How L.A. Reduced Immigration

Why did the percentage of immigrants living in Los Angeles decrease from 1980 to 2000, while numbers across the United States rose dramatically?

1 minute read

April 23, 2006, 11:00 AM PDT

By David Gest

"CONVENTIONAL wisdom holds that cities and metropolitan areas are powerless to deter immigrants from moving in. Evidence suggests otherwise. Between 1980 and 2000, the Los Angeles metropolitan area deflected nearly 1 million Mexican immigrants, legal and illegal, to other U.S. cities.

During that 20-year interval, the immigrant population in the United States increased from 14 million to 31 million, but the percentage of those immigrants living in the city of Los Angeles declined from 6.8% to 4.9%, according to U.S. census data."

"Why did a million Mexican immigrants bypass the L.A. region and settle elsewhere? Three factors were important: migration networks, market economics and tougher local regulation of slums and sweatshops."

FULL STORY: How L.A. kept out a million migrants

Sunday, April 16, 2006 in The Los Angeles Times

Social / Demographics California

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