It’s no secret that Utah’s Washington County is one of the nation’s fastest-growing areas. Census Bureau county-by-county migration data from December sheds more light on who is moving in.
The survey backs up one of the common stereotypes about southwest Utah’s new residents — many of them are former Californians.
The Golden State was Washington County’s top source from outside of Utah, accounting for 14.4% of all new county residents from 2017-2021. That’s a high rate, even compared to other parts of Utah. Just 8.7% of people moving into Salt Lake County and 10.4% moving into Utah County came from California.
Washington County’s other top states were Nevada (7.3%), Arizona (4.9%), Idaho (4.4%) and, perhaps surprisingly, Indiana (2.8%).
In all, more than half of all new county residents — 59.4% — moved here from another state. That’s an even higher share than Salt Lake County (50.9%), Utah County (52.4%) and Iron County (40.1%).
This doesn’t surprise Emily Harris, a senior demographic analyst with the Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute at the University of Utah. Her analysis from 2023 found that Washington County lost more residents to Salt Lake, Utah and Iron counties from 2015-2019 than it gained from them, so attracting out-of-staters has been a key component of its growth.
People from other parts of the Southwest may be attracted to St. George even more than those from the Wasatch Front, she said, because they would like to stay in a similar hot, dry climate but want a lower cost of living.
“Washington County has such close proximity to California and Nevada and Arizona that it really draws a lot of people who like a lot of things environment-wise about those areas. But they can move to Washington County, where there are more favorable tax rates [and] there is cheaper housing.”
Migrating Californians get a lot of attention because there’s just more of them, she said, but the cities that sent the most people to Washington County from 2015-2019 were Las Vegas, Phoenix and Kingman, Arizona.
The other common stereotype about the people moving to Washington County is that they are older adults, often retirees. Harris’ research backs that one up, too.
“Washington County is still [Utah’s] largest recipient of that retirement-age migration,” she said. “The snowbird is a real thing.”
Following the county’s overall in-migration trends, she said, many of the people moving from out of state are likely older adults, too. And because many older adults only live there part of the year in a second home, it’s likely that researchers aren’t capturing this age group’s full numbers.
Some of the reasons older adults are drawn here are obvious: warm weather, little snow, ample golf courses and recreation opportunities. As the number of young families in Washington County grows, she said, there’s also likely an increasing pull of moving to be close to grandchildren.
This trend toward an older population hasn’t peaked, either. Gardner Policy Institute projections say Washington County’s median age, which was 39 in 2022, will jump to nearly 52 years old by 2060.
That means the region needs to continue adapting to meet their needs, said Southwest Utah Public Health Department public information officer Dave Heaton.
The St. George area has long been a retirement haven, so his team is used to helping older patients. But when COVID-19 hit, he said even more seniors flocked here from California and Nevada to escape strict pandemic rules.
“We were less restrictive here, and I think they kind of fell in love with the place.”
So now, the department is finding ways to fine tune how it caters to this demographic.
This winter, the department dedicated an issue of its magazine to older adults for the first time, with tips on preventing falls and staying active during the colder months. It also started holding vaccination clinics and prediabetes screenings at a local retirement community and at the senior center.
“We're trying to adapt there by sort of going to where they're at, in an effort to try to serve them better.”
As it looks toward a future with an even larger population of older adults, he said, one challenge will be ramping up the department’s number of workers and volunteers to reach them all.
Even though Washington County is still rapidly growing, Harris said its rate of growth is beginning to slow down from where it was a couple of years ago.
That’s perhaps a sign of the county’s growing pains, such as a lack of affordable housing. As St. George becomes more expensive and crowded, she’s said, that might push more newcomers into neighboring areas like Iron County that aren’t as built-up.
“It'll be interesting to see how over the next 10 years Washington County's growth and migration changes as economic conditions change,” Harris said. “But I still think it's an area to watch.”
