Population changes and migration can significantly impact municipal planning. These changes can affect populations, market demographics, budgeting, and can influence which businesses and services may be a good fit for a neighborhood. With Placer, you can understand migration patterns in a specific market, as well as highlight trends in population change.

You’ll be able to answer these questions after reading this article:

1. How can you see population change trends in your market?
2. How can you see expected population changes in years to come?
3. How can you see macro visitation trends and demographic factors that shape local communities and demand?

Pro Tip: The reports and widgets available in the Markets section may vary per account.

Get started with the following steps:

Review the Demographic Profile for population change data points

a. Navigate to Explore. Select Markets from the drop-down menu and type your market of interest into the search bar. Click Open Report and select Markets. This will open the Market report.

‍b. Navigate to the Demographics Report in the left sidebar and refer to the Demographic Profile. Select the STI Popstats dataset from the drop-down menu as your dataset of choice, with 2024 as the template to get the most current information. If the dataset is not visible, click View more Datasets to add it.

Pro Tip: Some datasets provide insights only for specific audience segments, while others offer insights across the entire market.

‍c. Both sections, Population (near the top) and Population Change (near the bottom), highlight the trends in population change for the “Residents” audience segment within the selected market.

‍d. If you reset the template to 2029 or 2034 Projection, you can see additional information on how the demographics of this market are expected to change over the next 5 and 10 years.

‍e. Select the Migration Trends dataset from the dropdown menu to see how your market’s population has shifted over time. This view highlights long-term trends in growth or decline by showing the number of people moving in or out, along with the corresponding percentage change.

Pro Tip: Use Placer’s Migration Trends Report for more advanced insights. Placer’s Migration Trends Report allows you to explore population flows at the state, county, CBSA, or zip code level within the US. This report presents visually and interactively the destinations to which the U.S. population migrated, and the regions they left, revealing macro visitation trends and associated demographic factors that shape local communities and consumer demand. For more information on Migration Trends Report or to request pricing information, click here.