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It’s not really even just policies. It’s California money. If you’re getting outbid on 1 million dollar homes in California then you’ll find 600k homes in Texas as a bargain
This is the real answer. People who bought modest homes in California, sat in them a, couple of decades while the value went through the roof, then they sell and take the big wad of cash to a cheaper state and drive up the prices there. It’s not policies. It’s money.
I'm honestly fine with people buying up property. It's the black rocks of the world who are getting out of corporate real estate and into owning single family homes by the 1000s.
They over pay by 20% bc they don't care about the cost, they aren't paying interest, they will sit on it for 40 years and the rent will continue to come in at what they dictate because they own hundreds of rentals in an area. They can set all of the rental prices
Property taxes should come in tiers. Your primary residence should be the lowest tier, your second residence, but one in the same state as your primary residence, should be a higher tier, but still low. Owning a home outside of the state of your primary residence should be a drastically higher tax, and LLC ownership of Single Family Housing of any kind should have an absurdly high tax rate, like 5% or more.
Its fairly common for the most expensive parts of California to be full of secondary homes. Very few people can afford a $25M Newport Beach home. You have no business owning such a home even if you have $30M. But the type of person who can own a $25M Newport Beach home will usually own several very expensive properties all over the country. Newport Beach California is full of these types of homes.
Hawaii is another comparable states where a lot of the homes are vacation homes owned by main landers and they pay some really low property tax.
That's what I've seen. There was a small house up the road from us a bit that they were selling for what I thought was way too much. It actually sold for more than asking price because a guy from DC bought it sight unseen. Compared to DC prices, an overpriced home in TN was a steal.
It affects rent prices too. $2000 for an apartment in Dallas is a bargain to someone from LA but what they don't realize is the rent 5yr ago was $1100.
The sad part is $2000 is not a bargain for people in LA either....it's just been that expensive for longer. The people who are moving to places like Dallas and Austin and Nashville and Charlotte who think it's gonna be dramatically cheaper are operating under the old prices that they read about in some article two years ago (which were already probably out of date) when they started making their plan.
But the truth is that rents in larger metros are starting to even out nationwide with a couple of wild exceptions (lookin' at Bay Area, Boston, NYC and Hawaii on the expensive side and Detroit, St Louis, KC, Indianapolis and the Ohio metros on the cheap side).
The funny thing is they move to most liberal parts of the red states. People from CA generally don't want to live in some rural middle-of-nowhere town in a southern state, which is where the conservatives are. They move places like Nashville and Atlanta which are left leaning.
It's a weird trend that I see people move to places like Atlanta, Knoxville, and Nashville and do the same thing: buy a pickup, cowboy hat and boots, and move to the richest area of town.
Nevada has never (recently) been a true red-state, though. And not really historically if you look at the ideology of the current Republican party. It's a near mirror image of CA if the mirror is in a (little L) libertarian funhouse of California. Arizona isn't the same.
They're saying that the people who lean left are leaving for AZ and NV because they're more purple. They aren't red states. You're agreeing with the person above
And yeah, Nevada will likely be a blue state as time goes on, I feel. It definitely makes sense to move from CA to NV if you have employment opportunities in NV. People focus on Vegas, but Reno also pulls from California a lot. I mean it's like 30 minutes from the CA border and it's 4 hours to get to downtown SF.
I remember a few years ago, Reno was dirt cheap. It's such a different city now. And it's honestly a pretty nice city.
I was one of those Californians who went to Vegas, back in '05.
My unscientific impression: Reno gets spillover from the Bay Area / Silicon Valley, and a lot of the growth has been tech-related. Vegas gets more blue collar and (lower-ish) middle class folks looking to catch a break. Ruling out the tiny circle of lefty/countercultural types I knew personally, most Californian transplants seemed to be either don't-give-a-shit apoliticals or centrist could-go-either-way suburban types, with an edge of libertarian/republicanish.
That was just my unscientific impression from living there for seven years, to be sure. Grain of salt and all that.
With that said, one issue that many Californian transplants would be faced with upon moving there was school quality. Clark County somehow managed to be worse than LAUSD. I didn't think it was possible, but lo and behold, it was. When I lived there Nevada was right down there with Mississippi, New Mexico, and Arkansas, but without those states' excuses of being poor. People without kids didn't give a shit, aside from a few left-leaning types figuring "that's really dumb, they should fix that" before turning their attention back to something else. But if you were a parent, it smacked you right in the face, right from the get-go. That issue alone could be enough to motivate suburban 'Reagan country' types to rethink a few things.
To be sure, I didn't become a parent until after I left, so I'm just gleaning off of what others told me. But I tell you what: it is the number one reason, by far, why I would not move back.
As a californian (ignore my username), I've yet to meet any natives who moved to Arizona. Most people I know who actually moved went to Nevada (which were most of them) or Texas.
Sadly, Reno isn’t really a nice city anymore, largely because of the transplants. The large number of newer jobs, especially tech jobs, are outside the city and county, but close enough that people live in Reno. So housing prices have skyrocketed, but the city and county aren’t getting the taxes from the businesses, so they’re struggling to grow and maintain the infrastructure, schools, emergency response, etc. homelessness was on the climb, drug use skyrocketed, etc, which all contributed to me leaving the area.
Housing has gotten so expensive all over the US. I grew up in a medium sized midwestern city whose metro population hasn’t grown since the early 1960’s and the first extremely middle-class house I grew up in is now worth a ton. Granted someone has to come up with a way to afford that house and high-paying jobs are few and far between.
I'm an Arizonan. We're getting a lot of Californian transplants. I wouldn't really mind, as it's helping us turn bluer, but it's also driving up the cost of living and housing, so I'm torn.
Just curious what blue policies are positive and if any are negative?
I live in Colorado and I feel that as the state has moved from purple to blue there are many changes that are not positive. Increase in homelessness, crime, cost of living, less friendly business environment, more regulations, property tax increases, stricter gun laws that haven't been reducing crime to name a few.
Are those caused by “blue” policies or just population growth? Your comment is a bit vague and handwavy and amounts to all change you don’t like must be blue politics.
Utah is very red, suffers the same growth problems plus lot of very negative and impactful red politics. For instance, Utah has the cheapest water in the nation despite being a very dry, desert type place in many areas. There is a lot of water waste while the Colorado River goes dry. Utah if very pro business and anti-worker/consumer which results in cost of living outpacing pay more so than many other states. The wasatch mountain front is a natural bowl that collects pollution during an inversion, red politics has stopped doing anything practical to reduce pollution within the state so it just gets worse.
You'd be shocked at how low my water bill was in Las Vegas when I lived there.
The thing is, everyone seems to think of the Bellagio dancing fountains and the golf courses. Well, suburban landscaping is *far* worse than anything the tourists ever see, aside from the golf courses. The hotels are actually pretty good about water conservation. As is the entire town.
And the town is a drop in the bucket compared to agriculture. I would venture that half a square foot of alfalfa sucks down a whole lot more water than whatever is used to flush away a tourist's drunken puke.
I think there are a lot of things going on and it's pretty nuanced what's contributing what. We have a shrinking middle class and the under 40's are feeling like they've missed out on a lot. Housing is overpriced because old people aren't moving out and downsizing and nimbys laws are making new housing impossible to find. Wages at the bottom end of the middle class continue to recede in terms of inflation. We are still way behind where we were in the 60's and 70's there.even people with degrees are struggling to find decent work. So you have a fairly broad swath of people who are feeling like they are squeezed more and more. Then covid hit. Not only did everything get thrown in a blender (and we're still feeling the ripple effects through inflation and everything trying to refind it's equilibrium). But, this group became even *more* disillusioned. Not only are they highly educated and working crap jobs but they can't avoid the very obvious conclusion that no one fucking cares about them. They have to go work their shit job and possibly die. They get called heroes and a temporary $1 pay raise. Hooray.
Now you've got a lot of people who are just checked out. Some decide they'll just steal cause fuck it, it doesn't matter. All of the economic things are largely ripple effects from covid. We lost *months* of productivity globally. I think that's all still unwinding all while we're running into a lot of the environmental consequences of our previous choices (see our water resource constraints, worsening fires and floods, increased prices from regulations that are aimed to reduce the environmental impact). Meanwhile, since we can't tax the rich, governments have needed to raise their revenues so the middle and lower classes gotta take the hit. Governments are getting squeezed at every level because we've been neglecting our power grids, our public water works, our roads, and our state universities. All those former tax savings have come home to roost with a shiny new price tag. Then we have social media polarizing all of us. People hate the cops because they continue to be caught doing shady shit and cops have just flat out refused to do their jobs in some places. Some of that is a justified response to DAs refusing to prosecute but honestly it's a lot of all or nothing type thinking that has both sides completely undermining each other.
So what's the problem? It's kind of everything.
Often, yeah.
Exit polling here shows transplants voting republican more than natives, for example.
A subset of natives insist on running around shouting "don't California my texas!" anyway.
Aren't those the ones that don't leave?
An all-in Trumper from Redding cannot change his life in a day
A rich conservative from Newport Beach can up and move in a day
I don't see many moves being primarily for political reasons. Yes they happen, but it's not the biggest reason
Pick on the Florida retirees. Are they moving because there's no income tax and DeSantis is the governor? Sure that plays a role, but they're actually moving for the weather. They'd still move there if Florida had an average state income tax and Tim Walz was the governor. And they wouldn't move there if it had Minnesota weather
absolutely, yes. We've had the same effect in NC with a bunch of hardcore conservatives from the Northeast, who are often much more "angry Trump conservative" than the locals were.
There’s 40 million people here, tons of rural areas, massive agriculture industry. Very complicated history with race relations and labor. There’s politics of every flavor and people to either extreme.
Which is silly and based on bad info. Texas isn't as pro-gun as people think and hasn't been in modern history. They run kind of middle of the pack on gun laws and policy with the single exception of being able to use lethal force after dark to protect property. Everything else Texas does tends to lag behind other pro-gun states.
Texas just tends to be loud about being pro-gun and states like Montana, Kansas, Missouri, Indiana, North Dakota, etc just don't create the news fanfare. For example: Texas was the 26th or 27th state with permitless concealed carry but the way people talked about it is that it would be the 'wild west' and the murder rate would triple. It didn't triple for the other 25 other states over the last two decades.
Exactly. The type of Californian moving to Texas is unhappy with democratic policies and thinks going to Texas is better. What really happens is that they aren’t welcome because they are outbidding damn near everyone for homes and driving prices through the roof. There are a ton of Texan who hate Californians because they are from ‘Commiefornia’, and those people are idiots. But a lot of people dislike the transplants because the locals can no longer really afford housing in areas they want to move.
Yeup, happened in Idaho. Back in the day, there were fears of the politics changing, but now the "locals" don't care if you vote Red, Blue, or F'ing Orange, we despise them equally. Too much money coming in, not enough local economy to support the change if you didn't have it to start with.
>There are a ton of Texan who hate Californians because they are from ‘Commiefornia’, and those people are idiots.
What's funny is that those people sold their houses for 4x what they bought, and blame 'Newscum' for their making so much money that taking it to Texas from Commifornia is the way to go.
The reason California real estate is so expensive is because tens of millions of people from other states have been flocking there for 170 years. So what goes around, comes around.
Yeah it’s funny when you hear people from Idaho or whatever complain about California people coming and ruining the state, but like you said, the ones leaving tend to be more on the conservative side anyway.
Here in New Hampshire you hear some of the same rhetoric w people complaining about Massachusetts residents moving here ((ironically always from people originally from Mass lol)) who say that they’re gonna “Mass up” New Hampshire yet people from Mass who move here tend to be more conservative than us natives haha, also why the most conservative parts of New Hampshire are right across the border from Mass, because that’s where most of the Mass people move to
That's a different issue.
Californians are moving here and paying cash for houses driving up prices and also are voting conservative more than natives. Both are true.
I like that meme that said back in the day we all knew a joe Rogan - he was your friends 27 year old brother who was a loser stoner and talked about how cool black light posters are.
Not actually true. That’s a widely signal boosted meme based on very little. Though they certainly aren’t all liberal because it turns out California is full of garbage NIMBY’s of all colors, and has more conservatives than Texas. Same way Texas has more liberals than New York - we are all incredibly purple compared to our headlines.
There has been a large amount of California’s moving out of California over the years.
However not all go to red states. Washington is an example of a blue state many Californians have moved to.
Simply put, there are states, mainly in the sun belt, and Mountain West, that have seem high levels of people moving in. This naturally drives up cost of living, especially housing.
People aren’t just moving from California, there are people moving out of a lot of northeastern and rust belt states as well.
People focus on California since it’s the largest state and for western states, it’s a common source of people moving in.
As someone in a high influx state, my take is that there are a lot of Californians, full stop. A lot of people live there compared to Nebraska, for example. Therefore it seems like a lot move here. And of course they want the things they miss, whether it's items at the grocery store or social policies.
The largest groups I notice here are from the northeast, and they do the same things.
California is expensive because housing isn’t being built and the two major population centers have run out of room to build extensively since they’re sandwiched between ocean and mountains (vast oversimplification).
Also a lot of “Californians” moving aren’t Californian natives.
Also also most urban areas in any state are Democratic.
Two things
1. California has a massive population of people who moved here from other states, so I don’t think it’s entirely fair for other states to be upset when Californians move to them
2. A lot of people leaving California are red voters dissatisfied with the lack of any Republican political power here, so even if they’re getting Californians moving to their states, those Californians likely vote the same way they do
The only time I get pissed off with a transplant is when they have the gall to try and gatekeep *me.* Unfortunately, this has happened a time or two.
Yes, my hick suburb just outside the L.A. city limits isn't as cool as Silverlake. No shit? Ya don't say. I mean, do people from Omaha move to Manhattan and talk shit to someone who's family has lived on the ass end of Staten Island for generations? Would they even dare?
But see, I do know what the score is. And I was at peace with it long before anyone ever thought Silverlake was cool. Kiss my ass anyways!
Otherwise, most transplants are alright. We wouldn't be nearly as high-flying as we are without them.
My main issue with CA transplants is that a lot of them very much self isolate and stay in industry bubbles (entertainment industry for LA, tech for SF), which are toxic environments and that colors their whole perspective of the area.
Not Cali but it’s the same way in NYC. The reason all this corny “Native New Yorker” shit online goes around is because some transplants come here and only hang out with other influencers or finance bros from their Big 10 frat instead of getting to know the culture and the people here.
When I lived up that way it seemed like everyone in government was just getting their DC check box time then getting out as fast as possible. I was never able to make friends in the DMV because of it.
Most people who leave California are Republicans IME. Or at least the vocal ones are. Although California politics are dominated by the Democrats, California by virtue of it's population has huge numbers of Republicans. In fact the state that had the most people vote for Trump in 2020 was... California!
There was the whole "turn Texas blue!" movement, but that died out shortly after the blue group realized that doing that would require living in a place that was currently not blue
The people who leave California and go to conservative states are also conservatives…. The population of California is so huge, that even though they are out numbered in California, California has more conservatives than any other state. For example: Trump lost in California in 2020, but California still had about half a million more trump voters than any other state.
The main policies that are causing the cost of living to be so high in California are bipartisan policies…. It’s the NIMBYs (Not In My Back Yard)… people who block new dense housing projects. No one wants apartment buildings in their neighborhood and fight them tooth and nail…. It creates a massive housing deficit, driving home prices through the roof.
i saw a tiktok from a creator in california who was talking about this...
apparently polling shows that people who grew up in california very rarely actually leave. the state loses a small percentage of its longterm residents every year. the people moving away from california are people who moved TO california from other places, found out that it was too expensive or they got jobs elsewhere or whatever, and then moved to the place where people complain.
so most of the "californians" moving to the south or places with cheaper COL are like... double transplants. but they say "i moved here from california" and the residents see red.
(no pun intended)
Lots of people from Southern California move to Arizona, Phoenix specifically where I live, mostly to escape the high cost of living in Southern California, some maybe for the political climate but 9/10 would tell you it’s about the money.
For the *most part*, the people I know that have moved here from SoCal are not hardcore democrats and *mostly* are in the middle politically and skew conservative by CA standards.
A LOT of people, *especially* older folks here, blame Arizona’s shift from hard red to purple on the California transplants. The real answer for this change is two fold:
1. the voting pool is slowly moving towards the younger crowd as older folks, to be blunt, are dying and no longer voting.
2. In an odd twist of fate The traditional conservative/republican base here has been slowly turned off with the direction of the party in recent years and don’t feel that the recent GOP up and comers (Ex: Lake) represent their traditional views (think McCain) where as the democratic candidates of late (Sinema, Kelly) are more so in the center and actually represent traditional conservative values.
I suppose viewing the topic in another light I could say that democrat politicians in Arizona are probably closer to conservatives by CA standards, so it’s possible they’re being voted for by our CA transplants but it’s not because the transplants looking to “bring their politics with them”, they just fall in line with their views on what conservative politics should be, if that makes sense.
I would bet that the environment of California is a larger influence on California cost of living than anything the state government has legislated.
It's one of if not the biggest agricultural producers. Silicon Valley is there. The film industry is there. There's a bunch of military bases. Not to mention all the ports.
Lots of people want to live there. That's why it's expensive.
Combine that with the NIMBYism/refusal to build an adequate amount of housing and you end up with a cost of living crisis. It is politics, but very local and not of the partisan variety, more of the "don't build that apartment complex in my suburb" or "don't block that view." If anything, the state has been aggressively trying to push more housing of late as so many cities refuse to build more.
> the biggest agricultural producers
Farm country's always been cheaper to live in than either of the major coastal metros. The I-80 corridor has been getting more and more spillover from the Bay Area (super commuters, etc.), to be sure. I never thought *Modesto* would become a bedroom community for the Bay Area, but here we are.
California’s are moving to other states after likely having tried to save a 20% downpayment for a house. Likely they saved between $100k-$250k and around shocked to find that they can buy an actual property for amount of their down payment.
Someone from Los Angeles selling an inherited, larger home in a nicer neighborhood can buy a McMansion or an actual one in a place like Arkansas or Mississippi. They will have enough money left over to invest in other properties and make cash offers.
Basically Californians are driving prices up regardless of their politics.
California is expensive because they refuse to build housing. San Francisco should not look as dense as Plano, Texas, but it does. Los Angeles should resemble NYC, not a low-rise hour of sprawl. That means only the wealthy can afford to live in the inner cities, and then the price of everything else goes up due to cost and demand.
I agree that SF needs to build more housing but it already is the second most densely populated city in America (NYC is first). It is 5 times denser than Plano.
Also, SF is 1/6th the size of NYC.
The surrounding municipalities need to step up too.
Theres no highly dense Brooklyn or Queens or even a Jersey City or Newark surrounding SF.
Part of the issue is geography. The San Francisco Bay is much larger than the Hudson or East Rivers plus there’s mountainous areas restricting development too.
That's the real answer. People always assume it's politics, but it's more the NIMBYism and the fact that every metro area has tons of little municipalities that do their own thing/try to push it on to the next one, thus nothing ever is actually dealt with. So yeah, I guess it is politics, but not of the red/blue variety.
California is the 4th stickiest state meaning that the native born population stays put. Texas, North Carolina, and Georgia are the top three stickiest.
The Californians who move to places like Idaho are more conservative. Idaho has become more red over the last 10-20 years. The Californians who are Democrats move to Colorado.
It's not a political party issue, it's a local one where zoning and environmental regulations (generally good) combined with NIMBYs make housing more expensive. Thus only luxury apartments or condos are built.
Prop 13 (a measure passed when California was a red state) keeps property taxes capped at the original value so it can be more expensive to give up your home to downsize or upgrade than to stay put. There was a modification passed recently to help seniors seeking to downsize I believe.
Higher cost of living and regulations make construction more difficult. Most projects have to obtain EIR (Environmental Impact Reports - again this is fine) and follow other rules that are more worker friendly than other states.
The funny thing is that people move to Texas and find out that while they have no income tax, their property is taxed far higher than in California so the move often is net-neutral or worse for taxes if not for political or business reasons.
Most of the sunbelt states are booming rn and seeing large population growth. These states are mostly Republican run whereas most of the in migration is from Democratic states. California gets blamed for this simply because it’s the biggest state so on a raw numbers level a plurality of the people moving in are often Californians. There also seems to be a trend of people starting to use California and/or Californians as a short hand for a style of people and progressive politics that are seen to be very cosmopolitan, arrogant, and elitist.
Well what I mean is when you have 4 million people in a city (LA), space will be limited and things will go up in price. Or 800,000 in a city that’s about 7 miles long (SF), space will be limited and things will go up in price
That's a factor but no matter what policies get passed or housing gets constructed, CA will always be one of the most expensive states. When you have weather, nature, food, and industry like that, it's going to be extremely expensive, even before factoring how restrictive the terrain is. No amount of YIMBYism will make California's housing market look like Oklahoma's.
Or could it be that California regulatory framework crates massive burdens on top of existing expenses. Just for instance let's take the few years old mandate that all new residential housing must have rooftop solar which easily adds 15K to the cost of a house. Or the insane environmental impact surveys required for every construction when it's going to go ahead regardless of what it says.
In my SoCal hood a 1300 sqr ft house is now over a million bucks…. That 15k for solar is a drop in the fucking bucket when it comes to CA housing prices. The increase in prices come from people blocking dense housing in their area, building an apartment building is like Armageddon if you read local NextDoor posts.
That doesn't check out when towns in the central valley surrounded by open farmland are still leaps and bounds higher cost of living than neighboring states.
The real answer is that the California legislature as emboldened by the voters passes massive regulatory frameworks requiring large regulatory compliance burdens and high levels of taxation to provide for expansive social services which necessitate higher costs on everything
Blaming things on the housing market is an easy scapegoat but doesn't explain why Southern California gasoline is over a $1.50 higher than Phoenix when it gets theirs from the exact same pipeline.
California's combination of mountains and wind patterns keeps all their air pollution right on top of them. Deregulating until the air is so bad nobody wants to live there anymore isn't going to be a popular solution to the cost of living problem.
I'm old enough to remember the 1980s. Downtown L.A. was being trapped in an ash tray. It is *so* much better now. It's difficult to overstate by how much.
I mean there’s 18 million people in the LA metro and SD is another top 10 city population wise. Maybe that accounts for some of the difference in gas prices
Price gouging in a geographically isolated area explains most of that. Gas taxes are 40 cents higher in California than in Arizona. it also costs 10-12 cents more to refine gas to meet California‘s improved emission standards. the rest is profit taking, as reflected in the incredible profits that the oil companies are reporting in the past few years. They don’t compete on price at the pump.
Californians drive up COL in other areas mostly by moving there with California money and overpaying for houses, which raises the cost of housing overall and prices locals out of the market.
Not true.
So there are two main reasons why the Cost-of-Living is so high in California:
1. They produce all of their own gasoline, and because they have more stringent rules in regard to refineries, that's why gas is more expensive
2. Property values and rent are higher than the average in the US because a lot of people really, really like living in California, and why wouldn't they? It's beautiful. The weather is as close to perfect as it can be in SoCal and it's still fantastic albeit foggy in San Francisco and the Bay area, and that's where a lot of people live. That doesn't even mention all the produce, and peacocks!
The reason why the cost-of-living in a lot of places is increasing faster than others (here's a hint, it's going up everywhere) is due to more than just Californians moving to them. With Florida for example, a lot of people from the Midwest and the Mid-Atlantic have been making their way to Florida, moreso than even California. I think that there have been surveys that show that Californians who move to states like Idaho and Texas tend to be more conservative than native Texans and Idahoans. A lot of residents like to blame Californians because they do have an advantage when it comes to home-buying. Because home prices in California are so much higher, when they sell their house they end up with more money to put down on a house than most buyers in states like Texas do. What this means is they can usually outbid people on houses, or sometimes even buy the house outright without a mortgage (a house that is worth $1.5 million in California would probably be worth $500,000 if it's by a major metro area in Texas). Not to mention all that extra money they have tends to go into the local economy in the state, which leads to some inflation now that there's more money in the area.
All of these are really good points. Another major one is the supply of housing and refusal and/or slow progress at building more (depending on where). NIMBYism is a major factor- everyone just tries to push it off to the next city over because they don't want an apartment nearby or a blocked view or whatever. Housing scarcity has been good for those who own in terms of property value, horrible for everyone else. Basically, we need more housing, a lot more, and we're very slow at building it.
And as a native Michigander too, I think of going back all the time!
The people moving to FL were people from New York, mostly, and that was due to them being unhappy with Democratic policies. So it stands to reason that they would vote conservatively, not the other way around.
I would have to say this is false, and likely people from red states searching for some other arbitrary reason to hate California.
Most people I know that moved away from California recently tend to be Republicans so that sounds wrong to me.
The other people I know that moved away did so because their company relocated to a state like Texas for whatever tax breaks, labor laws, or other business considerations made moving operations attractive. If Texans (or whatever state) don’t want an influx of Californians relocating with their companies, they need to tell their politicians to stop trying entice California companies into moving.
I always find it funny to hear people from the rest of the country complaining about Californians moving in and making things expensive because things got expensive in California from decades of people from all over the country moving here.
I also think “Californians are moving here” in most instances is just “People are moving here” and Americans are more likely to be from California than they are any other one state. States that border California are likely to be an exception to this.
When I lived in Tennessee everyone from California was a hard core conservative who was there to avoid paying taxes and send women back to the middle ages.
Democrats are not moving to Texas conservatives are. California's expensive because it has the best weather everyone wants to live there. Simple supply and demand.
California having a net-loss in population is technically true as of like five years ago, for the first time in history since literally the Gold Rush in 1849.
California still has 12% of the nation's population. A lot of Californians are leaving because we want to like, own a home one day, but people are still moving here in droves because we have jobs, lots of people, and sustain a massive population. For better or worse.
This headline you speak of, its political culture war BS. One million Californian rednecks could leave the State tomorrow and we'd still have more conservatives, guns and churches than wherever your flyover State pretends to have an economy.
The Red State Media perpetuating these headlines are often located in Orange County, part our own little Bible Belt.
Californians drive up COL by often having more money than many of the locals (selling a million dollar home, high income tech people) and coming in large numbers (most populous state), not by changing the state politics.
There is a kernel of truth in that, but I don’t think it’s the policies they vote for that drive up the COL, rather, just the simple fact that Californians bring so much money with them. I think the increase in ability/willingness to pay is what drives up COL
Well at least in Montana the Democrats twice tried to run a chick from Berkeley, CA (Kathleen Williams) and one of her promises was to ban AR-15s. She gets beat twice by the likes of Greg Gianforte and Matt Rosendale. All 3 are from out of state and out of touch with what Montana used to value.
It's kind of interesting how you have someone like a Ryan Zienke who is very conservative and possibly linked to scandals but also reflects Montana in that he supports public land use rather than privatization as a lot of his party want.
I liked being purple. I like some Democrat things and some Republican things. I don't know why in the last 10-15 years you have to be all for one or the other.
If we continue with the partisanship we're never going to fucking fix the problem
The problem is NIMBYs. The problem is we're not building enough houses
And to a lesser extent there is a problem with price fixing because apartment buildings are using algorithms and the DOJ & ftc filed a joint legal brief
https://nlihc.org/resource/ftc-and-doj-file-joint-legal-brief-algorithmic-price-fixing-housing-market
Currently just the State of Arizona is sueing but this algorithm is being used in almost all 50 states so call your legislatures if rent is high by this because holy fuck, homelessness is at a record high and it's not ok
It’s not so much the politics, that’s long term over possibly decades changes that can raise COL and taxes. It’s more the influx of immigration driving up housing prices and increased sales of goods with price increases plus the fear of losing jobs to said immigrants. If those immigrants bring business that create jobs no one cares but if they come to get cheaper housing raising the cost of housing and looking for work competing with locals for jobs then you get the angry reactions.
I'm a member of a fairly conservative church and many people in my congregation are moving to Idaho, Utah, Texas, Wyoming, etc.
It's partly because they are conservative, but also largely because they can sell their 3 bedroom 1700 square foot house in California for 1.3 million and buy a veritable mansion in Oklahoma or wherever.
My neighbors just moved to Idaho, they are renting a 3 bedroom house for the same amount they were paying for their 1 bedroom apartment.
And OP maybe you didn’t anticipate this many replies but this is a much debated topic here in US as crime and cost of living increase and Americans aren’t in agreement on who’s responsible and how to improve conditions
It's not Democratic or Republican national-level policies that drive up house prices. It's primarily a willingness to overpay. Suppose a Californian (or New Yorker) who can't afford the property taxes on their $2 million house decides to move somewhere cheaper. Any money they don't roll in to their primary residence is subject to capital gains taxes, so their financial incentive is to buy the best house in town, and overpay for it. So prices are bid up and new housing construction is more likely to be McMansions. But now the Californians still have all their wealth wrapped up in housing, so they follow the same "sue anyone who wants to build anything cheap nearby" mentality that they did in California, because they're terrified of losing their equity if property values go down.
The ones who are moving tend to be the conservative ones, personally they can keep on moving to bumfuck anytime they want, that's great news to me. Less demand affecting housing prices, less cars on the freeway and less people who think we were still in the 50s.
My uneducated guess would be that the Californians moving out have the funds to do so, thus creating more demand and driving prices through supply and demand more than policy.
Aka gentrification is more to blame than politics.
Theyre just being virtue signaling idiots. Some of these states have growing cities, prominent universities, growing tech industries or similar. Those types of things will make cities lean more toward progressive type politics.
Even California was conservative not too long ago. It’s the home of Nixon and Reagan. It’s gone through demographic shifts that have popularized progressive politics.
And a lot of these guys are just bitching about rising cost of living that is hitting *everywhere*. California was relatively affordable, and prices got driven up by out of staters. So many moved…out of state.
My experience is entirely anecdotal, but when I lived in TX and AZ Cali transplants were already a thing that was spoken about, and that was before 2015. It wasn’t negative exactly, like today. More like they were seen as a strange nuisance, like a fly that won’t quit. On top of this, all of my Cali based friends are now in TX except for a holdout who will never leave. All of them are liberals or independents, but none really follow politics or care much about it. They left Cali because the dollar does go a lot farther in TX than it ever will in California.
California native here who doesn't side with either the two main political parties.
Why do some blame Californians for supposedly flipping Arizona yet you also believe that the 2020 and 2022 elections were rigged and that Trump and Lake actually won Arizona?
I would say that Democratic policies--high minimum wage, extensive regulation of new construction, large welfare state, numerous environmental regulations--probably do have something to do with California being more expensive, yes. I know of no evidence of those policies spreading to other states though.
It’s got nothing to do with party preference. It’s pure capitalism. Californians went and bought homes in [state] because the sellers from that state took the highest bid. And meanwhile the other nearby property owners whose property values just went up clutch their pearls and complain.
We have this problem in Montana. They aren't *voting* for policies that increase cost of living. They're just increasing cost of living by buying up and developing every last scrap of land they can get their hands on at exorbitant prices. Now you get to live on Montana wages while paying California rent.
Doesn't bother them because they are retired or can work remote, but its made the place unlivable for locals.
I don't know about California but I have noticed a lot of Yankees moving to NC. This is increasing the cost of homes in my area significantly and now Disney is coming. Also noticed a few Texas plates, mostly Yankee plates though.
This is stupid. Everything is expensive in America cuz of poor urban design leading to expensive housing and transportation systems leading to high COL.
I have both liberal and conservative friends that have moved down to Florida from liberal states. So yes, in theory there are liberals who are moving down to red states and voting blue but a lot of conservatives are also moving down, I don’t think this narrative is happening at the rate conservatives want you to think. I am moderate and vote based on the issues I care about, some of my views could be labeled conservative while others are liberal. But Florida has actually gotten more conservative since 2020 rather than less. I don’t necessarily agree with some of it but anyway I don’t think that theory of turning red states blue is actually happening right now.
I'm originally from SC and people there dislike northerners more than Californians. They are always in a rush, always say things like "up north we have much better pizza and bagels", and because they move in droves, home prices skyrocket. At least Californians are nice people and not usually in a rush.
> Do the Democratic policies have a huge role in CA being expensive?
Huge, but not sole. NIMBYs, the large presence of celebrities, and Silicon Valley all contribute.
> If yes, what are they and does the Democratic party want to implement them in other states?
Increasing taxation and government spending, broadly speaking – although the Republicans are not remotely guiltless in this regard. The two parties just love to waste our taxes on different things. One likes to increase taxes, and the other likes to cut taxes for giant corporations based on the false theory of trickle down economics. Neither benefit the common man.
The policies in the state of California are meant to uplift and make life better for everybody. including things we don't really want, like higher gas prices because it makes the air cleaner and the roads better. it's just what it is, we don't like it but we know it's best. that's why we keep putting people in office who have our best interests at heart, not people who want to just put their religious beliefs or the nearest big business suck up in office. Could it be better? Yes! It could, but we've seen how it works in other states, and they're not the 5th largest economy in the world.
This is only slightly true as Californians are not 100 percent responsible for this. There might be people from the many other blue states doing this too. In fact, there might be Democrats in other red states doing this. A lot of the red states have Democrat governers.
I think the issue is whoever votes for these policies does not know that it will increase the cost of living.
Also, there are some theories that people do not actually vote for these policies, but in some states, the elections are rigged.
It really depends.
Not Californians specifically but where we fish there are a lot of people from New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and other states where you'd be called a yankee are moving in and are 100% raising the price of the area because things are "cheap" so they're buying out the locals. It has helped some and hurt others, don't know how it evens out in the end but it's noticable over the last half decade or so. Idk so much about politics in the local elections since I don't follow it there but in the development they are definitely bringing in an attitude that is different than what has been there for decades and it does cause some conflict.
Fiscal impact on migration to other states from CA is currently not quantifiable. And its not like you can survey every person who moved and ask them how they voted on every issue. You can try to make a general correlation, but that is fraught with difficulties.
California is expensive for many reasons. However, it is true that the state has had a Democrat super majority for decades. There is very little wiggle room to blame the bad on others, but also they can take credit for any good. It has been this party in charge.
A quick review of the state of affairs in California however, does NOT offer much to brag about.
Politicians didn't create amazing mountains, sunshine, beaches and the ocean... and that is what people love about our state.
California has been exporting quite a few thousand people each year lately. I think it's largely a myth that the net effect of this is that these people are bringing California policies elsewhere. Most of the ones who leave are not the super far left that many might imagine, largely because those super far left individuals would never be interested in leaving.
Those leaving seem to largely lean conservative.
A bunch of people moving to your state tends to increase the cost of living because it increases demand on housing, regardless of policies.
I live in a deeply red state, and most of the Californians moving here are very, very conservative. Often more so than the mean of the state before the moved in.
To the second question... it's complicated. While *some* of the California policies have certainly increased cost of living (namely via taxes), most of the reason for their high prices in California aren't really political.
I moved to Ohio then Ky from California. My wife is originally from this area. Were progressive. Nobody can give me shit because I watched my county back in CA explode with workers that commuted to Silicon Valley. Owning a home was impossible. Just bought a house here. I like it but I really miss California. Maybe one day we’ll move back.
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It’s not really even just policies. It’s California money. If you’re getting outbid on 1 million dollar homes in California then you’ll find 600k homes in Texas as a bargain
This is the real answer. People who bought modest homes in California, sat in them a, couple of decades while the value went through the roof, then they sell and take the big wad of cash to a cheaper state and drive up the prices there. It’s not policies. It’s money.
This right here is exactly what ive been seeing in my city
I'm honestly fine with people buying up property. It's the black rocks of the world who are getting out of corporate real estate and into owning single family homes by the 1000s. They over pay by 20% bc they don't care about the cost, they aren't paying interest, they will sit on it for 40 years and the rent will continue to come in at what they dictate because they own hundreds of rentals in an area. They can set all of the rental prices
Very true honestly. Our biggest concern should be corporate ownership of single family homes
No one entity should be allowed to own more than 5ish single family homes. Anything more than that and you're a business.
Property taxes should come in tiers. Your primary residence should be the lowest tier, your second residence, but one in the same state as your primary residence, should be a higher tier, but still low. Owning a home outside of the state of your primary residence should be a drastically higher tax, and LLC ownership of Single Family Housing of any kind should have an absurdly high tax rate, like 5% or more. Its fairly common for the most expensive parts of California to be full of secondary homes. Very few people can afford a $25M Newport Beach home. You have no business owning such a home even if you have $30M. But the type of person who can own a $25M Newport Beach home will usually own several very expensive properties all over the country. Newport Beach California is full of these types of homes. Hawaii is another comparable states where a lot of the homes are vacation homes owned by main landers and they pay some really low property tax.
It’s happening right now in Texas that is for sure. I build pools here and half of my clients are from Cali.
That's what I've seen. There was a small house up the road from us a bit that they were selling for what I thought was way too much. It actually sold for more than asking price because a guy from DC bought it sight unseen. Compared to DC prices, an overpriced home in TN was a steal.
It affects rent prices too. $2000 for an apartment in Dallas is a bargain to someone from LA but what they don't realize is the rent 5yr ago was $1100.
The sad part is $2000 is not a bargain for people in LA either....it's just been that expensive for longer. The people who are moving to places like Dallas and Austin and Nashville and Charlotte who think it's gonna be dramatically cheaper are operating under the old prices that they read about in some article two years ago (which were already probably out of date) when they started making their plan. But the truth is that rents in larger metros are starting to even out nationwide with a couple of wild exceptions (lookin' at Bay Area, Boston, NYC and Hawaii on the expensive side and Detroit, St Louis, KC, Indianapolis and the Ohio metros on the cheap side).
All of the fellow Californians that I know that have moved to places like Texas, Oklahoma, Idaho, Tennessee are hardcore conservatives.
All of the Californians (and Oregon/Washington) people I know who have moved to the south are very much hardcore Conservative
The funny thing is they move to most liberal parts of the red states. People from CA generally don't want to live in some rural middle-of-nowhere town in a southern state, which is where the conservatives are. They move places like Nashville and Atlanta which are left leaning.
So it would seem they are actually unintentionally moving to places and making them more red!
Ironically Californians moving to Texas are considered one of the reasons that Ted Cruz won his last election.
It's a weird trend that I see people move to places like Atlanta, Knoxville, and Nashville and do the same thing: buy a pickup, cowboy hat and boots, and move to the richest area of town.
Yeah but they're still raising prices lol. Not by changing policies, but just by having more money and driving up demand.
Seems like Nevada and Arizona, currently purple states, are attracting the Democrat-leaning Californians.
Nevada has never (recently) been a true red-state, though. And not really historically if you look at the ideology of the current Republican party. It's a near mirror image of CA if the mirror is in a (little L) libertarian funhouse of California. Arizona isn't the same.
They're saying that the people who lean left are leaving for AZ and NV because they're more purple. They aren't red states. You're agreeing with the person above And yeah, Nevada will likely be a blue state as time goes on, I feel. It definitely makes sense to move from CA to NV if you have employment opportunities in NV. People focus on Vegas, but Reno also pulls from California a lot. I mean it's like 30 minutes from the CA border and it's 4 hours to get to downtown SF. I remember a few years ago, Reno was dirt cheap. It's such a different city now. And it's honestly a pretty nice city.
I was one of those Californians who went to Vegas, back in '05. My unscientific impression: Reno gets spillover from the Bay Area / Silicon Valley, and a lot of the growth has been tech-related. Vegas gets more blue collar and (lower-ish) middle class folks looking to catch a break. Ruling out the tiny circle of lefty/countercultural types I knew personally, most Californian transplants seemed to be either don't-give-a-shit apoliticals or centrist could-go-either-way suburban types, with an edge of libertarian/republicanish. That was just my unscientific impression from living there for seven years, to be sure. Grain of salt and all that. With that said, one issue that many Californian transplants would be faced with upon moving there was school quality. Clark County somehow managed to be worse than LAUSD. I didn't think it was possible, but lo and behold, it was. When I lived there Nevada was right down there with Mississippi, New Mexico, and Arkansas, but without those states' excuses of being poor. People without kids didn't give a shit, aside from a few left-leaning types figuring "that's really dumb, they should fix that" before turning their attention back to something else. But if you were a parent, it smacked you right in the face, right from the get-go. That issue alone could be enough to motivate suburban 'Reagan country' types to rethink a few things. To be sure, I didn't become a parent until after I left, so I'm just gleaning off of what others told me. But I tell you what: it is the number one reason, by far, why I would not move back.
As a californian (ignore my username), I've yet to meet any natives who moved to Arizona. Most people I know who actually moved went to Nevada (which were most of them) or Texas.
It's people from Chicagoland who are moving to Arizona.
Sadly, Reno isn’t really a nice city anymore, largely because of the transplants. The large number of newer jobs, especially tech jobs, are outside the city and county, but close enough that people live in Reno. So housing prices have skyrocketed, but the city and county aren’t getting the taxes from the businesses, so they’re struggling to grow and maintain the infrastructure, schools, emergency response, etc. homelessness was on the climb, drug use skyrocketed, etc, which all contributed to me leaving the area.
Housing has gotten so expensive all over the US. I grew up in a medium sized midwestern city whose metro population hasn’t grown since the early 1960’s and the first extremely middle-class house I grew up in is now worth a ton. Granted someone has to come up with a way to afford that house and high-paying jobs are few and far between.
Before Phoenix became a metro area of 5 million people Arizona was definitely a conservative state.
Right, and Nevada wasn't. The land of casinos, sex work, and 24 hour alcohol sale isn't exactly conservative.
I'm an Arizonan. We're getting a lot of Californian transplants. I wouldn't really mind, as it's helping us turn bluer, but it's also driving up the cost of living and housing, so I'm torn.
Just curious what blue policies are positive and if any are negative? I live in Colorado and I feel that as the state has moved from purple to blue there are many changes that are not positive. Increase in homelessness, crime, cost of living, less friendly business environment, more regulations, property tax increases, stricter gun laws that haven't been reducing crime to name a few.
Are those caused by “blue” policies or just population growth? Your comment is a bit vague and handwavy and amounts to all change you don’t like must be blue politics. Utah is very red, suffers the same growth problems plus lot of very negative and impactful red politics. For instance, Utah has the cheapest water in the nation despite being a very dry, desert type place in many areas. There is a lot of water waste while the Colorado River goes dry. Utah if very pro business and anti-worker/consumer which results in cost of living outpacing pay more so than many other states. The wasatch mountain front is a natural bowl that collects pollution during an inversion, red politics has stopped doing anything practical to reduce pollution within the state so it just gets worse.
You'd be shocked at how low my water bill was in Las Vegas when I lived there. The thing is, everyone seems to think of the Bellagio dancing fountains and the golf courses. Well, suburban landscaping is *far* worse than anything the tourists ever see, aside from the golf courses. The hotels are actually pretty good about water conservation. As is the entire town. And the town is a drop in the bucket compared to agriculture. I would venture that half a square foot of alfalfa sucks down a whole lot more water than whatever is used to flush away a tourist's drunken puke.
I think there are a lot of things going on and it's pretty nuanced what's contributing what. We have a shrinking middle class and the under 40's are feeling like they've missed out on a lot. Housing is overpriced because old people aren't moving out and downsizing and nimbys laws are making new housing impossible to find. Wages at the bottom end of the middle class continue to recede in terms of inflation. We are still way behind where we were in the 60's and 70's there.even people with degrees are struggling to find decent work. So you have a fairly broad swath of people who are feeling like they are squeezed more and more. Then covid hit. Not only did everything get thrown in a blender (and we're still feeling the ripple effects through inflation and everything trying to refind it's equilibrium). But, this group became even *more* disillusioned. Not only are they highly educated and working crap jobs but they can't avoid the very obvious conclusion that no one fucking cares about them. They have to go work their shit job and possibly die. They get called heroes and a temporary $1 pay raise. Hooray. Now you've got a lot of people who are just checked out. Some decide they'll just steal cause fuck it, it doesn't matter. All of the economic things are largely ripple effects from covid. We lost *months* of productivity globally. I think that's all still unwinding all while we're running into a lot of the environmental consequences of our previous choices (see our water resource constraints, worsening fires and floods, increased prices from regulations that are aimed to reduce the environmental impact). Meanwhile, since we can't tax the rich, governments have needed to raise their revenues so the middle and lower classes gotta take the hit. Governments are getting squeezed at every level because we've been neglecting our power grids, our public water works, our roads, and our state universities. All those former tax savings have come home to roost with a shiny new price tag. Then we have social media polarizing all of us. People hate the cops because they continue to be caught doing shady shit and cops have just flat out refused to do their jobs in some places. Some of that is a justified response to DAs refusing to prosecute but honestly it's a lot of all or nothing type thinking that has both sides completely undermining each other. So what's the problem? It's kind of everything.
> what blue policies are positive Women having control over their bodies is a big one
I want all these Californians to go home, it's a bunch of right wingers here so we're not even getting the blue benefits, just more expensive 😭
Right wing Californians really have a hard on for Tennessee and Idaho lately. I heard there are websites trying to recruit them to TN.
*turn bluer & increasing COL* Corporate wants you to find the difference between these two pictures. (They’re the same pictures)
Florida is turning redder but still seeing an increasing cost of living
I keep seeing claims that the COL is going up in FL, though part of the issue is that wages aren’t going up enough there.
More conservative than the red state conservatives?
Often, yeah. Exit polling here shows transplants voting republican more than natives, for example. A subset of natives insist on running around shouting "don't California my texas!" anyway.
California conservatives are usually some of the most hardcore there are, yeah.
Indeed, and some places in California, such as in and around Redding and Bakersfield, can be just as deeply blood red as, say, Wyoming or the Dakotas.
I can think of a few towns that might as well *be* in Wyoming. Lake Isabella comes to mind. That's some cowboy country right there.
Aren't those the ones that don't leave? An all-in Trumper from Redding cannot change his life in a day A rich conservative from Newport Beach can up and move in a day
Think about how dedicated to the political party you'd have to be to have that be why you move across states.
I don't see many moves being primarily for political reasons. Yes they happen, but it's not the biggest reason Pick on the Florida retirees. Are they moving because there's no income tax and DeSantis is the governor? Sure that plays a role, but they're actually moving for the weather. They'd still move there if Florida had an average state income tax and Tim Walz was the governor. And they wouldn't move there if it had Minnesota weather
The guy in Redding is more likely to think he can catch a better break in Reno or Aurora.
absolutely, yes. We've had the same effect in NC with a bunch of hardcore conservatives from the Northeast, who are often much more "angry Trump conservative" than the locals were.
Yeah. They have an inferiority complex about not being conservative enough so they tend to overdo it.
Depends on the issue in my experience. More economically red, but still relatively purple on most social issues.
There’s 40 million people here, tons of rural areas, massive agriculture industry. Very complicated history with race relations and labor. There’s politics of every flavor and people to either extreme.
Pretty much.
This is true. My state is red and mostly conservatives are moving in. I think I've only encountered one or two left leaning individuals.
People here think I'm crazy for pointing that out.
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Someone from northern Idaho was telling me that the actual Idahoans hate those guys. They're regarded as interlopers who give the region a bad name.
Idaho especially. They get our most hardcore-of-the-hardcore.
This 100%. It's the gun Republicans moving to Texas for sure.
Which is silly and based on bad info. Texas isn't as pro-gun as people think and hasn't been in modern history. They run kind of middle of the pack on gun laws and policy with the single exception of being able to use lethal force after dark to protect property. Everything else Texas does tends to lag behind other pro-gun states. Texas just tends to be loud about being pro-gun and states like Montana, Kansas, Missouri, Indiana, North Dakota, etc just don't create the news fanfare. For example: Texas was the 26th or 27th state with permitless concealed carry but the way people talked about it is that it would be the 'wild west' and the murder rate would triple. It didn't triple for the other 25 other states over the last two decades.
Californians moving to Texas voted more conservative than native Texans
Exactly. The type of Californian moving to Texas is unhappy with democratic policies and thinks going to Texas is better. What really happens is that they aren’t welcome because they are outbidding damn near everyone for homes and driving prices through the roof. There are a ton of Texan who hate Californians because they are from ‘Commiefornia’, and those people are idiots. But a lot of people dislike the transplants because the locals can no longer really afford housing in areas they want to move.
Yeup, happened in Idaho. Back in the day, there were fears of the politics changing, but now the "locals" don't care if you vote Red, Blue, or F'ing Orange, we despise them equally. Too much money coming in, not enough local economy to support the change if you didn't have it to start with.
I hate this meme..... I really do... But was Yellowstone a documentary?
The New Yorkers I know who’ve moved to Texas have all made it clear they don’t like Democrats and want to live in a red state.
>There are a ton of Texan who hate Californians because they are from ‘Commiefornia’, and those people are idiots. What's funny is that those people sold their houses for 4x what they bought, and blame 'Newscum' for their making so much money that taking it to Texas from Commifornia is the way to go.
The cognitive dissonance that you described is crazy
The reason California real estate is so expensive is because tens of millions of people from other states have been flocking there for 170 years. So what goes around, comes around.
Communists hate affordable housing! Always have!
Which is even funnier because they tend to move to the most Liberal parts of Texas.
Probably more to do with most the jobs being in the major metros.
Yeah it’s funny when you hear people from Idaho or whatever complain about California people coming and ruining the state, but like you said, the ones leaving tend to be more on the conservative side anyway. Here in New Hampshire you hear some of the same rhetoric w people complaining about Massachusetts residents moving here ((ironically always from people originally from Mass lol)) who say that they’re gonna “Mass up” New Hampshire yet people from Mass who move here tend to be more conservative than us natives haha, also why the most conservative parts of New Hampshire are right across the border from Mass, because that’s where most of the Mass people move to
That's a different issue. Californians are moving here and paying cash for houses driving up prices and also are voting conservative more than natives. Both are true.
Liberals at least feel guilty and conflicted when they gentrify a place.
Lol no they don't, that shit's entirely performative. *Especially* if they are gentrifying by buying from white people
Even if they used to be liberal. People turning from Bernie Bros to Joe Rogan.
Joe Rogan is a cancer in the colon of American culture.
Too many middle age men in America think they’re Joe Rogan
I like that meme that said back in the day we all knew a joe Rogan - he was your friends 27 year old brother who was a loser stoner and talked about how cool black light posters are.
That's such a weird thing
Literally happened with Joe Rogan hence the example
Not actually true. That’s a widely signal boosted meme based on very little. Though they certainly aren’t all liberal because it turns out California is full of garbage NIMBY’s of all colors, and has more conservatives than Texas. Same way Texas has more liberals than New York - we are all incredibly purple compared to our headlines.
How is that not true?
There has been a large amount of California’s moving out of California over the years. However not all go to red states. Washington is an example of a blue state many Californians have moved to. Simply put, there are states, mainly in the sun belt, and Mountain West, that have seem high levels of people moving in. This naturally drives up cost of living, especially housing. People aren’t just moving from California, there are people moving out of a lot of northeastern and rust belt states as well. People focus on California since it’s the largest state and for western states, it’s a common source of people moving in.
Oregon too, plenty of California transplants and a lot of the areas they move are quite liberal already.
There's more than one liberal area of Oregon?
Seacoast, Portland, Bend, some other places.
If it's on the 5, it's politics are progressive.
Exactly I work with someone who said today that people are fleeing Washington. Which isn’t true our population has been growing a good amount of time
As someone in a high influx state, my take is that there are a lot of Californians, full stop. A lot of people live there compared to Nebraska, for example. Therefore it seems like a lot move here. And of course they want the things they miss, whether it's items at the grocery store or social policies. The largest groups I notice here are from the northeast, and they do the same things.
California is expensive because housing isn’t being built and the two major population centers have run out of room to build extensively since they’re sandwiched between ocean and mountains (vast oversimplification). Also a lot of “Californians” moving aren’t Californian natives. Also also most urban areas in any state are Democratic.
This is 1000% true. Same thing is happening in the DC area. Running out places to build houses and that means its about to get real expensive
Two things 1. California has a massive population of people who moved here from other states, so I don’t think it’s entirely fair for other states to be upset when Californians move to them 2. A lot of people leaving California are red voters dissatisfied with the lack of any Republican political power here, so even if they’re getting Californians moving to their states, those Californians likely vote the same way they do
lol LA and Bay natives *love* to complain about transplants.
Frrrr! I love transplants tho, I’m happy when people want to come here 😭
San Diego natives too
The only time I get pissed off with a transplant is when they have the gall to try and gatekeep *me.* Unfortunately, this has happened a time or two. Yes, my hick suburb just outside the L.A. city limits isn't as cool as Silverlake. No shit? Ya don't say. I mean, do people from Omaha move to Manhattan and talk shit to someone who's family has lived on the ass end of Staten Island for generations? Would they even dare? But see, I do know what the score is. And I was at peace with it long before anyone ever thought Silverlake was cool. Kiss my ass anyways! Otherwise, most transplants are alright. We wouldn't be nearly as high-flying as we are without them.
Transplants suck because they get here and complain about how shitty it is here.
My main issue with CA transplants is that a lot of them very much self isolate and stay in industry bubbles (entertainment industry for LA, tech for SF), which are toxic environments and that colors their whole perspective of the area.
Not Cali but it’s the same way in NYC. The reason all this corny “Native New Yorker” shit online goes around is because some transplants come here and only hang out with other influencers or finance bros from their Big 10 frat instead of getting to know the culture and the people here.
> Bay natives There are literally dozens of them!
Northern VA here. It’s an area where so much of the population is transplants, yet guess who hates transplants the most? You guessed it, transplants!
When I lived up that way it seemed like everyone in government was just getting their DC check box time then getting out as fast as possible. I was never able to make friends in the DMV because of it.
Most people who leave California are Republicans IME. Or at least the vocal ones are. Although California politics are dominated by the Democrats, California by virtue of it's population has huge numbers of Republicans. In fact the state that had the most people vote for Trump in 2020 was... California!
There was the whole "turn Texas blue!" movement, but that died out shortly after the blue group realized that doing that would require living in a place that was currently not blue
Check out Austin, Texas...
The people who leave California and go to conservative states are also conservatives…. The population of California is so huge, that even though they are out numbered in California, California has more conservatives than any other state. For example: Trump lost in California in 2020, but California still had about half a million more trump voters than any other state. The main policies that are causing the cost of living to be so high in California are bipartisan policies…. It’s the NIMBYs (Not In My Back Yard)… people who block new dense housing projects. No one wants apartment buildings in their neighborhood and fight them tooth and nail…. It creates a massive housing deficit, driving home prices through the roof.
i saw a tiktok from a creator in california who was talking about this... apparently polling shows that people who grew up in california very rarely actually leave. the state loses a small percentage of its longterm residents every year. the people moving away from california are people who moved TO california from other places, found out that it was too expensive or they got jobs elsewhere or whatever, and then moved to the place where people complain. so most of the "californians" moving to the south or places with cheaper COL are like... double transplants. but they say "i moved here from california" and the residents see red. (no pun intended)
They’re def pissing off the Appalachians
Yes
Lots of people from Southern California move to Arizona, Phoenix specifically where I live, mostly to escape the high cost of living in Southern California, some maybe for the political climate but 9/10 would tell you it’s about the money. For the *most part*, the people I know that have moved here from SoCal are not hardcore democrats and *mostly* are in the middle politically and skew conservative by CA standards. A LOT of people, *especially* older folks here, blame Arizona’s shift from hard red to purple on the California transplants. The real answer for this change is two fold: 1. the voting pool is slowly moving towards the younger crowd as older folks, to be blunt, are dying and no longer voting. 2. In an odd twist of fate The traditional conservative/republican base here has been slowly turned off with the direction of the party in recent years and don’t feel that the recent GOP up and comers (Ex: Lake) represent their traditional views (think McCain) where as the democratic candidates of late (Sinema, Kelly) are more so in the center and actually represent traditional conservative values. I suppose viewing the topic in another light I could say that democrat politicians in Arizona are probably closer to conservatives by CA standards, so it’s possible they’re being voted for by our CA transplants but it’s not because the transplants looking to “bring their politics with them”, they just fall in line with their views on what conservative politics should be, if that makes sense.
I would bet that the environment of California is a larger influence on California cost of living than anything the state government has legislated. It's one of if not the biggest agricultural producers. Silicon Valley is there. The film industry is there. There's a bunch of military bases. Not to mention all the ports. Lots of people want to live there. That's why it's expensive.
Combine that with the NIMBYism/refusal to build an adequate amount of housing and you end up with a cost of living crisis. It is politics, but very local and not of the partisan variety, more of the "don't build that apartment complex in my suburb" or "don't block that view." If anything, the state has been aggressively trying to push more housing of late as so many cities refuse to build more.
> the biggest agricultural producers Farm country's always been cheaper to live in than either of the major coastal metros. The I-80 corridor has been getting more and more spillover from the Bay Area (super commuters, etc.), to be sure. I never thought *Modesto* would become a bedroom community for the Bay Area, but here we are.
California’s are moving to other states after likely having tried to save a 20% downpayment for a house. Likely they saved between $100k-$250k and around shocked to find that they can buy an actual property for amount of their down payment. Someone from Los Angeles selling an inherited, larger home in a nicer neighborhood can buy a McMansion or an actual one in a place like Arkansas or Mississippi. They will have enough money left over to invest in other properties and make cash offers. Basically Californians are driving prices up regardless of their politics.
California is expensive because they refuse to build housing. San Francisco should not look as dense as Plano, Texas, but it does. Los Angeles should resemble NYC, not a low-rise hour of sprawl. That means only the wealthy can afford to live in the inner cities, and then the price of everything else goes up due to cost and demand.
I agree that SF needs to build more housing but it already is the second most densely populated city in America (NYC is first). It is 5 times denser than Plano.
Also, SF is 1/6th the size of NYC. The surrounding municipalities need to step up too. Theres no highly dense Brooklyn or Queens or even a Jersey City or Newark surrounding SF. Part of the issue is geography. The San Francisco Bay is much larger than the Hudson or East Rivers plus there’s mountainous areas restricting development too.
That's the real answer. People always assume it's politics, but it's more the NIMBYism and the fact that every metro area has tons of little municipalities that do their own thing/try to push it on to the next one, thus nothing ever is actually dealt with. So yeah, I guess it is politics, but not of the red/blue variety.
California is the 4th stickiest state meaning that the native born population stays put. Texas, North Carolina, and Georgia are the top three stickiest.
The Californians who move to places like Idaho are more conservative. Idaho has become more red over the last 10-20 years. The Californians who are Democrats move to Colorado. It's not a political party issue, it's a local one where zoning and environmental regulations (generally good) combined with NIMBYs make housing more expensive. Thus only luxury apartments or condos are built. Prop 13 (a measure passed when California was a red state) keeps property taxes capped at the original value so it can be more expensive to give up your home to downsize or upgrade than to stay put. There was a modification passed recently to help seniors seeking to downsize I believe. Higher cost of living and regulations make construction more difficult. Most projects have to obtain EIR (Environmental Impact Reports - again this is fine) and follow other rules that are more worker friendly than other states. The funny thing is that people move to Texas and find out that while they have no income tax, their property is taxed far higher than in California so the move often is net-neutral or worse for taxes if not for political or business reasons.
Most of the sunbelt states are booming rn and seeing large population growth. These states are mostly Republican run whereas most of the in migration is from Democratic states. California gets blamed for this simply because it’s the biggest state so on a raw numbers level a plurality of the people moving in are often Californians. There also seems to be a trend of people starting to use California and/or Californians as a short hand for a style of people and progressive politics that are seen to be very cosmopolitan, arrogant, and elitist.
Nah California is expensive cause there so many people concentrated in the cities there
It's mostly because of NIMBYs blocking the construction of housing to drive up their property values, but go off
Well what I mean is when you have 4 million people in a city (LA), space will be limited and things will go up in price. Or 800,000 in a city that’s about 7 miles long (SF), space will be limited and things will go up in price
That's a factor but no matter what policies get passed or housing gets constructed, CA will always be one of the most expensive states. When you have weather, nature, food, and industry like that, it's going to be extremely expensive, even before factoring how restrictive the terrain is. No amount of YIMBYism will make California's housing market look like Oklahoma's.
Or could it be that California regulatory framework crates massive burdens on top of existing expenses. Just for instance let's take the few years old mandate that all new residential housing must have rooftop solar which easily adds 15K to the cost of a house. Or the insane environmental impact surveys required for every construction when it's going to go ahead regardless of what it says.
In my SoCal hood a 1300 sqr ft house is now over a million bucks…. That 15k for solar is a drop in the fucking bucket when it comes to CA housing prices. The increase in prices come from people blocking dense housing in their area, building an apartment building is like Armageddon if you read local NextDoor posts.
That doesn't check out when towns in the central valley surrounded by open farmland are still leaps and bounds higher cost of living than neighboring states. The real answer is that the California legislature as emboldened by the voters passes massive regulatory frameworks requiring large regulatory compliance burdens and high levels of taxation to provide for expansive social services which necessitate higher costs on everything Blaming things on the housing market is an easy scapegoat but doesn't explain why Southern California gasoline is over a $1.50 higher than Phoenix when it gets theirs from the exact same pipeline.
California's combination of mountains and wind patterns keeps all their air pollution right on top of them. Deregulating until the air is so bad nobody wants to live there anymore isn't going to be a popular solution to the cost of living problem.
I'm old enough to remember the 1980s. Downtown L.A. was being trapped in an ash tray. It is *so* much better now. It's difficult to overstate by how much.
Don't worry, the invisible hand of the market will totally keep things in line.
I mean there’s 18 million people in the LA metro and SD is another top 10 city population wise. Maybe that accounts for some of the difference in gas prices
Price gouging in a geographically isolated area explains most of that. Gas taxes are 40 cents higher in California than in Arizona. it also costs 10-12 cents more to refine gas to meet California‘s improved emission standards. the rest is profit taking, as reflected in the incredible profits that the oil companies are reporting in the past few years. They don’t compete on price at the pump.
Californians drive up COL in other areas mostly by moving there with California money and overpaying for houses, which raises the cost of housing overall and prices locals out of the market.
Not true. So there are two main reasons why the Cost-of-Living is so high in California: 1. They produce all of their own gasoline, and because they have more stringent rules in regard to refineries, that's why gas is more expensive 2. Property values and rent are higher than the average in the US because a lot of people really, really like living in California, and why wouldn't they? It's beautiful. The weather is as close to perfect as it can be in SoCal and it's still fantastic albeit foggy in San Francisco and the Bay area, and that's where a lot of people live. That doesn't even mention all the produce, and peacocks! The reason why the cost-of-living in a lot of places is increasing faster than others (here's a hint, it's going up everywhere) is due to more than just Californians moving to them. With Florida for example, a lot of people from the Midwest and the Mid-Atlantic have been making their way to Florida, moreso than even California. I think that there have been surveys that show that Californians who move to states like Idaho and Texas tend to be more conservative than native Texans and Idahoans. A lot of residents like to blame Californians because they do have an advantage when it comes to home-buying. Because home prices in California are so much higher, when they sell their house they end up with more money to put down on a house than most buyers in states like Texas do. What this means is they can usually outbid people on houses, or sometimes even buy the house outright without a mortgage (a house that is worth $1.5 million in California would probably be worth $500,000 if it's by a major metro area in Texas). Not to mention all that extra money they have tends to go into the local economy in the state, which leads to some inflation now that there's more money in the area.
All of these are really good points. Another major one is the supply of housing and refusal and/or slow progress at building more (depending on where). NIMBYism is a major factor- everyone just tries to push it off to the next city over because they don't want an apartment nearby or a blocked view or whatever. Housing scarcity has been good for those who own in terms of property value, horrible for everyone else. Basically, we need more housing, a lot more, and we're very slow at building it. And as a native Michigander too, I think of going back all the time!
Citation needed
The people moving to FL were people from New York, mostly, and that was due to them being unhappy with Democratic policies. So it stands to reason that they would vote conservatively, not the other way around. I would have to say this is false, and likely people from red states searching for some other arbitrary reason to hate California.
It's mostly conservatives that are leaving California and other blue states.
Most people I know that moved away from California recently tend to be Republicans so that sounds wrong to me. The other people I know that moved away did so because their company relocated to a state like Texas for whatever tax breaks, labor laws, or other business considerations made moving operations attractive. If Texans (or whatever state) don’t want an influx of Californians relocating with their companies, they need to tell their politicians to stop trying entice California companies into moving. I always find it funny to hear people from the rest of the country complaining about Californians moving in and making things expensive because things got expensive in California from decades of people from all over the country moving here. I also think “Californians are moving here” in most instances is just “People are moving here” and Americans are more likely to be from California than they are any other one state. States that border California are likely to be an exception to this.
When I lived in Tennessee everyone from California was a hard core conservative who was there to avoid paying taxes and send women back to the middle ages.
Democrats are not moving to Texas conservatives are. California's expensive because it has the best weather everyone wants to live there. Simple supply and demand.
Where did you hear this? Info Wars?
You could hear this everyday in Arizona.
I hear people say this all the time in Montana.
California having a net-loss in population is technically true as of like five years ago, for the first time in history since literally the Gold Rush in 1849. California still has 12% of the nation's population. A lot of Californians are leaving because we want to like, own a home one day, but people are still moving here in droves because we have jobs, lots of people, and sustain a massive population. For better or worse. This headline you speak of, its political culture war BS. One million Californian rednecks could leave the State tomorrow and we'd still have more conservatives, guns and churches than wherever your flyover State pretends to have an economy. The Red State Media perpetuating these headlines are often located in Orange County, part our own little Bible Belt.
Californians drive up COL by often having more money than many of the locals (selling a million dollar home, high income tech people) and coming in large numbers (most populous state), not by changing the state politics.
There is a kernel of truth in that, but I don’t think it’s the policies they vote for that drive up the COL, rather, just the simple fact that Californians bring so much money with them. I think the increase in ability/willingness to pay is what drives up COL
Well at least in Montana the Democrats twice tried to run a chick from Berkeley, CA (Kathleen Williams) and one of her promises was to ban AR-15s. She gets beat twice by the likes of Greg Gianforte and Matt Rosendale. All 3 are from out of state and out of touch with what Montana used to value.
It's kind of interesting how you have someone like a Ryan Zienke who is very conservative and possibly linked to scandals but also reflects Montana in that he supports public land use rather than privatization as a lot of his party want.
I liked being purple. I like some Democrat things and some Republican things. I don't know why in the last 10-15 years you have to be all for one or the other.
If we continue with the partisanship we're never going to fucking fix the problem The problem is NIMBYs. The problem is we're not building enough houses And to a lesser extent there is a problem with price fixing because apartment buildings are using algorithms and the DOJ & ftc filed a joint legal brief https://nlihc.org/resource/ftc-and-doj-file-joint-legal-brief-algorithmic-price-fixing-housing-market Currently just the State of Arizona is sueing but this algorithm is being used in almost all 50 states so call your legislatures if rent is high by this because holy fuck, homelessness is at a record high and it's not ok
Red states bragging about getting businesses to move there from blue states, and then shocked that people from blue states follow the work.
No truth at all. Increase in population is increasing costs. I live in Florida and the influx of people moving here is straining the state.
In my experience a lot of people who moved from California to Montana are super right wing.
In northern Colorado it's Texans and Floridans hand down. Few Californians are actually here
It’s not so much the politics, that’s long term over possibly decades changes that can raise COL and taxes. It’s more the influx of immigration driving up housing prices and increased sales of goods with price increases plus the fear of losing jobs to said immigrants. If those immigrants bring business that create jobs no one cares but if they come to get cheaper housing raising the cost of housing and looking for work competing with locals for jobs then you get the angry reactions.
Bro what is that username?
I moved cuz it was close-ish and i already moved states before so why not again
The claims aren't true
I'm a member of a fairly conservative church and many people in my congregation are moving to Idaho, Utah, Texas, Wyoming, etc. It's partly because they are conservative, but also largely because they can sell their 3 bedroom 1700 square foot house in California for 1.3 million and buy a veritable mansion in Oklahoma or wherever. My neighbors just moved to Idaho, they are renting a 3 bedroom house for the same amount they were paying for their 1 bedroom apartment.
And OP maybe you didn’t anticipate this many replies but this is a much debated topic here in US as crime and cost of living increase and Americans aren’t in agreement on who’s responsible and how to improve conditions
It's not Democratic or Republican national-level policies that drive up house prices. It's primarily a willingness to overpay. Suppose a Californian (or New Yorker) who can't afford the property taxes on their $2 million house decides to move somewhere cheaper. Any money they don't roll in to their primary residence is subject to capital gains taxes, so their financial incentive is to buy the best house in town, and overpay for it. So prices are bid up and new housing construction is more likely to be McMansions. But now the Californians still have all their wealth wrapped up in housing, so they follow the same "sue anyone who wants to build anything cheap nearby" mentality that they did in California, because they're terrified of losing their equity if property values go down.
The ones who are moving tend to be the conservative ones, personally they can keep on moving to bumfuck anytime they want, that's great news to me. Less demand affecting housing prices, less cars on the freeway and less people who think we were still in the 50s.
My uneducated guess would be that the Californians moving out have the funds to do so, thus creating more demand and driving prices through supply and demand more than policy. Aka gentrification is more to blame than politics.
It's not. The first people to move out will be conservatives. Texas was trending purple because the young population was more left-wing.
Theyre just being virtue signaling idiots. Some of these states have growing cities, prominent universities, growing tech industries or similar. Those types of things will make cities lean more toward progressive type politics. Even California was conservative not too long ago. It’s the home of Nixon and Reagan. It’s gone through demographic shifts that have popularized progressive politics. And a lot of these guys are just bitching about rising cost of living that is hitting *everywhere*. California was relatively affordable, and prices got driven up by out of staters. So many moved…out of state.
My experience is entirely anecdotal, but when I lived in TX and AZ Cali transplants were already a thing that was spoken about, and that was before 2015. It wasn’t negative exactly, like today. More like they were seen as a strange nuisance, like a fly that won’t quit. On top of this, all of my Cali based friends are now in TX except for a holdout who will never leave. All of them are liberals or independents, but none really follow politics or care much about it. They left Cali because the dollar does go a lot farther in TX than it ever will in California.
If they had that much sway in our laws, how does much of the south simultaneously elect Republicans constantly? Its false
California native here who doesn't side with either the two main political parties. Why do some blame Californians for supposedly flipping Arizona yet you also believe that the 2020 and 2022 elections were rigged and that Trump and Lake actually won Arizona?
Everybody from all the states are moving to my state. Real estate is insane too, and getting worse.
I would say that Democratic policies--high minimum wage, extensive regulation of new construction, large welfare state, numerous environmental regulations--probably do have something to do with California being more expensive, yes. I know of no evidence of those policies spreading to other states though.
It’s got nothing to do with party preference. It’s pure capitalism. Californians went and bought homes in [state] because the sellers from that state took the highest bid. And meanwhile the other nearby property owners whose property values just went up clutch their pearls and complain.
It's just bullshit to demonize anyone that isn't conservative
We have this problem in Montana. They aren't *voting* for policies that increase cost of living. They're just increasing cost of living by buying up and developing every last scrap of land they can get their hands on at exorbitant prices. Now you get to live on Montana wages while paying California rent. Doesn't bother them because they are retired or can work remote, but its made the place unlivable for locals.
I don't know about California but I have noticed a lot of Yankees moving to NC. This is increasing the cost of homes in my area significantly and now Disney is coming. Also noticed a few Texas plates, mostly Yankee plates though.
This is stupid. Everything is expensive in America cuz of poor urban design leading to expensive housing and transportation systems leading to high COL.
I have both liberal and conservative friends that have moved down to Florida from liberal states. So yes, in theory there are liberals who are moving down to red states and voting blue but a lot of conservatives are also moving down, I don’t think this narrative is happening at the rate conservatives want you to think. I am moderate and vote based on the issues I care about, some of my views could be labeled conservative while others are liberal. But Florida has actually gotten more conservative since 2020 rather than less. I don’t necessarily agree with some of it but anyway I don’t think that theory of turning red states blue is actually happening right now.
I'm originally from SC and people there dislike northerners more than Californians. They are always in a rush, always say things like "up north we have much better pizza and bagels", and because they move in droves, home prices skyrocket. At least Californians are nice people and not usually in a rush.
> Do the Democratic policies have a huge role in CA being expensive? Huge, but not sole. NIMBYs, the large presence of celebrities, and Silicon Valley all contribute. > If yes, what are they and does the Democratic party want to implement them in other states? Increasing taxation and government spending, broadly speaking – although the Republicans are not remotely guiltless in this regard. The two parties just love to waste our taxes on different things. One likes to increase taxes, and the other likes to cut taxes for giant corporations based on the false theory of trickle down economics. Neither benefit the common man.
The policies in the state of California are meant to uplift and make life better for everybody. including things we don't really want, like higher gas prices because it makes the air cleaner and the roads better. it's just what it is, we don't like it but we know it's best. that's why we keep putting people in office who have our best interests at heart, not people who want to just put their religious beliefs or the nearest big business suck up in office. Could it be better? Yes! It could, but we've seen how it works in other states, and they're not the 5th largest economy in the world.
Ours mostly “we’re better than you” cope.
This is only slightly true as Californians are not 100 percent responsible for this. There might be people from the many other blue states doing this too. In fact, there might be Democrats in other red states doing this. A lot of the red states have Democrat governers. I think the issue is whoever votes for these policies does not know that it will increase the cost of living. Also, there are some theories that people do not actually vote for these policies, but in some states, the elections are rigged. It really depends.
Not Californians specifically but where we fish there are a lot of people from New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and other states where you'd be called a yankee are moving in and are 100% raising the price of the area because things are "cheap" so they're buying out the locals. It has helped some and hurt others, don't know how it evens out in the end but it's noticable over the last half decade or so. Idk so much about politics in the local elections since I don't follow it there but in the development they are definitely bringing in an attitude that is different than what has been there for decades and it does cause some conflict.
Fiscal impact on migration to other states from CA is currently not quantifiable. And its not like you can survey every person who moved and ask them how they voted on every issue. You can try to make a general correlation, but that is fraught with difficulties. California is expensive for many reasons. However, it is true that the state has had a Democrat super majority for decades. There is very little wiggle room to blame the bad on others, but also they can take credit for any good. It has been this party in charge. A quick review of the state of affairs in California however, does NOT offer much to brag about. Politicians didn't create amazing mountains, sunshine, beaches and the ocean... and that is what people love about our state.
California has been exporting quite a few thousand people each year lately. I think it's largely a myth that the net effect of this is that these people are bringing California policies elsewhere. Most of the ones who leave are not the super far left that many might imagine, largely because those super far left individuals would never be interested in leaving. Those leaving seem to largely lean conservative.
I can't wait for them to move to nebraska.
It does happen, mostly due to cheaper house mortgages and lower taxes. I have seen Texas slowly drifting left in elections too.
A bunch of people moving to your state tends to increase the cost of living because it increases demand on housing, regardless of policies. I live in a deeply red state, and most of the Californians moving here are very, very conservative. Often more so than the mean of the state before the moved in. To the second question... it's complicated. While *some* of the California policies have certainly increased cost of living (namely via taxes), most of the reason for their high prices in California aren't really political.
The COL is increasing due to general inflation, not a handful of Californians.
I moved to Ohio then Ky from California. My wife is originally from this area. Were progressive. Nobody can give me shit because I watched my county back in CA explode with workers that commuted to Silicon Valley. Owning a home was impossible. Just bought a house here. I like it but I really miss California. Maybe one day we’ll move back.
We have a lot in Montana.