By Daniel B. Wood Daniel B. Wood Mon Mar 15, 7:24 pm ET
Los Angeles US immigrant populations are spreading out, a study released
Monday found.
New immigrants and their US-born descendants are expected to grow by 117
million by 2050, making up 82 percent of the US population growth over that
period, and will have important implications for housing demand at a time when
aging baby boomers are expected to retire and leave the housing market, the
study predicts.
New immigrants who once flocked to the large "gateway" cities of Los Angeles,
San Francisco, New York, and Chicago are now heading for smaller metropolitan
areas like Detroit and Minneapolis, Colorado Springs, Colo., Sarasota, Fla.,
and El Paso, Tex., according to the the study, released by the Lusk Center for
Real Estate at the University of Southen California. The census data used for
the study didn't take into account respondents' legal status.
Every city in the US is getting a sizable immigration population, said Gary
Painter, director of research at the Lusk Center and co-author of the study, in
a phone interview. We are no longer a country where immigration is largely
confined to just a few places.
The typical immigrant seen in these new places is likely to have been in the US
fewer than 10 years, he says, whereas the typical immigrant in a larger city
has likely been here much longer. The implication of this is that new
immigrants probably have less English language skills, are less likely to be
integrated, and are less likely to own a home.
We found that the immigrant communities in these smaller metro areas are much
less developed," Mr. Painter said. "The questions we need to ask ourselves are
'what sorts of policies do we want to pursue because of this?'
The study, Immigrants and Housing Markets in Mid-Size Metropolitan Areas by
Painter and co-author Zhou Yu, an assistant professor at the University of
Utah, looked at census data from 2000 to 2005 in 60 cities with housing priced
lower than in the major gateway cities. Over those five years, these mid-size
areas showed an average 27 percent rise in new immigrant population at the same
time that more traditional gateways registered a 6 percent decline.
Painter and Yu found that immigrants continue to have lower homeownership rates
than native-born Americans having the same income and education levels. "Many
of these immigrants may be waiting for other family members to join them before
setting down more permanent roots," explained Painter, who plans future
research into the disparity in homeownership rates.
Immigration watchers draw various lessons from the findings.
"Newly arriving immigrants are likely to settle where there are job
opportunities and affordable places to live,
Others point to wider trends. I m not sure how much this says about
immigration, per se, that immigrants are avoiding like the rest of us large
cities which are clogged with employment, the cost of living is higher, taxes
are higher, and the quality of life is deteriorating, says Mark Krikorian,
executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies in Washington, D.C.
Some immigrants' rights groups say the move to smaller cities makes sense.
Given the negative attitudes towards immigrants, the incessant persecution by
immigration agents, and the lack of jobs," says Jorge-Mario Cabrera of the
Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles, immigrants may believe
that smaller cities offer all the right options: a place to live unnoticed, a
somewhat welcoming environment, and less competition for lower-paying jobs.
Still others question whether it’s too soon to draw too many conclusions
because of the heated political climate, the recent downturn in the economy,
and the coming 2010 census.
This study is only looking at home ownership and may be overtaken by the next
census, says Karthick Ramakrishnan, who studies immigration patterns and
demographics at the University of California, Riverside. There are many
variables that need to be examined because of the push and pull over immigrants
some declaring that they drag the economy down and others saying it props
them up.