot of Tennesseans were on the move between 1996 and 2001, but many of them stayed in their home state. Of the 130,000 people who came to the Knoxville area, 42,088, or one third, were from other Tennessee counties. With them came $689 million in total income, roughly $30,100 per household, which was below the MSA average of $36,900. At the same time, about 37 percent of the 113,000 out-migrants stayed in-state, representing a total of 42,611 people. They took $679 million with them, or $30,600 per household.

MAP 4: Where They Come From: Top 10 Counties

TABLE 4: Top 10 Positive Flow Counties:
Net Flows To Knoxville MSA From Other Tennessee Counties, 1996/97-2000/01

Knoxville attracted its largest number of Tennesseans from Shelby (Memphis), Sullivan (Tri-Cities), and Hamblen (Morristown) Counties. Residents of several rural East Tennessee counties were also drawn to Knoxville, coming largely from Claiborne, Greene, McMinn, Morgan, Bradley, and Scott Counties. Successfully snatching away Knoxvillians were nearby Jefferson County, as well as Monroe (near Chattanooga) and Nashville’s Davidson, Williamson, Rutherford, Sumner, and Wilson Counties.

MAP 3: Where They Go: Top 10 Counties

TABLE 5: Top 10 Negative Flow Counties:
Net Flows From Knoxville MSA To Other Tennessee Counties, 1996/97-2000/01

County-to-County Migration Within the Knoxville Metro Area
More than 27,000 families, or 52,000 people, moved from one of Knoxville’s six metropolitan counties to an adjacent county within the MSA. Knox County saw the greatest share of juggling, collecting 21,452 new residents, but losing 24,045. While Knox leaders may respond with concern, was the net loss of 2,600 citizens detrimental? Worries are often couched in terms of lost property tax revenues, declining work force, and weakened business opportunities, but the issues can be overstated. In fact, the Census Bureau’s recent journey-to-work figures should dispel a few of the fears. About 214,000 people work in Knox County each day. Nearly 56,000 of that total are commuters from neighboring counties. They travel to Knox every weekday, stay many hours before, during, and after work, and support the local economy in very tangible ways. The commuters provide both a labor supply and consumer base for local business, in turn contributing to viable industry (which then translates into business, sales, and property tax revenues) for Knox County. The Knoxville metropolitan area, by its very definition, is an interconnected network of people and places that extends beyond one county’s boundaries – making the whole greater than the sum of its parts.

MAP 5: County-to-County Migration Within the Knoxville MSA

TABLE 6: County-to-County Migration:
Knoxville Metropolitan Area Counties Number of Migrants (Exemptions)

International Migration
More than 2,100 people moved to the Knoxville area from other countries. About 500 were returning from U.S. military bases overseas, while the remaining 1,600 or so were foreign civilians. Of all newcomers to the area, civilian internationals comprised a very small share, just over one percent of the total. Among Knoxvillians moving away, fewer than 700 chose a foreign country, representing 0.6 percent of all outflows. International migration did, however, make up a sizeable share of the net movement to Knox. Twelve percent of households and nearly six percent of the net immigration were of foreign origin.

TABLE 7: Net Foreign Migration To Knoxville MSA, 1996/97-2000/01

Additional Information
The Metropolitan Planning Commission assembles and maintains an extensive collection of demographic data products, like population profiles, projections, thematic maps, and summary spreadsheets covering Knoxville, Knox County, and the metropolitan area. Contact the MPC Librarian at 215-2500 or see other pages on this website.

MPC contact person: Terry Gilhula

Printed copies of this report are available by contacting Gretchen Beal at 215-2500.

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