CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: FRIDAY, JULY 21, 2023 OR THEREAFTER
BY THOMAS D. ELIAS
“40%
CONSIDER LEAVING? THAT’S VERY OLD NEWS”
It was
déjà vu all over again when this state’s largest newspaper and three major
non-profits published a study showing 40 percent of Californians are thinking
of leaving the state, while 70 percent are happy here.
Oops! How
can the total of happy people and those thinking of moving top 100 percent by a
big margin? Easy: Plenty of folks are ambivalent, as always; they’re happy, but
wonder if things might be even better someplace else.
That mix
of feelings has been fed by a steady diet of sometimes bogus news about
California’s dropping population (far less than 2 percent over the last
decade), which inspires many to think that if bunches of people are leaving,
maybe there’s a good reason for it.
The
purveyors of the supposedly newsworthy report never admitted their study is a
virtual duplicate of one the Rand Corp. think tank conducted back in 1970.
That was
53 years ago, when researchers found an average of one in seven Californians at
the time were moving each year, some within the state, some to other points.
That means 49 percent of Californians were considering moves during any typical
seven-year span.
The
reason given by those long-ago researchers: Wanderlust.
It was
natural for Californians to wonder if the grass is greener someplace else and
many still do.
The same
wanderlust explains why many folks from other places came to California in the
first place. U.S. Census figures show 27 percent of Californians are foreign
born, double the nationwide percentage, and 28 percent hail from other states.
So more
than half the populace moved here from somewhere else. That doesn’t count their
children.
Just over
half of Californians, a far higher percentage than in any other state, already
know what it’s like to move. They’ve demonstrated some wanderlust previously,
some curiosity about what life is like in a different place.
It comes
as no shock that they can get intrigued about the idea of moving again,
especially if a move offers the opportunity for big-time financial advancement.
And it
can. The same study that drew the headlines by breathlessly reporting very old
news also reported that finances are the main reason Californians move to other
states. That’s been reported here and elsewhere for many years; it’s stoked by
the fact this state’s real estate is far higher priced than similar properties
in other states.
In fact,
similar-sized homes in Texas (the No. 1 destination of migrants from
California) often cost less than half what homeowners here can sell for. So for
some Californians, moving is the best way to make use of equity they’ve built
by living in the same house for seven years or more.
Some, in
fact, buy twice their prior acreage and floor space in Idaho or Arizona,
drawing resentment from longtime local residents by driving prices up to
unaffordable levels for natives. Expat Californians then often have enough left
over to live sumptuously without needing a job.
Other
California emigrants, untethered from their offices by the coronavirus
pandemic, live even higher, combining their old incomes with their new profits.
It’s
true, anxiety over California’s future and a feeling among some that the state
is headed in the “wrong” direction was another factor showing up in the study.
But economics were by far the single biggest push to leave, just as in the last
three decades.
And then
there are the regrets, not measured in the new study, but well documented
elsewhere. Almost half those leaving California, one 2021 study reported, find
themselves in shock when their first freezing winter hits in Idaho or
Minnesota, or when hurricanes begin flooding neighborhoods in Texas and
Florida.
Trouble
is, once they cash out, it’s not so easy for emigrants to backtrack and return
to California. The same real estate equation that convinced them to move now
hinders their moving back.
The
bottom line: When you see a well-hyped story about yet another study of why
people leave California, always remember the tale is not as simple as any one
study can imply. Nor is a new report necessarily anything really new.
-30-
Email Thomas Elias
at tdelias@aol.com. His book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough: The Most
Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government’s Campaign to Squelch It,"
is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias columns, visit
www.californiafocus.net
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