All I am saying is that different rules in different places is not a bad thing. I have family in Los Angeles, CA and Cottonwood, AZ . . . you could not find two more different areas. I love them both, because of that. To try and have the same limitations in different places is a little idealistic.
Example, I live in Iowa and in the last 2-3 years, the state has proposed and will be building two new power plants in the next 2-4 years. How long has it been since Kalifornia has built or will build such a plant?
I live in Santa Monica, my rent would be a mortgage on a home in AZ, and I live in a grandfathered rent control apartment (which is a concept I am glad they got rid of, and which I am happy to benefit from). If my electric bill gets to high (and it was huge this month) I will consider moving. To me, is how it should work.
Second example, Sowell had an article several years ago about the red tape necessary to put a deck on his house. I went to the court house and was able to do it in a matter of hours.
Was it in Chicago that that overcrowded, un permitted, balcony deck fell and killed a bucnh of people? There are different rules needed for the dense city and Iowa, I think that is appropriate.
Third, Sowell talks about property values in San Francisco being comparable to those in other parts of the country and now they are astronomical due to restrictions on development in "green areas." You purchase a $300,000 home in certain parts of Kalifornia and you're buying a hole. A $300,000 home in Iowa/Nebraska will buy you a mansion.
I think the choice of what your $300,000 will get you is the greatest part of America. I can choose if I want to live 9 blocks from the ocean in an apartment with all kinds of regulations and rules. Knowing I will now be able to but a house around here....unless I get a big raise. But that is a choice. Do I want to see huge highrises go up at the ocean and block every view so there is cheap housing? No. I like the rules and restrictions on building around here. And for those like Sowell who don't, he can choose to live somewhere else.
Of course, many native Californians have chosen to escape the high taxation and regulation, including the celebrated Tiger Woods. Las Vegas, Reno, Santa Fe and many other places are filled with transplanted Californians who voted with their pocketbooks as you suggest. You are left with an out-of-control state deficit and a state that has become a defacto third world country.
I myself left my native California in 1993 and it was the smartest thing I ever did. I came to the realization that, like all socialist societies, California had become a good place to BE rich, but an impossible place to BECOME rich.
When I've finished amassing my wealth, maybe I'll move to Palm Springs and play golf everyday as the poor working shlubs fight the freeways for 3 hours a day to pay $5,000 a month for a little matchstick house in San Bernardino.
I don't understand. What is the benefit you are receiving? Who is providing the benefit? What motivates the provider of the benefit?