Maybe it’s the barbeque, but then again, maybe it’s the jazz or the baseball. Something is drawing new residents to Kansas City, Missouri.
In fact, the metro area added more than 20,000 new residents between July 2015 and July 2016, according to the latest census data. During that time, the population went from 2,084,464 to 2,104,509, about a 1 percent increase. Jackson County, where Kansas City is located, grew slightly more slowly during that time, going from 686,373 to 691,801 people, a 0.8 percent increase. (The metro area is larger than the county, so its population is bigger.)
Some of that growth comes from new births and immigration, but a good chunk of it is also due to people moving into Kansas City from other places in the U.S. Indeed, Jackson County attracted 34,164 domestic movers from 2011 to 2015, according to another census study that covers those years.
So, if your favorite barbeque joint or jazz club or Kauffman Stadium feels a little more crowded these days, you may be wondering where all those people are coming from. That same census study gives us a pretty good idea. The majority, 57 percent, is moving from other places in the U.S., while the rest, 43 percent, is moving from within Missouri.
An alternative for this article might be “We’re Not in Kansas Anymore”— it turns out that most of the out-of-staters are coming from next door.
Below are rankings for the top five counties of origin for movers to Jackson County:
Movers outside of Missouri:
- Johnson County, KS (Overland Park)
- Wyandotte County, KS (Kansas City, Kansas)
- Douglas County, KS (Lawrence)
- Douglas County, NE (Omaha)
- Sedgwick County, KS (Wichita)
Movers from Missouri:
- Cass County
- Clay County
- Greene County
- Platte County
- Boone County
Above are the top places inside Missouri that people moved to Jackson County from over the five-year period 2011-2015. Numbers represent the number of movers from that place during the period.
