Thursday, May 25, 2006
Not all economists befuddled
It should come as no surprise that Milwaukee is seeing flight from the central city to its suburbs. The map I just linked shows the MSA. If there are that many people moving to the edges of the MSA by 2000, it stands to reason that more people are moving (just) outside the MSA now. People are willing to make longer trips now (between the 1990 and 2000 Censuses, average commute times rose 3.1 minutes to 25.5 minutes each way.) I suspect Milwaukee is just seeing people move out. But along with that follows services like retail. If the population is moving out of the metro Milwaukee area, so too do the service jobs. It's worth noting that goods-sector employment has risen by almost 1000 over the last 12 months there.
It's also worth remembering in this story that the unemployment data reported at the end of the article come from a different survey than the payroll data from employers that most of the story reports. The end of this story is making the rest of the story more confusing (if I was his editor, I'd've deleted it; it adds nothing to the story.)