The idea of youth flight from Vermont seems like an article of faith. Everyone knows young people who have left the state for college, for jobs and for a different lifestyle. But it turns out the numbers show nearly as many young people are coming to Vermont as leaving.
“You tend not to know the people coming in. But they’re there,” says Paul Cillo, president and executive director of Public Assets Institute.
According to data from the Internal Revenue Service, nearly as many young people are moving to Vermont as those leaving, dispelling the popular notion that Vermont is losing young people in droves.
Cillo has been analyzing the IRS information based on tax returns filed, which has only been available for the past three tax years.
“I think the lesson is that we don’t need to be thinking about how do we seal the borders. We just acknowledge that there’s a natural flow of people,” he says.
Nationally, the most mobile age group is people under 36 years old. Cillo says even for that group, the number who migrate to and from Vermont is fairly small – about 15,000 annually.
Tony Brogna is one example of the in-migration. He and his wife moved to Vermont in 2009 when he was 31.
“We said, ‘Let’s just pick up and move to Vermont.' We left Boston without jobs and came here and found our way," he says.
Brogna and his wife were drawn to Vermont because they felt it was a better match for them personally and professionally.
“I don’t want to be cliché,” he says. “Everybody says the outdoors. I think it was the spirit of collaboration and community.”
The question comes up of whether Chittenden County is the destination for most young people moving to Vermont. It’s a difficult one to answer.
The IRS data show migration to and from Vermont among all age groups is fairly evenly distributed among Vermont counties, on a per-capita basis.
But according to Census Bureau data from 2000 and 2010, all but two Vermont counties, Caledonia and Chittenden, lost people ages 15 to 34 in that period. In most cases the numbers are small. But Chittenden County saw a 9.8 percent increase in that age group, and Essex County 15 to 34 population declined 18.7 percent.
"Net overall there's more people coming to Chittenden County from the counties than are leaving Chittenden County to the other counties." — Michael Moser, coordinator of the Vermont State Data Center
Those numbers could be due to several of factors.
Something working in Chittenden County’s favor is the fact young people are moving in not only from out of state, but from other Vermont counties.
“We’re not talking about massive numbers or anything, but net overall there’s more people coming to Chittenden County from the counties than are leaving Chittenden County to the other counties,” says Michael Moser, coordinator of the Vermont State Data Center.
Jane Kolodinsky, director of the UVM Center for Rural Studies, says there are reasons to believe a longstanding trend of people moving from rural areas to urban areas is subsiding and the youth migration figures might be an indication of that.
“I would almost hypothesize that we’re going to have a resurgence of rural America again in the next 20 years,” she says.
Kolodinsky says she anticipates an increasing number of young people coming to Vermont, some for the first time, some who are returning home. She says quality of life will likely be the main driver.
"I would almost hypothesize that we're going to have a resurgence of rural America again in the next 20 years." — Jane Kolodinsky, UVM Center for Rural Studies director
Despite the fact that there is no stampede of young people out of here, Vermont is still an aging state with a low birth rate and stagnant population numbers.
Some would argue that the number of young people moving in needs to increase even more to address those problems.
Paul Cillo of Public Assets doesn’t disagree.
“I think that’s why we would say particularly with the under 26 and 26-to-34 age groups, to really look at what are those people who are coming to Vermont [are] seeing in Vermont and then to build on that,” he says.
Cillo says that we shouldn’t be as concerned about young Vermonters leaving to experience other people and places. The key is to understand what will bring them back.
