Where Veterans Are Concentrated

Returning from active duty. Now what?

I have been working with Alex Hecht at the Warrior Family Foundation on some data to help veterans' organizations prioritize their focus and timing on rolling out innovative programs.

The first criterion we thought of was the metro areas with the most veterans. On that basis, the New York City area ranks #1, with the most veterans of any other metro area.

But as a percentage of the area population, New York and Los Angeles rank 10th and 9th out of 10. Washington, DC has the highest percentage of veterans, 9.6 percent, exactly double the percentages for New York and Los Angeles. The Atlanta area is not far behind, with 8.6 percent. (See Table 1.)

Table 1. Number of Veterans and Percent of Population, 10 Most Populous Metro Areas

Rank	Metro Statistical Area (MSA)	Pop	Vets	Percent
1	New York-Northern New Jersey-Long Island, NY-NJ-PA	14,482	699.6	4.83
2	Los Angeles-Long Beach-Santa Ana, CA	9,680	462.9	4.78
3	Chicago-Joliet-Naperville, IL-IN-WI	7,018	445.8	6.35
4	Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, TX	4,650	369.2	7.94
5	Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington, PA-NJ-DE-MD	4,479	372.9	8.32
6	Miami-Fort Lauderdale-Pompano Beach, FL	4,401	256.2	5.82
7	Houston-Sugar Land-Baytown, TX	4,343	299.4	6.89
8	Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV	4,242	408.2	9.62
9	Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Marietta, GA	3,881	334.8	8.63
10	Boston-Cambridge-Quincy, MA-NH	3,478	251.6	7.24
	Total	60,652	3,900.6	6.43

If we pick the MSAs based on total population and use 500,000 as the cutoff, the top ten MSAs for veteran concentration are led by the Virginia Beach MSA, with 17.1 percent, followed by the North Port, FL MSA. (See Table 2).

                Table 2. Top 10 MSAs for Veterans that have a Population over 500,000

	Metro Area	Veterans as percent of total population	Number of veterans
1	Virginia Beach-Norfolk-Newport News, VA-NC	17.17%	211,933
2	North Port-Bradenton-Sarasota, FL	14.57%	86,437
3	Jacksonville, FL	13.61%	142,461
4	Charleston-North Charleston-Summerville, SC	12.78%	67,762
5	San Antonio-New Braunfels, TX Metro Area	12.37%	202,069
6	Tucson, AZ Metro Area	12.23%	93,442
7	Honolulu, HI Metro Area	12.03%	87,715
8	Albuquerque, NM Metro Area	11.86%	81,002
9	Cape Coral-Fort Myers, FL Metro Area	11.79%	61,530
10	Columbia, SC Metro Area	11.65%	68,614

Here are some comments on the first two tables:

1. Veterans like to stay near bases. This is often the best place to get a civilian job. It is also a way of staying in touch with friends and of taking advantage of free programs such as training, cultural activities and base shopping. Veterans’ organizations are likely to have chapters tied to bases, where they recruit new members.

2. Veterans like warm weather. Southern locations are favored.

3. The numbers don't include active duty personnel and dependents. In the Virginia Beach metro area, if active-duty personnel and dependents are included, the share of the population accounted for by military families could rise from one out of five to one out of three.

The concentrations of veterans become even more pronounced at the county level. Of the 589 counties that include more than 100,000 residents, 14 of the top 20 are concentrated in just four states – Florida, with seven counties represented, Texas with three, and Virginia and North Carolina both with two counties.

Veterans make up 18.5 percent of the population of Citrus County, FL, which is the home of several Air Force locations and sites. (See Table 3.)

Table 3. Top 20 counties with more than 100,000 residents*

	County	Veterans as % of total pop.	Number of veterans
1	Citrus, FL	18.46%	25,730
2	Okaloosa, FL	16.78%	31,890
3	Cochise, AZ	16.74%	22,106
4	Stafford, VA	16.13%	21,674
5	Hampton Roads, VA**	15.44%	191,261
6	Kitsap, WA	15.01%	38,269
7	Hardin, KY	14.55%	15,568
8	Clay, FL	14.38%	27,955
9	Bell, TX	14.33%	46,288
10	Comanche, OK	14.26%	18,019
11	Cumberland, NC	14.23%	46,114
12	Santa Rosa, FL	14.16%	22,440
13	Houston, GA	14.00%	20,466
14	Sumter, FL	13.85%	14,071
15	Montgomery, TN	13.73%	25,331
16	Marion, FL	13.67%	45,806
17	Guadalupe, TX	13.59%	19,005
18	Escambia, FL	13.51%	40,899
19	Onslow, NC	13.40%	24,560
20	Comal, TX	13.04%	14,920

*Rank is out of the 589 U.S. counties that include more than 100,000 residents. Data are for 2012, projected from 2010 Census data, while the population data for each county are from the 2012 America Community Survey.

**The adjacent independent cities of Newport News, Hampton, Norfolk, Virginia Beach and Chesapeake (collectively known as Hampton Roads) are combined.

Finally, what do we get when we look through the other end of the telescope? Where are the smallest concentrations of veterans? Answer: In big cities.

                    Table  4. Bottom 20 counties with over 100,000 residents*

	County	Veterans as percent of total population	Number of veterans
1	Kings, NY (Brooklyn)	2.12%	54,414
2	Miami-Dade, FL	2.45%	63,517
3	New York, NY (Manhattan)	2.46%	39,760
4	Webb, TX	2.49%	6,450
5	Hudson, NJ	2.51%	16,364
6	Queens, NY	2.57%	58,351
7	Bronx, NY	2.58%	36,327
8	Hidalgo, TX	2.89%	23,332
9	San Francisco, CA	3.19%	26,336
10	Los Angeles, CA	3.21%	319,623
11	Suffolk, MA	3.25%	24,201
12	Santa Clara, CA	3.35%	61,596
13	Essex, NJ	3.48%	27,410
14	Rockland, NY	3.48%	11,073
15	Utah, UT	3.49%	18,888
16	Passaic, NJ	3.61%	18,170
17	Westchester, NY	3.75%	36,076
18	Union, NJ	3.75%	20,424
19	Bergen, NJ	3.86%	35,483
20	Alameda, CA	3.88%	60,309

*Rank is out of the 589 U.S. counties that include more than 100,000 residents. See first note to Table 3.