ST. LOUIS — Moving giant U-Haul is calling the St. Louis region a growth market for 2022, in an analysis of data on where U-Haul trucks are headed.
Last year, people arriving in St. Louis in one-way U-Haul trucks increased 12% over 2021, while departures increased only 5%, the Phoenix company said.
St. Louis was the only Missouri city on U-Haul's list of 25 growth markets, ranking No. 11.
Doing better were Charles-North Charleston, South Carolina (10); Huntsville, Alabama (9); Surprise, Arizona (8); Myrtle Beach-North Myrtle Beach, South Carolina (7); North Port, Florida (6); Auburn-Opelika, Alabama (5); Palm Bay-Melbourne, Florida (4); Madison, Wisconsin (3); Sacramento-Roseville, California (2); and Ocala, Florida (1).
Ranking lower than St. Louis were Athens, Georgia (12); Missouri City, Texas (13); Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina (14); Richardson, Texas (15); Fort Collins, Colorado (16); Henderson, Nevada (17); Reno, Nevada (18); Conroe, Texas (19); West Chester, Ohio (20); Lakeland, Florida (21); Nashville, Tennessee (22); Noblesville, Indiana (23); Henrico, Virginia (24); and Sandy Springs, Georgia (25).
U-Haul also said that Atlanta, Minneapolis, Miami, Milwaukee and San Diego missed the cut, but posted "big growth numbers" last year.
A spokeswoman for U-Haul said she couldn't provide specific figures beyond percentage growth for the St. Louis market, "for competitive and proprietary purposes."
The company added that while its migration trends do not correlate directly to population or economic growth, "the U-Haul Growth Index is an effective gauge of how well cities and states are attracting and maintaining residents."
U-Haul's St. Louis president, Landon Barks, said in a statement that cost of living is the No. 1 driver for people moving here.
New arrives to St. Louis are landing in the "outskirts of the city because of the urban sprawl," he said. "People are moving to the suburbs. There are also a lot of tech jobs coming into St. Louis."
He added that since the region was recently rated one of the best cities for starting a career, "I think a lot of young people are coming to St. Louis for job opportunities."
"I see a lot of people from the West Coast moving east," he added. "Things are more affordable here."
The company's index takes into account the net gain of one-way U-Haul trucks arriving in a city or state, versus departing from those locations. It said it uses more than 2 million one-way U-Haul truck transactions that occur annually across the U.S. and Canada.
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