Midstate migration: The numbers may surprise you

Beth Gledhill may represent the future of Middle Georgia.

She and her husband, Jay Powell, built the home of their dreams in a subdivision outside the Macon city limits. Then they moved to a Monroe County farm, while her husband commutes to his law firm in north Bibb County.

Even the communities involved get blurry.

“We have a Macon address, a Forsyth phone number and we consider ourselves as living in Bolingbroke,” Gledhill said with a laugh.

Macon and Bibb County seem to be caught in classic suburbanization — except now the suburbs are a county over instead of a few miles away.

That story is told in a span of four years’ worth of data released by the Internal Revenue Service, which covers people who moved between 2004 and 2008. The numbers show thousands of families are moving around in Middle Georgia, and quite often are leaving Macon. But the same figures also show trends that belie some conventional wisdom.

Among the findings of an analysis of IRS and state data by The Telegraph:

— Some families are moving from Macon to Warner Robins, as expected. But there’s relatively little net flow. In round numbers, over four years 1,900 families moved from Bibb County to Houston County — but 1,700 families moved from Houston to Bibb. That works out to just one family a week moving from Bibb to Houston.

— New babies make up a big chunk of Houston County’s growth. In the four-year span, the county lost about 3,500 people to deaths but gained 8,000 babies — an average of about three new residents a day, every day.

“Because it’s a suburb, you’re going to have a rather high birth rate,” said Doug Bachtel, a University of Georgia demographer. In contrast, the larger Bibb County had more births, about 9,800 total, in the same time period, but nearly twice as many deaths — about 6,500.

— Monroe County continues to be closely linked to Bibb County and other Middle Georgia communities, but it’s also becoming part of Atlanta’s sprawl. While Bibb County is Monroe’s No. 1 supplier of new residents, Henry and Clayton counties are next in line.

— Bibb, Houston, Baldwin and Laurens counties draw a much higher portion of their residents from outside Middle Georgia, often from outside the state or even the country. Bachtel said those counties act as magnets for new residents because they tend to have the jobs. In other words, people might move to Warner Robins for a job, then later find a house in Byron. Fewer people move directly to Byron from outside the area.

— Houston and Peach counties trade a very large number of people back and forth, despite Peach County’s relatively small population.

— Overseas military bases were the third-highest supplier of and destination for Houston County movers, behind only Bibb and Peach counties.

Bachtel said suburbanization is driven by a search for quality of life. That’s backed up by Angela Fleming of Exit Success Realty of Warner Robins, who said her customers are typically moving because they want a better quality of life, better schools for their children or a shorter commute to work.

“People coming from Macon, on the high end or the middle end too, they come for the education of their children in Houston County,” she said.

Some who move back to Bibb County may want cheaper housing, where foreclosures are bringing down prices.

“You get a bit more (house for the money) in Macon than Houston County,” said Fleming, who’s sold homes for three years in Houston, Bibb and Peach counties.

And quality of life may vary from person to person. For some, it’s living near good schools, good grocery stores and reasonable traffic. For others, it’s life in the country.

Take Janice Davis, who works as a paralegal in downtown Macon. She started in kindergarten in 1967 in Warner Robins, living almost her life in Houston County. Then she got married and moved to Byron. On March 1, her family moved again to settle in Crawford County, where she said the family’s never been happier.

“Houston was just so huge,” she said. Now the family has 22 dogs and used the Crawford County sheriff as a personal reference when she had to renew her commission as a notary.

“Crawford County, the taxes are better to us, and we like the people at the schools,” she said.

As Houston County becomes more urbanized and takes on more jobs, other families like Davis’ may choose to leave for other less-populated locations, Bachtel said. That cycle of suburbanization is not unique to Middle Georgia.

Suburbanization means that services, and then other jobs, begin to spread out as well. Witness the increasing growth in north Bibb County, which drew more residents, then limited business growth, then a big shopping center. Now more Bibb residents are moving to Monroe County.

“As those people move to the suburbs, a certain type of job begins to spring up, like Realtors. Retail, entrepreneurs move in. They create restaurants and other types of recreational activities,” Bachtel said. “It’s an age-old pattern.”

But the people moving are generally the people with means to move, Bachtel said. The IRS data show that families leaving Bibb County typically have incomes several thousand dollars higher than the people coming in.

The biggest disparity is families moving between Monroe and Bibb counties. Families moving from Monroe to Bibb have incomes averaging about $35,600, but families moving from Bibb to Monroe have incomes of $56,600.

Gledhill, the new farmer in Monroe County, is happier on the farm with four horses, four goats, four chickens and other animals. When she lived in the north Bibb subdivision of Howard Oaks, she couldn’t have the vegetable garden she wanted.

“I’m thinking most of the people who move from Bibb County to Monroe County do it because they want more land, more space, more privacy and a simpler way of life,” she said.

Bachtel said that’s the classic motivation behind suburbanization.

“They’re attracted by the quality of life, the school system and the country living or suburban living,” Bachtel said.

To contact writer Mike Stucka, call 744-4251.