Immigrants Flock To Upstate Towns

Whenever Prof. Susan Christopherson, city and regional planning, gets into a cab in New York City, she tends to make conversation with the driver. To her surprise, the drivers, mostly originating from other countries, often speak of leaving the City for quieter locales and possibly settling upstate. This is becoming less obscure an aspiration, as many foreign-born citizens are migrating to the cities of Upstate New York.

A recently released study by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York says that a huge influx of foreign-born workers — over 200,000 in all — live in upstate metropolitan areas like Rochester, Syracuse, Buffalo and Albany. Many of these residents are highly educated and tend to be attracted by jobs in technical fields.