Immigrants to the US live disproportionately in metropolitan areas where nominal wages are high & real wages are low; they accept such wages to locate in cities that are coastal, larger, & offer deeper immigrant networks

Immigration and the pursuit of amenities. David Albouy  Heepyung Cho  Mariya Shappo. Journal of Regional Science, November 23 2019. https://doi.org/10.1111/jors.12475

Abstract: Immigrants to the United States live disproportionately in metropolitan areas where nominal wages are high, but real wages are low. This sorting behavior may be due to preferences toward certain quality‐of‐life amenities. Relative to U.S.‐born inter‐state migrants, immigrants accept lower real wages to locate in cities that are coastal, larger, and offer deeper immigrant networks. They sort toward cities that are hillier and also larger and networked. Immigrants come more from coastal, cloudy, and safer countries—conditional on income and distance. They choose cities that resemble their origin in terms of winter temperature, safety, and coastal proximity.


7. CONCLUSION
Given that economists generally model immigrants as pursuing greater market consumption,
it is seems surprising that they live in places that are so expensive. Yet, theories of spatial
equilibrium imply that the lower real wages immigrants receive from picking such expensive
cities is compensated for by quality-of-life amenities.
In particular, immigrants seem to gravitate towards natural amenities such as sunshine and
hilly geography. Most of all, immigrants seem to care for large, often coastal cities, known
for their diversity. Native migrants, on the other hand, move to smaller cities, albeit ones that
are relatively expensive and highly educated. This supports an interesting, if ancient, pattern
whereby migrants land initially on coasts, but over time, eventually move inland. Natives do
seem to be choosy in where they move, as they too move to higher-amenity areas.
Our results highlight that the pursuit for amenities may play as much of a role in determining
where immigrants locate as jobs. In other words, factors that affect labor supply may be as
important as those that affect labor demand. This may explain the fact that many immigrants
already see enormous income gains by moving to the U.S., and care not only for market goods,
but for non-market goods as well. As our push regressions suggest, some may indeed pursue
better amenities than in their origin country. Nevertheless, immigrants also seek out amenities,
as well as people, that resemble those of their origin countries. Indeed, the amenities that
remind someone of home may be the kind of amenities most worth paying for.