The American Community Survey Migration Flows data set estimates the number of people that have moved between pairs of places. The estimates are calculated based on where a person lived when surveyed and where they lived one year prior to being surveyed. The data is available at three geographic levels: county, county subdivision (minor civil division), and metropolitan statistical area (MSA). Because the number of movers may be small for some pairs of counties, the data is aggregated over a five-year period. The estimates for each five-year period represent the number of people that moved between places each year during that period.
The tidycensus R package includes a get_flows() function that provides access to these estimates. Because the get_flows() function includes the ability to return the associated spatial data it is possible to use a complementary R mapping package like mapdeck (MapBox) to map the migration flows between places.
In this tutorial you’ll learn how to map migration flows using these packages. Read the entire tutorial.
Eric Pimpler
eric@geospatialtraining.com
9/3/2021