Census report: Nevada most transient state

By Timothy Pratt (contact)

Wednesday, Sept. 24, 2003 | 11:10 a.m.

A Census Bureau report released today shows Nevadans to be the most footloose people in the nation, on the move more than any others. However, that wasn't news to Elaine Casale, who runs a dating service.

The report, based on the bureau's 2000 survey asking people around the nation where they were in 1995, showed that 63 percent of Nevadans lived somewhere else five years earlier -- ranking the state No. 1.

The state also was tops in the percentage of residents who moved in from another state during those five years, with 25 percent, and was second in those moving within the same county, with 31 percent.

Being in a state where nearly two out of three people you run into have moved in the last five years is good for Casale, president of Interactions of Las Vegas, a dating service.

"It's giving me business ... because it's hard for people to meet people in this town, since you don't know if the other person is going to be here tomorrow," Casale said. In fact, the numbers mean her dating service is guaranteed a steady flow of 75 to 100 new customers every month, she said.

But being the most transient state in the country means different things to different people.

While the numbers are good news for dating services and companies that build, sell or rent houses, they may be bad news for those who need to stay one step ahead of the next move, like the Clark County School District, or for those who feel the lack of long-term relationships found in more settled communities.

"It's a great place to be a real estate agent ... (but) transiency has high social costs," said David Dickens, professor of sociology at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas and author of a 1999 book, "Las Vegas: The Social Production of an All-American City."

"The upside of people moving so much is that they're moving for new opportunities," Dickens said.

"The downside is that we're losing community ties ... and people don't have relationships to their surroundings. This is a problem if they undergo any economic or family crisis."

For Fafie Moore, president of Realty Executives of Nevada, the report confirms much of what she sees in her daily work.

"It's easy to move in Las Vegas," Moore said. "There's a lot of new product coming on the market and people can move into someplace quickly." About 400 subdivisions were under construction every year between 1995 and 2000, she said.

Having so many people moving around and into the southern part of the state gives a headache to Fred Smith.

He's the construction manager for the Clark County School District, charged with building an average of a school every month to keep up with the fast-growing school-age population of the Las Vegas Valley.

That would be hard enough, but Smith said that the rising numbers are made more complicated by families moving around so much.

"Some 35 percent of the students that started school this year had different addresses than last year," he said.

"The difficult part is predicting where (students) are going to be to know where we're going to need to build schools," he said. A complicated combination of software and know-how is used to keep ahead of trends as much as possible, he said.

Another person whose job is made more difficult by Nevada's transiency is Robert Goulet, president of United Way of Southern Nevada, the nonprofit dedicated to channeling funding to other nonprofits and helping organizations that provide services to the community.

"It takes people a little time to get involved in helping the community ... (and) newcomers get involved in lower percentages," he said.

Dickens, the sociologist, said that Southern Nevada in particular faces high transiency from three fronts -- people moving in, out and around. This creates what he called an "uneven community," where people are often adrift without family or neighborhood ties.

"This is one reason why we lag behind in social capital ... and why Las Vegas struggles in terms of social pathologies like teen pregnancy, dropouts and suicides," he said.

As the valley struggles with such issues, Casale tries to help by doing what she knows how to do -- playing matchmaker.

"In Chicago, where I grew up, you knew the bartender, he's been there for years, and he can tell you he's got somebody he wants you to meet. Here, the bartender could be a different one every week. So I try and help."