Cities with a high immigration rate are less likely to see their population affected by economic changes, according to the Journal of Property Management. Nina J. Gruen, a sociologist with Gruen Gruen + Associates says that immigrants from other countries are more likely to depend on kinship or family relationships when they choose where to move, while native-born domestic migrants, people who move within the U.S., are more likely to rely on employment opportunities when determining a location. Therefore, cities with high immigrant populations, called gateway metros, are less likely to experience wide population swings as a result of economic cycles.

The cities with the highest immigration rates from 1990-1997 (in black on the map) were New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Miami, Washington, D.C., Houston, Dallas-Fort Worth, San Diego, and Boston. The cities with the highest domestic migration (in white on the map) were Atlanta, Las Vegas, Phoenix, Portland, Denver, Dallas-Fort Worth, Seattle, Austin, Orlando, and Raleigh-Durham. Dallas-Fort Worth was the only area to make both the gateway list and the domestic list.