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There’s a familiar arc to American migration these days. A city gets discovered, moving trucks start rolling in, real estate agents start bragging, and then, a couple of years later, a quieter story begins. People who arrived chasing lower costs or a fresh start start packing up again, often for reasons that sound almost identical to the ones that pushed them out of their last home. It’s not one city or one region. It’s a pattern showing up across the Sun Belt, the Mountain West, and even a few once-untouchable Southern darlings. The following places have all drawn national attention as dream destinations, and each one now has data showing a meaningful share of newcomers heading back out the door.
Austin, Texas
Austin spent the better part of a decade as the poster child for American relocation, and for a while the arithmetic worked. That has shifted. Domestic migration has turned negative in some recent quarters, meaning more Americans are leaving Austin than arriving, even though international migration and natural population growth still add residents. Austin’s annual population growth fell below 2 percent for the first time in years…