Overview

Timely data to help you identify growing areas

For a geographic area, our Emerging Areas dataset examines the inflow and outflow of people along with their income indicators, and classifies the area’s growth and change in composition. We identify the features / characteristics of an “emerging area” and then rank the areas that are over-indexed for those characteristics.

This feature service includes the full set of attributes listed below, providing insights at the tract-level for all 384 MSAs within the US, and aggregated on a monthly level for the most recent 12 months. This data is updated on a monthly basis with a ten-week lag in order to accurately capture moves.

Please note that the data in this feature service is not exportable. If you would like this dataset available as a downloadable table, for a different time period, or geography, please get in touch with us here.

You gain an exclusive view into the arrival and departure of people in a specified geographical area. Emerging Areas also calculates the potential impact to an area's income levels, and helps identify patterns more rapidly than traditional datasets.

Regardless of whether you’re a residential or commercial real estate investor, agent, underwriter, analyst, developer, construction company, leasing manager, or mortgage lender, you need actionable data to facilitate smarter, informed decisions that keep you a step ahead of the competition. 

Fields Included

• observation_start_date - Observation Start Date
• observation_end_date - Observation End Date
• area_id - Tract ID
• county_name - County
• state_name - State
• cbsa_id - MSA ID
• cbsa_name - MSA 
• cbsa_type - MSA Type
• inflow - Population Inflow
• outflow - Population Outflow
• total_net_flow - Population Total Net Flow
• weekly_net_flow - Population Weekly Net Flow
• income_inflow - Income Inflow
• area_income_median - Area Median Income
• income_diff - Income Difference
• seasonal_classification_population - Seasonal classification for population
• seasonal_classification_income - Seasonal classification for income
• yearly_classification_population - Yearly classification for population
• yearly_classification_income - Yearly classification for income
• confidence_interval_width - Confidence interval width of underlying moves
  
• total_population - Total Population
• university_flag - University Flag (Indicates if university students in an area are estimated to comprise of 10% of more of the local population - these are areas that may see more volatile trends due to student movements)
• zone_type - Zone Type (Indicates if this area is a designated Opportunity Zone)

Area Classifications

Seasonal Classification: Population
Growing Population - The absolute difference in net flow (extrapolated to a full year) between the three most recent months and the same three months the previous year leads to a population growth of >5% (tract-level) or >2% (county-level). 
Declining Population - The absolute difference in net flow (extrapolated to a full year) between the three most recent months and the same three months the previous year leads to a population growth of <-5% (tract-level) or <-2% (county-level).
Stable - An area that does not meet any of the other criteria.

Seasonal Classification: Income
Growing Income - The average income of population inflows in the most recent three months is >20% (tract-level) or >10% (county-level) higher than the same period from the previous year, and this difference is established to be statistically significant.
Stable - An area that does not meet any of the other criteria.

Yearly Classification: Population
Growing Population - The average population growth rate over the last 12 months is >5% (tract-level) or >2% (county-level). 
Declining Population - The average population growth rate over the last 12 months is <-5% (tract-level) or <-2% (county-level).
Stable - An area that does not meet any of the other criteria.

Yearly Classification: Income
Growing Income - The average income of population inflows over the last 12 months is >20% (tract-level) or >10% (county-level) higher than the median income of the area itself, and this difference is established to be statistically significant.
Stable - An area that does not meet any of the other criteria.

Please note that this version of the Migration Patterns product has now been deprecated. This dataset is still accessible but a newer, improved version is now available direct from Unacast. If you are interested in getting access to this, please contact us via email or using this form.

Resources

Emerging Areas Blog Post
Emerging Areas Use Cases
Emerging Areas Webinar