I don't normally do the Austin booster thing, but courtesy of Mark Schill at Newgeography:
When comparing California with Texas, U-Haul says it all. To rent a 26-foot truck oneway from San Francisco to Austin, the charge is $3,236, and yet the one-way charge for that same truck from Austin to San Francisco is just $399. Clearly what is happening is that far more people want to move from San Francisco to Austin than vice versa, so U-Haul has to pay its own employees to drive the empty trucks back from Texas.
Schill also lists some net domestic migration numbers. In 2008, Austin-Round Rock had the highest net domestic migration rate among all U.S. metropolitan areas with more than 1.5 million people. Austin-RR had 22 net domestic migrants per 1,000 residents. Comps: Houston, 6.6; Dallas, 7.0; Washington DC, -3.4; Portland, 8.3; Denver, 7.3; Detroit, -13.9.
People sometimes take net domestic migration flows as evidence that one place is better than another. This is wrong. Flows instead show which cities are overvalued and which are undervalued. That's why I don't put any stock in "best cities" lists. You can figure out the "best cities" (whether for quality of life or jobs) by looking at property values. You can figure out the "best bargains" by looking at domestic migration flows.
PS. Sorry to pick on Detroit again -- no schadenfreude here -- but these numbers show just how grim things are there. Despite a low median home sales price -- $91,000 in April 2008 -- the Detroit metro area experienced a net outflow of 13.9 residents per 1,000 residents in 2008. The metro area was grossly overpriced despite being very cheap. Well overpriced: the median sales price had dropped to a little under $45,000 by last April. (Things are much worse in Detroit proper.)
