Andrew Roth at the Club for Growth has an interesting method for viewing the movement of people from state to state: track the price of U-Haul rentals. He ties this with the levels of unemployment and tax burden in Michigan and Tennessee.

To compare them economically, Michigan has the 16th largest state/local tax burden in the country. Unemployment is 7.1% (tied for the highest in the nation with Mississippi).

On the other hand, Tennessee is ranked 47th for state/local tax burden and its unemployment is 5.7%.

So can you guess in which direction taxpayers are moving between these two states? Here are the U-Haul rates for a 26-ft truck on October 29, 2006 (an arbitrary date):

Detroit to Nashville: $1659.00
Nashville to Detroit: $295.00

Clearly, the situation in Michigan is bad. Demand is so great to leave Michigan that it costs over 5 times more than it does to arrive from Tennessee.

Doing the same thing with Ohio, with unemployment at 5.7% and the 3rd highest state/local tax burden in the country:

Columbus to Detroit: $166
Detroit to Columbus: $266

Columbus to Nashville: $891
Nashville to Columbus: $294

With Tennessee and Ohio having the same level of unemployment, tax burden would seem to be quite a factor, but the unemployment makes Detroit even less desirable than Columbus. Try it with your own city. Ohio definitely needs to lower its tax burden if it wants to attract people and jobs.