The Los Angeles-Long Beach area picked up 782 new residents per day in 2001, nearly one- third of them from abroad, topping a ranking of 152 large metropolitan areas covered by a new survey, the Census Bureau reported today. The data come from the American Community Survey (ACS), which will replace the once-a-decade census long form.

     "The 285,457 people who moved to the Los Angeles-Long Beach metropolitan area form a population that is larger than all but 60 cities in the United States," said Census Bureau Director Louis Kincannon.

     Chicago was second highest in the number of in-migrants; followed by New York; Riverside-San Bernardino, Calif.; and Atlanta (Table 1).

     Los Angeles also was home to the highest number of in-migrants from abroad, followed by New York, Chicago, Miami and Houston (Table 2).

      "Planners and policy-makers have told us they need demographic information more promptly," said Kincannon. "This is another example of how quickly things change and why we can't wait 10 years to get important data for communities."

     The Census Bureau plans to phase in the ACS over the next several years, with the yearly data on demographic changes replacing the long form in the 2010 census. The ACS currently provides information on metropolitan areas of 250,000 or more people. Eventually, it will produce annual long-form-like data on topics such as household income and commute time to work for areas as small as census tracts (4,000 average population).

     About 6-in-10 people who moved to Wichita, Kan.; and the Johnson City-Kingsport-Bristol, Tenn., metro areas came from nonmetropolitan communities, the highest percentage of any areas in the survey. About half of the new arrivals in Springfield, Mo.; Jackson, Miss.; and Toledo, Ohio, were from nonmetropolitan areas (Table 3).

     The data are for large metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) and primary metropolitan statistical areas (PMSAs) of at least 250,000 people. Full definitions are at the Census Bureau's Internet site http://www.census.gov/population/www/estimates/aboutmetro.html. About 30 large metropolitan areas are not included in the rankings released today because some MSA and PMSA counties were not part of the ACS, which is still in development. The ACS sampled about 820,000 households nationwide. Statistics from sample surveys are subject to sampling and nonsampling error.

Table 1. Metro Areas with Highest Number of In-Migrants
Metro Area	Household Population	Total In-migrants	Per-Day Average
Los Angeles-Long Beach	9,462,246	285,457	782
Chicago	8,192,579	233,690	640
New York	9,112,687	222,282	609
Riverside-San Bernardino, Calif.	3,322,803	203,127	557
Atlanta	4,187,003	183,143	502

Table 2. Metro Areas with Highest Number of In-Migrants from Abroad
Metro Area	Household Population	Total In-migrants	From Abroad	Percent From Abroad
Los Angeles-Long Beach	9,462,246	285,457	91,131	32
New York	9,112,687	222,282	87,683	39
Chicago	8,192,579	233,690	87,567	37
Miami	2,243,712	102,842	61,083	59
Houston	4,218,012	181,649	54,241	30

Table 3. Metro Areas with Highest Percentage of Non-Metro In-Migrants
Metro Area	Household Population	Total In-migrants	Not From a Metro Area	Percent Not From a Metro Area
Wichita, Kan.	540,711	39,848	24,432	61
Johnson City-Kingsport-Bristol, Tenn.	460,803	14,643	8,509	58
Springfield, Mo.	317,980	18,722	9,776	52
Jackson, Miss.	428,220	16,002	8,180	51
Toledo, Ohio	600,447	30,536	15,102	49