Migration Is Real Estate Development

People develop, not places. What does that mean? Economic development concerns a community or a region. Migration models (i.e. rational choice theory) predict that workers will move to areas doing better in terms of prosperity. You go where you grow, a heuristic that obfuscates how the act of moving from one to place to another results in economic development.

Brain drain is economic development. In place-based parlance, that statement looks absurd. But from the perspective of the migrant, it could not be more obvious. The most common rationale for relocation is financial gain. The migrant also benefits from living in a new place, experiencing ideas and perspectives otherwise unavailable in a hometown. Consider the epiphany of Quality Dairy champion Craig Terrill:

Terrill went to Michigan State University and stayed in the area for a few years after college. Then he left.
He worked as a communications point person for the city of Takoma Park in Maryland for six years before returning to Lansing two years ago. A big part of the job was running the social media accounts for the city, which borders Washington, D.C.
"One thing about Takoma Park is it’s really a quirky, crunchy, granola kind of city, like a Berkeley, California vibe, or Portland," Terrill said. "Everyone’s kind of weird, artsy, at least that’s the vibe it gives off.
"When I moved back to Lansing, I wasn’t getting that anymore. I was like, 'What if I did that here, but it was fictional and there was no filter.'".
So after some bar conversations and encouragement from friends, he launched Lansing Facts and it "went nuts."
Terrill says that, in D.C., the economy was surging and everything about the city was really expensive and fancy. It made him nostalgic for QD and places that seemed more down to earth.

Via Terrill, brain drain is economic development for Lansing, Michigan. Upon his return, he brought back a bit of Takoma Park, Maryland. He catalyzed what he liked best about Takoma Park in a place he liked better. It is the best of both worlds. The weird and artsy in the down to earth Rust Belt.

Terrill elevated his social media skills in a globally significant metro. He applied those talents in the left behind part of the country. All of this was made possible because he left Lansing, which needn't be in the orbit of Washington, DC thanks to the miracle of brain drain.

Brain drain is revitalizing urban Lansing one repat at a time. In fact, journalist Nona Willis Aronowitz worries that her own return migration is pushing out tenured residents in Harlem, "A year and a half later, in seemingly direct response, enterprising storeowners are serving salted caramel lattes and selling dry-aged picanha around the corner from us, ignoring the huge chunk of Harlem residents living in subsidized housing and making new residents like us look like jerks."

Global labor commands a global wage. Wherever such migrants end up, housing prices will go up. Goods and services will gentrify. Migration is real estate development.