Posted on 03/04/2007 11:16:38 AM PST by NormsRevenge
In the early 1990s, as Southern California suffered its worst recession in half a century, freeways were crowded with moving vans headed to Nevada, Arizona, Utah and points east, filled with people hoping to find a better life elsewhere.
These days, there's no recession. California's economy is growing at roughly the same pace as the nation's. The statewide unemployment rate is at historic lows. There is no major wave of factories being shut down.
But once again, more Californians are moving out than are coming in from other states. This time they're not looking for jobs. They just want a cheaper place to live.
“As places like San Diego are getting less affordable, people are going outside our borders to access cheaper housing,” said Marney Cox, economist for the San Diego Association of Governments.
Hans Johnson, a demographer with the Public Policy Institute of California in San Francisco, says the exodus runs counter to long-standing trends.
“Historically, we've tended to attract more people than leave,” Johnson said. “This is the first time I know of when there's an outflow when the economy has not been in recession.”
Exactly how many Californians are leaving the state depends on who you listen to.
The U.S. Census Bureau, which bases its calculations on Internal Revenue Service data, estimated that between July 1, 2000, and July 1, 2006, 950,592 more people left California for other states than moved in from other states. Last year alone, 287,684 more people moved out than moved in.
The same report said that 77,536 more people left San Diego than came here from other regions in the United States between 2000 and 2005. (County-by-county statistics for 2006 are not yet available.) The California Department of Finance, which bases its calculations on address changes on driver's licenses, gives much smaller figures.
The finance department estimates that during the past two fiscal years, the state had a net domestic outflow of 122,897, and San Diego County had a net loss of 33,199 domestic migrants, including 14,272 last year.
The main problem is not that more people are leaving California, although that's certainly happening. A bigger phenomenon is that fewer out-of-staters are coming in to take their place.
Rex Downing, a real estate agent in Kensington, says he hasn't noticed many people from San Diego moving to other states. But he has seen people kept out of San Diego because of high housing costs.
“There was a doctor who decided not to take a job at a local hospital because she could only spend half a million dollars on a house,” he said. With $500,000 to spend, the woman could not find a house she felt like moving into. Instead, Downing said, she ran into “ho-hum houses” selling at $750,000 or $800,000.
“But in Galveston, Texas, where she ended up moving, she could get a palatial estate for half a million dollars,” Downing said. “Our affordability is way out of range from other regions in the country.”
John Boyd, head of The Boyd Co., a relocation consulting firm in New Jersey, says the cost of housing is keeping companies from moving into the state, since they can't pay enough money to persuade executives to leave their homes in less expensive states and move to one of California's high-priced markets.
“It used to be that companies felt they had to be in California because of the size of the market,” he said. “But that's changing now. A growing number of East Coast companies feel they can serve the California market more cheaply from bases in Las Vegas, Tucson, Phoenix or Salt Lake City.”
Small-growth advocates may welcome this kind of change. Why not let out-of-staters stay where they are?
It's not like California's population is shrinking. Our birth rate is higher than our death rate. And there are plenty of foreign immigrants entering the state. As a result, the population continues to rise.
But the people who are leaving the state tend to be more experienced and have higher incomes than those who are left behind, said demographer Johnson. Their contributions to the state's tax base won't be quickly replaced by the low-paid immigrants crossing the border or the new crop of babies in California's maternity wards.
The domestic inflow of workers coming from other states used to supply a healthy middle-class buffer between rich and poor.
But Johnson fears that if the current trend continues, it could result in the “Manhattanization of the California coast,” with coastal cities like San Diego stratified with an upper-tier of people rich enough to afford million-dollar homes and a lower-tier of workers too poor to consider moving somewhere else.
And if that kind of future is in store, California may have an even harder time enticing out-of-staters to move here.
Taxes have consequences.
When we were stationed in Monterey a few years ago, the city of Seaside had just opened newly built "affordable housing" on the old Fort Ord.
Starting price? Around $750,000. And there was so much demand, there was actually a lottery. People were moving to the central coast and working in Santa Cruz and San Francisco.
It's insane out there. If we weren't military, we could never have lived there (not that they want military people - or kids - there anyway!).
The population of california is maintained despite people moving out to other states.Who is takeing their place if nobody from other states is moving in? Illegals thats who.
I hope the people leaving California do not take their illegal slave maids and gardeners with them to other states.
They increase housing prices?
What are the political tendencies of the Californians leaving the state? Are they mostly liberals who could not afford the high cost of living? Or are they conservatives who are finally fed up with California?
I guess that they've never heard of a "brain drain".
San Diego is going to look like Mexico. Excessively wealthy and poverty stricken .. no middle clase.
Too bad for California's future.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
This is not a problem for libs.
From the website of Obama's church - the "Black Value Syetem"
Disavowal of the Pursuit of "Middleclassness"
Pledge to make the fruits of all developing and acquired skills available to the Black Community
Pledge to Allocate Regularly, a Portion of Personal Resources for Strengthening and Supporting Black Institutions
Pledge allegiance to all Black leadership who espouse and embrace the Black Value System
Personal commitment to embracement of the Black Value System.
Interesting that 'Manhattanization' was used as an example in the article. Not many people know this, but New York City was almost fully populated by native Americans, that is British-descended protestants, until the 1840s. At that time NYC was a city of more than 300 000 mostly middle-class people and functioned primarily without a formal city government or bureucracy. City services were built on self-organized networks of similar-minded citizens. Can anyone even imagine anything like this working in a modern American city of 300 000+ inhabitants?
I know what they mean. Some years ago Mr. Fairview turned down a very enticing job offer there when I saw what kind of house we were going to have to live in. Housing choices were between a duck blind, a kennel, a deer stand, and a tool shed. And we could afford those only because we were coming in with a lot of cash. No thanks.
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