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Comment by portman | Hacker News Reader

Can anyone from New England comment on why Vermont and New Hampshire are so different? Demographics and weather are similar, so surprised to see that Vermont is highly negative and New Hampshire highly positive.

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I assume it's related to the fact that New Hampshire has more industry than Vermont (concentrated near the Mass border).

But, honestly, as I said in another comment, I'm not sure how much these numbers mean. With respect to to the MA negative numbers, if you've been anywhere near the Boston/Cambridge area recently the idea that there's this mass net exodus of people is pretty silly. Certainly if you've looked at Boston Metro real estate prices or the construction going on in the Seaport or around Kendall Square.

EDIT: It may also be related to MA people living in NH for tax reasons.

> mass net exodus of people is pretty silly

Well not necessarily "mass" (pun intended?) but -2% from 2000 to 2015. Note that everyone who moved from other cities in Massachusetts to Boston (and Boston burbs) are considered neutral by this metric. And there's always bound to be graduates of those Boston universities headed for the other coast. Also note that things are very different in Boston and elsewhere in 2016 from how they were in 2000.

Southern New Hampshire is within commuting distance of Boston, and has reasonable variety of the type of jobs you'd expect to see about a hour or two away from a major metropolitan area--also there are still some farmland being converted to residences which makes housing relatively affordable compared to Greater Boston. These forces fall off once you move beyond the southern NH cities--Northern New Hampshire is a lot like Vermont, but with less tourism.

It's probably almost entirely that south-east New Hampshire is a bedroom community for Boston. Most of Vermont is far enough away from Boston and New York that people can't easily commute, whereas if you live in Portsmouth or Exeter or Nashua, NH, it's under an hour to Boston.

I wouldn't really describe SE NH as a bedroom community for Boston though there's some of that. A lot of Massachusetts tech, for example, is actually North and Northwest of Boston for various historical reasons. There's also a fair bit of tech and other industry in SE New Hampshire. But your basic point stands--that SE NH (in particular) has access to tech and other good industrial jobs that Vermont residents generally don't.

As someone who worked used to work in tech in Woburn MA (30 minutes North of boston), and had a fair number of NH living co-workers, I would say this is true. Though a lot of tech is moving into the city proper as commutes here continue to worsen.

> People who grew up in one state, went to college in another and then moved somewhere else are counted as migrating from the state where they attended college.

I suspect that may have something to do with it. Maybe Vermont has more initially out-of-state college students, or they represent a higher relative proportion? Also, keep in mind that NH is 2x the population of VT and is close to a major metro area (Boston, ~1hr away). I have friends that live in Southern NH and commute to northern regions of Boston for work.

I'd like to see a 20-year later study that looks into the number of people that went to VT for school (from out of state), went to another state for a career (not a huge number of options in VT) and returned late. Everyone I know that went to school there wants to do this; they love the place but couldn't find a non-service/tourism job post-graduation.

May be NH people go to MA to college then head back to NH before they're 40?

I'm going to guess the lack of a state income tax.

People go to VT for college but most don't stay.

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