U-HAUL photo.

By DON FENLEY

The U-Haul Growth Index has been welcome news in the Tri-Cities since the pandemic. That was especially true in 2020, when the Tri-Cities area was at the top of state one-way destination gains.

Tennessee has relinquished the No. 1 spot on the Index, but it’s still in the top 10. And while the Tri-Cities area still has notable net-gain status, Knoxville, Murfreesboro, Clarksville, and Chattanooga are at the top of the list. And when compared to the previous year, the local overall U-Haul traffic has softened.

U-Haul officials offered this info for some context. “U-Haul labels a growth, or net-gain city, one that has over 50% arrivals.” Unfortunately, the index doesn’t offer the number of moves, just the percentage of in-bound v. out-bound.

Elizabethton tops the local market index for 2023 arrivals at 53.1%. But it wasn’t all new residents. The percentage of departures was 46.9% and overall one-way moving traffic was down 5% from the previous year.

Bristol, TN was close behind with 52.7% of in-bound customers, and 47.3% where were those seeking greener pastures elsewhere. Bristol’s overall one-way traffic was down 10% from 2022.

Greeneville had an inbound one-way rate of 52% last year. Departures accounted for 48%, and overall traffic was down 11%.

Johnson City’s in-bound status was 51.8% and 42.8% for those moving out. Overall, one-way traffic was down 8%.

Half of the Kingsport U-Hall shipments were arrivals and half were departures. Overall, one-way traffic was down 8%.

Rounding out the company’s 2023 report is Bristol, VA. The company reports that city had a smaller number of transactions compared to the other Tri-City markets. The one-way in-bound traffic was 48.2% while 51.8% was departures. Overall traffic was down 8%.

Another closely watched data set comes from United Van Lines.

The Tri-Cities region had 51.9% in-bound moves last year and 48.1% out-bound moves. The bottom line was a net gain of six new in-bound moves.

New residents are a big deal for the region since it has a negative natural population rate. That simply means the death rate is higher than the birth rate, so attracting new residents is the road to growing or sustaining the current population. A back-of-the-envelope number is the region needs to attract about 30 new residents a day to stay even with the last census count.

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