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California: An Increasingly Negative Domestic Migration

citykid09

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citykid09

citykid09

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In this article they call Texas a "less-glamorous destinations" :angry: What do they consider glamorous??? Texas has a variety of landscapes so I don't know what they are talking about.

To read the whole article click below:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/07/b...artner=homepage

NY Times

November 7, 2005

Saying Goodbye California Sun, Hello Midwest

By MOTOKO RICH and DAVID LEONHARDT

LEE'S SUMMIT, Mo., Nov. 3 - A year ago, Melanie Fischer, a lifelong Californian, was not entirely sure where Missouri was. So when her husband proposed that they consider moving there, she raced to locate the state on a map printed on her children's placemats.

Today, Mrs. Fischer and her family live in this suburb of Kansas City, in a five-bedroom house nearly twice the size of their former home near San Bernardino, with a huge yard and a lake view from the hot tub on their deck. Still, Mrs. Fischer, 28, and her husband, Nathan, 30, had enough money left after their move to pay off the debt on their two cars and buy a 21-foot motorboat.

Many of their new neighbors cannot fathom why the Fischers left sunny California for, of all places, Missouri. "You have to give up things," Mrs. Fischer said, "to get things."

A growing number of people are leaving California after a decade of soaring home prices, according to separate data from the Census Bureau, the Internal Revenue Service and the state's finance department.

Last year, a half million people left California for other parts of the United States, while fewer than 400,000 Americans moved there. The net outflow has risen fivefold, to more than 100,000, since 2001, an analysis by Economy.com, a research company, shows, although immigration from other countries and births have kept the state's population growing.

The number of people leaving Boston, New York and Washington is also rising, and skyrocketing house prices appear to be a major reason, said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Economy.com. From New York, the net migration to Philadelphia more than doubled between 2001 and 2004, with 11,500 more people leaving New York for Philadelphia last year than vice versa. The number of New Yorkers who have moved to Albany, Charlotte, N.C., and Allentown, Pa., among other places, has also increased sharply.

But the change seems most pronounced in California, which has long been a beacon that draws people from all over the country, with its sun-drenched coasts and dynamic economy.

Today, however, the same factors that have made California so alluring have also made it unaffordable for many young families, retirees and recent immigrants to the United States. Some are heading to fast-growing cities like Las Vegas, as they have been for decades. But even less-glamorous destinations, like the Rust Belt and Texas, are on the receiving end of the migration.

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skwatra

skwatra

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the variety of landscapes in TX are spread across 1000 miles. there's heat, humidity, and mosquitos. in CA, there's none of these, and you have the ocean and mountains at your feet. so yeah, i could see calling california more glamorous.

but i pay $580/mo for an apartment on the lake with a hot tub and jet ski, and travel at least every other weekend. that's why i don't live there, if i did i could never leave my place and it would be a dump.

i work with several people that left LA, sold their small houses for a much larger house, paid off their cars and can now put their kids through school with ease. and they also got a raise for coming here.

i guess i agree with the article.

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RedScare

RedScare

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The article also acts as a warning to those who root for skyrocketing real estate values the way we do for stock prices. Not only are many tax rates tied to those real estate values, making it harder to live in your own home, but if they get out of control, as they have in California, it runs off the middle class, who keep a city running, such as municipal workers, police and firemen, teachers, retail workers and others. In time, the only ones left are the wealthy, who can afford to stay, and the uneducated and unskilled poor, who never seem to leave, but move into steadily more dilapidated housing or the street.

Steady, measured growth, like Houston's and Texas' is far healthier for a community, and therefore, it's economy.

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skwatra

skwatra

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actually, i visit quite often.

i took the article as mainly talking about the LA metro and Bay Area. i know the temps get over 100 degrees on occasion in LA, and more often in the other areas you mentioned, but there's no question the overall temp with humidity in TX is much hotter then CA.

and i got a mosquito bite in torrance less then a month ago, i know it happens (actually that was first for me), but again, not as rampant as here. not even close.

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GoAtomic

GoAtomic

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I have a sister in LA. I've visited a few times. Yeah, the weather is nice, but other aspects of daily life just suck. Everything's more expensive, you can't find a public restroom anywhere, and my sister constantly gripes about how difficult even the little things (like renewing a drivers license) are.

I even have a friend who had to glue a pot plant to his stoop so the immigrants from post-Communist Russia wouldn't consider it 'community property'.

Glamorous? No, you go ahead, I'll pass.

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citykid09

citykid09

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I have a sister in LA. I've visited a few times. Yeah, the weather is nice, but other aspects of daily life just suck. Everything's more expensive, you can't find a public restroom anywhere, and my sister constantly gripes about how difficult even the little things (like renewing a drivers license) are.

I even have a friend who had to glue a pot plant to his stoop so the immigrants from post-Communist Russia wouldn't consider it 'community property'.

Glamorous? No, you go ahead, I'll pass.

Public Restroom??? Explain!

I would like to live in Laguna Beach or LA. But Austin is just as good.

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TJones

TJones

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OK, so Texas is "less glamorous". I don't have a problem with that. It's not a big insult; most places aren't "glamorous". It sounds like the whole point of the article was that people give up glamor for a lower cost of living. Fair enough.

No,No, let them keep thinking there is nothing attractive about this place, keep real estate costs low, in turn keeping taxes low. Don't need anyone from California, the land of fruits and nuts, coming down here. It is horrible here, California is much much better, we have nothing here, it is desolate wasteland. I wouldn't send my worst enemy to live here in Houston.

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N Judah

N Judah

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Er...correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't Texas also have a negative domestic migration?

After all, a state can have transplants from other states and still have a negative domestic migration.

And I have yet to see a statistic indicating that there are more Californians moving to Texas than there are Texans moving to California, which would be the only way to justify some of the comments that are being made here about lower taxes or whatever trumping perceived "glamor."

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Jeebus

Jeebus

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A year ago, Melanie Fischer, a lifelong Californian, was not entirely sure where Missouri was. So when her husband proposed that they consider moving there, she raced to locate the state on a map printed on her children's placemats.

I don't know if I want stupid Californians moving here anyway. She had to refer to a childrens placemat to find Missouri? That's pathetic. I bet we've seen her on the Tonight Show's Jay Walking segment before.

I would like to live in Laguna Beach or LA. But Austin is just as good.

Turn off the MTV and pick up a book.

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N Judah

N Judah

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^No, Texas has one of the highest domestic migrations in the U.S. I read on SSC somewhere, I will try and find it.

edit: Here's the data you might be looking for --->

http://www.census.gov/prod/2003pubs/censr-7.pdf

Texas had a positive net migration of ~150K. California and New York both had a negative net migration. Georgia, Florida, and Nevada had a much larger positive net migration than Texas.

When accounting for percentage of population, Texas doesn't look that great at all. Washington and Oregon both had a positive net migration of 75K even though they are both much smaller (and are supposedly examples of the overpriced coastal areas people are fleeing to come to Texas).

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Guest danax

Guest danax

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I say we should encourage migration from CA, NY and anywhere in the US. A lot of Californians are living in $700K tract houses from the 50s (my parents, for example, who paid 30K for it in '71) and are stuck unless they move out of state. The reason they're stuck is that, sure, they're almost paper millionaires but where in the state would they go? To another tract house?

And that's not the biggest reason they're stuck; Prop. 13 is. A pretty famous law that passed there in '78 which froze all property taxes at the level of the SALES PRICE of the house, and also held valuation increases at 2% annually. So, my parents, as an example, are paying 1970s taxes. If they bought another home in CA, they'd be paying 2006 taxes, which they no way could afford. So, they can never really enjoy their real estate windfall unless they moved out of state.

A lot of fine people would come here with their real estate profits, and the rest who just can't afford to buy a home there, if we would advertise and try to dispel the lingering negative images about Houston and, to some extent, Texas. Nothing wrong with adding good people with a little $ to our mix as most of our population increase in the coming decades is predicted to come from low education "immigrants" with high birth rates who can tear up a neighborhood quickly. If that's an inevitability, then let's at least water it down a little with people who can, in general, join us in our efforts to improve and beautify this mega-city in the making.

By the way, there are mosquitos out there, just not as tenacious as here due to the arid climate, which also turns the hills brown, causes fires everywhere, and the dry, hot climate, unless buffered by the ocean, is not much better than our wet heat. Plus, we do have friendly people here so, all things laid out on the table, moving here from CA, for most, wouldn't be a negative. Most out there just don't realize that.

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Guest danax

Guest danax

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word : (wûrd) : exclamation 1. an affirmation of agreement.
OIC

Gee, I'd never heard that one before. Perhaps the latest expression from CA?, although if it's in the dictionary then it must not be too new. When did that one hit? Probably been around for centuries, don't mind me. :rolleyes:

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citykid09

citykid09

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OIC

Gee, I'd never heard that one before. Perhaps the latest expression from CA?, although if it's in the dictionary then it must not be too new. When did that one hit? Probably been around for centuries, don't mind me. :rolleyes:

That is a really old expression.

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Guest danax

Guest danax

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We gotta get Danax caught up on his Ebonics. <_<

Say what? That's about my most recent ebonistic expression. I don't keep up with any of that. The last time I watched MTV, Madonna was brand new.

We've drifted off topic but there is a common thread here; languages evolve whether we like it or not and so do cities. The influx of "outsiders" into Houston in the past 50 years has rendering the Texan drawl a rare thing. With the continuing migration here from other states and countries, it's inevitable that we, along with L.A, become the ruling "melting pots", even more so than NYC and Chicago.

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TJones

TJones

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Say what? That's about my most recent ebonistic expression. I don't keep up with any of that. The last time I watched MTV, Madonna was brand new.

We've drifted off topic but there is a common thread here; languages evolve whether we like it or not and so do cities. The influx of "outsiders" into Houston in the past 50 years has rendering the Texan drawl a rare thing. With the continuing migration here from other states and countries, it's inevitable that we, along with L.A, become the ruling "melting pots", even more so than NYC and Chicago.

Speaking of Texas Draw, I was on the phone with a woman from New York about 2 days ago. She was calling on an ad she saw online, and as we were talking, she asked me where I was located. I told her Houston, and she said that's what I thought, I could tell by your accent. And I am thinking MY ACCENT ? Holy Moly, lady have you ever heard yourself talk. All I could do was laugh. :lol:

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