Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
California is the main gateway today - 3.9% of the state's estimated population
on July 1, 2005, immigrated in the past five years, a proportion which is nearly twice
the national average. Nowadays, the San Francisco metropolitan area is the city that
is most attractive to immigrants, before Los Angeles, which ranks only second.
Immigration is an urban phenomenon. While 81% of new immigrants live in one of
the 52 cities with one or more million inhabitants in the US, only 58% of the total
population lives in big cities (see Figure 3.10).
Considered separately, Miami is the city most affected by immigration today. In
the Northeast, New York continues to be a magnet to immigration. Among the new
big cities of the South, the Texas cities of Dallas and Houston gain the most
economic benefits from immigration, followed by Phoenix, Arizona. At the other
end of the scale, the least dynamic cities of the United States are Pittsburgh,
Pennsylvania, and New Orleans, Louisiana. At a regional level, the Appalachians,
the Mississippi Valley, and the northern High Plains are practically exempt from any
recent immigration. Immigrants represent only 0.2% of the population of the states
of Montana and West Virginia.
Immigration contributes increasingly to maintaining the demographic growth of
cities. Between 2000 and 2005, half of the population growth of metropolitan areas
with one million or more inhabitants was due to immigration. Among these mega-
cities, only three lost any population over this period - Cleveland, Buffalo, and
Pittsburgh. They are among the least attractive cities to immigrants, which represent
less than 1% of their populations in 2005. Three other big cities of apparently little
interest to immigrants are the Great Lake cities of Rochester, Milwaukee and
Detroit; all three lost population, having experienced no new immigrant arrivals. At
the other end of the scale, the three cities most attractive to immigrants, Miami, San
Francisco, and New York, would also have lost population if it were not for the
contribution of immigration. The metropolitan areas of Boston and Los Angeles are
in similar situations.
