The recession may have slowed the pace of net migration, but the essential pattern has remained in place. People continue to leave places like New York, Chicago, San Francisco and Los Angeles for more affordable, economically viable regions like Houston, Dallas, Austin and San Antonio. Overall, the big winners in net migration have been predominately conservative states like Texas--with over 800,000 net new migrants--notes demographer Wendell Cox. In what Cox calls "the decade of the South," 90% of all net migration went to southern states.