Mountain Town Migration: Understanding the Impacts of the Covid-19 Pandemic on Middle Neighborhoods in the Mountain West

From 2006-2010, the median household income in the Great Falls MSA, $42,389, was 96.62 percent of the median household income for Montana ($43,872) and 81.65 percent of the national median ($51,914).27 A decade later, from 2016-2020, the median household income in the Great Falls MSA, $52,049, was 92.06 percent of the median for Montana ($56,539) and 80.08 percent of the national median ($64,994).. [...] The Pocatello MSA is defined by the US Census as covering both Bannock and Power Counties, and thus the Area Median Income for Pocatello is the median household income of the region covered by the same two counties; in 2021, the ACS 5-Year Estimate for the Pocatello AMI was $72,663 per household, up significantly from the 5-Year Estimate in the year prior to the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic. [...] The middle neighborhoods in the Pocatello metro area were either in and around the suburban periphery of the city center, creating a ring around its denser core, or in the rural swath to the city’s south and the west.that is the largest part of the MSA by land area. [...] From 2006-2010, the median household income in the Salt Lake City MSA, $58,667, was 104.15 percent of the median for Utah ($56,330) and 113.01 percent of the national median ($51,914).49 From 2016-2020, the median household income in the Salt Lake MSA, $77,102, was 103.92 percent of the median for Utah ($74,197) and 118.63 percent of the national median ($64,994).50 Thus in both periods, the media. [...] The remaining lower- income neighborhoods were all clustered in the center of the Salt Lake City urban core, specifically to the east of Interstate 215 and to the west of Interstate 15 and the Wasatch Mountains.