California is the most populous US state, standing just shy of 40 million people. However, the ninth-largest economy in the world is also facing a record number of would-be refugees to other US states as approximately half of the population wants to flee to other states.
According to statistics and citing housing costs as well as social changes, including a general sense of alienation from civil life, a UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies poll conducted for the Los Angeles Times indicates that the desire to move reaches as high as 40% for people who identify as “conservative” and 14% for those who identify as liberal.
“If the people who are giving serious consideration for leaving are indeed going to follow through, the state will continue to get bluer and bluer,” said Mark DiCamillo, the director of the Berkeley IGS poll. “That has huge political implications.”
The findings come amid the slowest population growth in California history — underscoring shifting immigration patterns, declining birthrates, and the economic strains that make it harder for some to afford living here.
One in five Californians pay more than 50% of their income for housing, according to the state Department of Finance. (source)
According to recent property averages, the median home price in the Southern California region is over half-a-million dollars at $535,000 last month. Los Angeles County median prices rose slightly to $619,000, and the same numbers for the Bay area put housing at an expensive $810,000.
Now housing is a concern for people who are married or have families. However, the anger is across the major age gaps, from young to those of “family” age. Those within the 18-to-29 demographic, expressed an 82% desire to leave, while those from 30-to-39 expressed an 80% desire to leave. As the report notes, the aging Boomer and Gen X populations, who settled into their homes years ago, is skewing the results of the survey lower than what it would normally be.
“That’s huge,” DiCamillo said. “Those 65 and older probably bought a house many years ago and it’s not that big of a deal. It’s less of a factor for the seniors.”
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“People in their 20s and 30s who are also citing a housing problem, we have to take them a little more seriously,” Myers said. “At least relative to the other age groups, those are the ones you have to worry about.”
The state’s fiscal year budget is the largest yet in California’s history, but with increased agitation among the younger people, who see little hope of a future, California’s political and fiscal plans may be put into long-term jeopardy as the state struggles to fill the pool of aging workers with new blood who can serve as a form of tax revenue for a state consumed with a desire to tax her citizens until they can bear no more.
The numbers also bear out this trend, as people are voting with their feet. From 2007 to 2016 California claimed five million new residents, but then to account that about 6 million left California, according to the U.S. Census Bureau indicates that the “natives” are not happy.
“Migration goes in two directions: People leave and people move in,” Frey said. “It could be that people moving to California also have political reasons for it. Maybe they move to California rather than a state that isn’t as progressive or doesn’t have as big of a social safety net.”
He added that if conservative voters do move out of state, California could lose a large tax base.
The “California migrations” are already happening right now. John Steinbeck in his novel The Grapes of Wrath wrote about poor farmers from the midwest and western regions of the US heading for the coasts for a better life, and now the story of history has reversed again as people are leaving the coasts and heading inland due to oppressive prices and government policies that were instituted while living there and have made life very difficult.
But what will the effect of this be? California is known for her dysfunctional politics, and as politics are but symptoms of the behavior of a people in an area, while there are many people who want to “flee” to better areas, the fact is that many people who contributed to the current disorder also want to flee but without admitting or changing the behaviors that created the dump they are in. It is similar to throwing food on the ground of one’s apartment, then complaining that the apartment is dirty, only to leave for a new apartment and continue to throw food on the floor as before. It may be clean now, but in a short time it will become dirty because of behavior.
California has the same problem, and it is not a “migration” issue, but a human decision issue. A lot of people want to leave, but will they, and for those who do leave, will they change the politics?
This answer is already being seen in Texas, where people migrating from California are turning the once red state solidly purple, and in enough time possibly even blue. The same can be said about Georgia and North Carolina, who are following a pattern like Florida in that due to migration from New York and New Jersey are starting to reflect the politics of the new arrivals.
Politics is always people, and a problem with the political system is a problem with those who live in the system because the problems likely grew out from their behavior.
Much talk is devoted to the “migration crisis” at the border, but the real crisis is internal- it is the migration crisis of “fellow Americans” with deranged views owing to a number of factors, but all signaling the return of a society to paganism and the decline of morality and the family structure.
Blame can be assigned to whoever, but the reality is that for the next fifty years, the fact of life in the US will be dealing with the current situation of a people who believe in socialism- be it a left or right form -is the answer to the problems of the day, and who hate people and believe that eugenics is an appropriate answer. It is a return, in many ways, to 19th century ideas but with contemporary technology. Based on the current trends, it is not anticipated to get better because fundamentals have shown no signs of changing.