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I think the degree to which open borders are a reality within the U.S. is under-appreciated. As a reminder, U.S. states are sovereign entities with their own cr

I think the degree to which open borders are a reality within the U.S. is under-appreciated. As a reminder, U.S. states are sovereign entities with their own criminal laws, tax regimes, educational systems, property and contract rights, civil rights, economic growth, industries, natural resources, etc. In some cases their laws are pre-empted by U.S. federal law, but there remains quite a bit of diversity. Despite this, U.S. residents can travel or move anywhere they want within the 50 states, with no prior approval and relatively inconsequential paperwork that largely amounts to notifying local authorities after the fact. Given this, I think it's surprising, and somewhat illuminating, the degree to which population, cultural, and economic differences persist across generations. The states with the highest (MD) and lowest (WV) median household incomes are directly adjacent to one another, but WV has not been emptied by mass migration into MD. Plenty of Oregon residents complain about income taxes, but don't move next door to Washington, which does not have an income tax. Etc. I know it's not the same as international borders, but it's also more significant than a single national government with purely administrative regions. Thinking about this has led me to question some of the fears about open international borders.

lm28469 7y ago
Same with EU, people seems to take it for granted but every time I think about it I find it amazing that it works as well as it does and how good it is.
- tonyedgecombe 7y ago
  It was used as an argument for Brexit in our referendum. I'm not sure that was the real reason for the agitators though.
  - gambiting 7y ago
    Which was dumb then and still is - UK was never part of the Schengen agreement and has full control of its borders, it can stop anyone from entering as it pleases.
    - pilsetnieks 7y ago
      Not really, no. One of the basic tenets of the EU single market is free movement of goods and people. Schengen agreement just removes border controls. UK has the freedom to stop any non-EU citizen from entering as it pleases but so does every other EU country, including the Schengen ones.
      - gambiting 7y ago
        See my reply above - even with free movement, there's plenty of cases where you can deny someone entry. Right to free movement is not absolute, and UK is in a fantastic position because it can inspect every single person coming here, unlike for example Germany.
      - jotm 7y ago
        Indeed, and it doesn't. Non-EU immigrants still outnumber EU immigrants.
      - tathougies 7y ago
        To clarify the united states system, states have rights to regulate commerce within their territories. So movement of goods is not in fact free. For example, California has border gates where they will sporadically check for and confiscate certain agricultural products. Yes, the state that wants to be a sanctuary state has border gates and enforcement.
    - ArnoVW 7y ago
      Schengen is about being able to check at your borders. Indeed the UK can still do that, despite being in Europe. However, the UK still has to allow free movement of people. Meaning that it can not stop Europeans from living in the UK. This does not cover working though, and I believe that some European nationalities still have to apply for a work permit. See http://www.europarl.europa.eu/factsheets/en/sheet/147/free-movement-of-persons http://www.europarl.europa.eu/factsheets/en/sheet/147/free-m...
      - TazeTSchnitzel 7y ago
rayiner 7y ago
You dramatically overestimate how much of an economic difference there is between MD and WV: https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-vwpy8_glsgc/Vi5llZ9ZILI/AAAAAAAAIvg/odurAYPHYG4/s1600/adjustedRPP.jpg https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-vwpy8_glsgc/Vi5llZ9ZILI/AAAAAAAAI.... Adjusting for purchasing power, the difference in median income is just 10%. It’s like the difference between Belgium and Australia. On the flip side, there is actually quite a difference between states like New York (second poorest in the US) and Virginia. And there is a very large internal migration from states like New York to states like virginia.
- triceratops 7y ago
  > New York (second poorest in the US) On what basis? It ranks 15th for median household income.
  - rayiner 7y ago
    Median income adjusted for cost of living (which is the usual way of comparing income between countries).
    - triceratops 7y ago
      Thanks!
    - snowwrestler 7y ago
      I would not characterize it as the "usual" way of comparing incomes. It's useful in some contexts but the adjustment can mask differences in local quality of life that matter to people.
      - rayiner 7y ago
        When comparing countries, as I said, the basis of comparison is almost invariably PPP GDP per capita, not nominal GDP per capita.
  - dragonwriter 7y ago
seanmcdirmid 7y ago
West Virginia is being emptied, however, with a net loss of population over time. People do leave bad economic areas for good ones over time. People don’t move to Washington from Oregon because their jobs are in Oregon and they would be subject to income taxes anyways. Really not smart if you work in Vancouver WA to live in Portland, however (income taxes are an or proposition). However, I totally agree. Contrast this to China’s hukou system, where you can be a foreigner in your own country because you live in a city without hukou, even if you were born there.
- DataGata 7y ago
  The hukou system is fascinating- I literally turned to a Chinese coworker to ask about it. He is dealing with visa issues in the US, and explained if he wanted to go live in the Chinese city of his family, he'd have essentially a new set of "visa" issues there!
  - elliekelly 7y ago
    Never having heard of the hukou system before (wikipedia[1] for anyone in the same boat) I have a hard time understanding the rationale behind it. The only "benefit" I can see is the government having more control over citizen movement and reduced class mobility. I was surprised that people with rural hukou status who had migrated to urban areas were reluctant to change status. I'm curious how it's perceived by the people? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hukou_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hukou_system
    - seanmcdirmid 7y ago
      They aren’t reluctant to change their status, they simply can’t. Hukou upgrades only come with marriage or divine central government intervention. Even if your ancestors moved to that city a few generations ago, it won’t change your (or your descendants) hukou; ie no jus soli.
      - elliekelly 7y ago
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
DiseasedBadger 7y ago
It's difficult to express how profoundly misapprehended your comparisons are. Moving into a higher-income area is the last thing poor rural Americans want - and the last thing that would help them. They are already living in high assistance areas - the area assisted by the United State federal government. People invading the US are not looking to be in a high-income area, because that implies a higher cost of living. They are looking to be in a high-assistance area. They are not looking to make money, and have little prospect of that. They are looking to be given money. That must be taken from someone else.
- dang 7y ago
  Please don't do regional flamewar, or any flamewar, on HN. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
wait-a-minute 7y ago
The problem with this argument is that going from most of south America to any part of central America would be a large economic jump. And we know that people who come into the USA illegally tend to go towards major hubs with more economic activity and opportunity. The amount of economic migration would increase for sure. And in a situation where we already turn around over 100,000 a month for attempting to cross illegally, not to mention the number we never catch, it's definitely not going to advantage American citizens to have open borders along the Mexico-USA border. If anything it would disadvantage citizens.
- allemagne 7y ago
  Where there's economic activity and opportunity that immigrants are drawn to, like you said, then that means there's an unmet demand for labor in the host country. A business that could expand, but isn't able to because it can't find workers. Immigrants then spend the money they've earned which further stimulates the local economy and increases tax revenue for governments. This basic reasoning is why economists are pretty united in the idea that immigration is good for citizens of host countries experiencing immigration, and real-world data has shown this over and over again. The idea that immigration to the United States disadvantages citizens just isn't supported by evidence.
  - pixl97 7y ago
    >then that means there's an unmet demand for labor in the host country Where did you come up with that idea? Maybe you meant there is unmet demand for labor at a lower cost, or lower than minimum cost (under the table, etc). This can come at the expense of people earning moderate wages who are not going to be happy about this. A race to the bottom does have issues.
monksy 7y ago
The United States has "open borders" arround the states, because it is the _United_ States. For th emost part, most of the EU has "open borders" arround their member countries. (Sometime that flexes since it's not united) As far as the diversity in culture, I would not agree with that amongst states. Not in a way of comparing say Costa Rica to Panama or the UK to France.
- Alex63 7y ago
  Canada has free movement between provinces, including Quebec, which has a different language and a different legal system. Not arguing the larger point one way or the other, but wanted to add this data point.
- darksaints 7y ago
  It's not quite so clear cut. In WA, I feel far more cultural similarity to British Columbia than I do to California or Colorado. And Central Americans easily feel more cultural similarity to other Central Americans (they were even a united federal country, sans Panama, at one point), whereas Mexico might as well be Norway to them.
- davvolun 7y ago
  Having just finished re-watching Ken Burns' Civil War for the first time in 20 years or so, like a freshman psychology student who now understands the motivations of the entire world, there is a line in the documentary, stated I believe by Shelby Foote, that stuck with me > Before the war, it was said, "The United States are." Grammatically, it was spoken that way and thought of as a collection of independent states. After the war, it was always "the United States is," as we say today without being self-conscious. That sums up what the war accomplished. It made us an "is." * I certainly, today, think of the U.S. as a whole, not as a collection of independent states, and consider the issue of states' rights to be a generally pointless debate. * Ignore the issues for a moment with the documentary itself and with Shelby Foote, who has stated Nathan Bedford Forrest is "one of the most attractive men who ever walked through the pages of history" -- seriously, I don't even know what to do with that. And I don't know if they did their footwork -- a textual analysis of, say, newspapers prior and subsequent to the Civil War saying "the United States are" compared to "the United States is." From what I've seen regarding issues with the documentary, I would question it, but I don't know for certain. Some things they seem to have done good scholarly work on; others, not as much.
HillaryBriss 7y ago
Or compare Los Angeles to Beverly Hills. These two cities share a border. Median incomes are way, way higher in Beverly Hills. And LA's poor millions are free to crowd right into to Beverly Hills and just start grabbing up some of that wealth. But it barely happens at all. The two populations are not merging nearly as much as the shared border would predict.
- coldtea 7y ago
  >And LA's poor millions are free to crowd right into to Beverly Hills and just start grabbing up some of that wealth. Yeah, not really free. They can't pay rent in Beverly Hills, they can't afford to shop at Beverly Hills shops, they can't even be walking around looking poor without harassment (especially if also black/latino), they don't have access to closed communities, and so on...
  - asdfman123 7y ago
    Wow, it's almost like the people who live in fancy, rich neighborhoods enforce both laws and social norms to keep their neighborhoods fancy and rich.
    - coldtea 7y ago
      Yeah, like redlining. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redlining https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redlining
  - HillaryBriss 7y ago
    > They can't pay rent in Beverly Hills sure they can: eight or ten people can pool resources and rent a one bedroom apartment. happens all the time in other cities.
  - HillaryBriss 7y ago
    > they can't even be walking around looking poor without harassment (especially if also black/latino) I don't quite know where you're getting that. I mean, it's not like the city has enacted some kind of Jim Crow regime. Beverly Hills residents were among Barack Obama's most generous donors. You think they would stand for that kind of evil in their own city? Beverly Hills is represented by Democrats at the state and national levels. It sits in the middle of one of California's bluest counties. Are you saying LA County is tolerating that kind of blatant discrimination in one of its cities? This isn't Louisiana or Alabama for goodness sake. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beverly_Hills%2C_California#2010 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beverly_Hills%2C_California#20...
rootusrootus 7y ago
Oregon and Washington are an interesting case. Washington has the most regressive tax system in the US. Oregon is one of the least regressive (yeah, all states are regressive). You would think that wealthy folks would really want to move across the river to escape Oregon's income tax. The problem, though, is that there are just two bridges across the river and they are frequently very busy, and 99% of everything is on the Oregon side. The only way I would move from Portland to the other side is if I am moving all the way to the Seattle area. And that is unlikely, I enjoy Portland too much.
- asdfman123 7y ago
  I think it comes down to the fact that people don't care as much about taxes as is commonly thought. They care about how much they like a city, or the general culture, or how close they are to mountains or the ocean. Tax is belabored because it's so ideological, like when the Kansas governor claimed cutting taxes would bring a rush of new industries into Kansas (it didn't). I know though when I chose to move from Texas to Hawaii to Washington State I never thought too much about taxes at any point.
  - panzagl 7y ago
    Retirees care.
    - rootusrootus 7y ago
      That may be somewhat true, but I know a lot of retirees in Portland that could easily relocate. Also I'm not positive in the case of Oregon how much the income tax really applies to retirees.
- tathougies 7y ago
  The issue is washingtonians working in oregon would pay oregon tax. Tax applies if you work in the state not if you live there. Living in portland and working in Washington is the best bet if you can pull it off
sm4rk0 7y ago
But the U.S. is still one country.
- tathougies 7y ago
  Only to outsiders because individual states do not make treaties with foreign countries. However states do sometimes send their own commercial ambassadors and meet with world leaders. States also retain full sovereignty of their territory except for limited cases and maintain their own armies navies and air forces
  - deanCommie 7y ago
    > States ... maintain their own armies navies and air forces Say what?
    - burlesona 7y ago
      This is true. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_defense_force https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_defense_force
    - tathougies 7y ago
      The National Guard are the individual armies of each state. Typically, they aide the army and obey national orders. However their commander in chief is the governor of their state not the president. As an example, California has pretty strict border controls on its state bordera. Bringing certain agricultural goods into california is illegal and they will fine or jail you depending on the severity. It is entirely possible and legal, but unlikely, that the governor of California sends it national guard troops to the border if Oregonians for example were attempting to storm the border with ferrets or something.
cpp4life 7y ago
MD to WV is nothing like the difference between Mexico or Guatemala to the US.
- snowwrestler 7y ago
  True but public sentiment on this is not a matter of degree; it's not like Americans go around saying "open borders between U.S. states is only a little bit bad, in proportion to relative economic differences." In my experience it's most often taken for granted, or seen as contributing to American cultural and economic strength--a good thing.
nullwasamistake 7y ago
There's a huge amount of cross border inter-state migration in the US. Maybe 30% of the population over a lifetime. I would guess less than half of citizens die in the state their parents were born. I echo your amazement with the sheer size of the open border area. It's possibly the largest in the world. US states are very culturally homogenous. Likely the highest similarity in the world among large countries. Possibly a result of such a mixed heritage and extremely pervasive cultural influences. Who really knows though. I've been to many states and the difference between even coasts is the same as maybe 300 miles of travel in Europe or Asia.
toomanybeersies 7y ago
Most people don't like migrating (whether that's intercity, interstate, or to a different country). Culture, identity and familiarity have a lot more staying power than HN readers (who tend to be a very transitory demographic) give credit.
slang800 7y ago
> U.S. states are sovereign entities with their own criminal laws, tax regimes, educational systems, property and contract rights, civil rights, economic growth, industries, natural resources, etc. States can hardly be considered sovereign entities anymore. They are subservient to federal laws, educational standards, international trade restrictions, environmental protections, etc. States aren't even allowed to leave the federation.

lm28469 7y ago

Same with EU, people seems to take it for granted but every time I think about it I find it amazing that it works as well as it does and how good it is.

tonyedgecombe 7y ago
It was used as an argument for Brexit in our referendum. I'm not sure that was the real reason for the agitators though.
- gambiting 7y ago
  Which was dumb then and still is - UK was never part of the Schengen agreement and has full control of its borders, it can stop anyone from entering as it pleases.
  - pilsetnieks 7y ago
    Not really, no. One of the basic tenets of the EU single market is free movement of goods and people. Schengen agreement just removes border controls. UK has the freedom to stop any non-EU citizen from entering as it pleases but so does every other EU country, including the Schengen ones.
    - gambiting 7y ago
      See my reply above - even with free movement, there's plenty of cases where you can deny someone entry. Right to free movement is not absolute, and UK is in a fantastic position because it can inspect every single person coming here, unlike for example Germany.
    - jotm 7y ago
      Indeed, and it doesn't. Non-EU immigrants still outnumber EU immigrants.
    - tathougies 7y ago
      To clarify the united states system, states have rights to regulate commerce within their territories. So movement of goods is not in fact free. For example, California has border gates where they will sporadically check for and confiscate certain agricultural products. Yes, the state that wants to be a sanctuary state has border gates and enforcement.
  - ArnoVW 7y ago
    Schengen is about being able to check at your borders. Indeed the UK can still do that, despite being in Europe. However, the UK still has to allow free movement of people. Meaning that it can not stop Europeans from living in the UK. This does not cover working though, and I believe that some European nationalities still have to apply for a work permit. See http://www.europarl.europa.eu/factsheets/en/sheet/147/free-movement-of-persons http://www.europarl.europa.eu/factsheets/en/sheet/147/free-m...
    - TazeTSchnitzel 7y ago

rayiner 7y ago

You dramatically overestimate how much of an economic difference there is between MD and WV: https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-vwpy8_glsgc/Vi5llZ9ZILI/AAAAAAAAIvg/odurAYPHYG4/s1600/adjustedRPP.jpg https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-vwpy8_glsgc/Vi5llZ9ZILI/AAAAAAAAI.... Adjusting for purchasing power, the difference in median income is just 10%. It’s like the difference between Belgium and Australia. On the flip side, there is actually quite a difference between states like New York (second poorest in the US) and Virginia. And there is a very large internal migration from states like New York to states like virginia.

triceratops 7y ago
> New York (second poorest in the US) On what basis? It ranks 15th for median household income.
- rayiner 7y ago
  Median income adjusted for cost of living (which is the usual way of comparing income between countries).
  - triceratops 7y ago
    Thanks!
  - snowwrestler 7y ago
    I would not characterize it as the "usual" way of comparing incomes. It's useful in some contexts but the adjustment can mask differences in local quality of life that matter to people.
    - rayiner 7y ago
      When comparing countries, as I said, the basis of comparison is almost invariably PPP GDP per capita, not nominal GDP per capita.
- dragonwriter 7y ago

seanmcdirmid 7y ago

West Virginia is being emptied, however, with a net loss of population over time. People do leave bad economic areas for good ones over time. People don’t move to Washington from Oregon because their jobs are in Oregon and they would be subject to income taxes anyways. Really not smart if you work in Vancouver WA to live in Portland, however (income taxes are an or proposition). However, I totally agree. Contrast this to China’s hukou system, where you can be a foreigner in your own country because you live in a city without hukou, even if you were born there.

DataGata 7y ago
The hukou system is fascinating- I literally turned to a Chinese coworker to ask about it. He is dealing with visa issues in the US, and explained if he wanted to go live in the Chinese city of his family, he'd have essentially a new set of "visa" issues there!
- elliekelly 7y ago
  Never having heard of the hukou system before (wikipedia[1] for anyone in the same boat) I have a hard time understanding the rationale behind it. The only "benefit" I can see is the government having more control over citizen movement and reduced class mobility. I was surprised that people with rural hukou status who had migrated to urban areas were reluctant to change status. I'm curious how it's perceived by the people? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hukou_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hukou_system
  - seanmcdirmid 7y ago
    They aren’t reluctant to change their status, they simply can’t. Hukou upgrades only come with marriage or divine central government intervention. Even if your ancestors moved to that city a few generations ago, it won’t change your (or your descendants) hukou; ie no jus soli.
    - elliekelly 7y ago

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

DiseasedBadger 7y ago

It's difficult to express how profoundly misapprehended your comparisons are. Moving into a higher-income area is the last thing poor rural Americans want - and the last thing that would help them. They are already living in high assistance areas - the area assisted by the United State federal government. People invading the US are not looking to be in a high-income area, because that implies a higher cost of living. They are looking to be in a high-assistance area. They are not looking to make money, and have little prospect of that. They are looking to be given money. That must be taken from someone else.

dang 7y ago
Please don't do regional flamewar, or any flamewar, on HN. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

wait-a-minute 7y ago

The problem with this argument is that going from most of south America to any part of central America would be a large economic jump. And we know that people who come into the USA illegally tend to go towards major hubs with more economic activity and opportunity. The amount of economic migration would increase for sure. And in a situation where we already turn around over 100,000 a month for attempting to cross illegally, not to mention the number we never catch, it's definitely not going to advantage American citizens to have open borders along the Mexico-USA border. If anything it would disadvantage citizens.

allemagne 7y ago
Where there's economic activity and opportunity that immigrants are drawn to, like you said, then that means there's an unmet demand for labor in the host country. A business that could expand, but isn't able to because it can't find workers. Immigrants then spend the money they've earned which further stimulates the local economy and increases tax revenue for governments. This basic reasoning is why economists are pretty united in the idea that immigration is good for citizens of host countries experiencing immigration, and real-world data has shown this over and over again. The idea that immigration to the United States disadvantages citizens just isn't supported by evidence.
- pixl97 7y ago
  >then that means there's an unmet demand for labor in the host country Where did you come up with that idea? Maybe you meant there is unmet demand for labor at a lower cost, or lower than minimum cost (under the table, etc). This can come at the expense of people earning moderate wages who are not going to be happy about this. A race to the bottom does have issues.

monksy 7y ago

The United States has "open borders" arround the states, because it is the _United_ States. For th emost part, most of the EU has "open borders" arround their member countries. (Sometime that flexes since it's not united) As far as the diversity in culture, I would not agree with that amongst states. Not in a way of comparing say Costa Rica to Panama or the UK to France.

Alex63 7y ago
Canada has free movement between provinces, including Quebec, which has a different language and a different legal system. Not arguing the larger point one way or the other, but wanted to add this data point.
darksaints 7y ago
It's not quite so clear cut. In WA, I feel far more cultural similarity to British Columbia than I do to California or Colorado. And Central Americans easily feel more cultural similarity to other Central Americans (they were even a united federal country, sans Panama, at one point), whereas Mexico might as well be Norway to them.
davvolun 7y ago
Having just finished re-watching Ken Burns' Civil War for the first time in 20 years or so, like a freshman psychology student who now understands the motivations of the entire world, there is a line in the documentary, stated I believe by Shelby Foote, that stuck with me > Before the war, it was said, "The United States are." Grammatically, it was spoken that way and thought of as a collection of independent states. After the war, it was always "the United States is," as we say today without being self-conscious. That sums up what the war accomplished. It made us an "is." * I certainly, today, think of the U.S. as a whole, not as a collection of independent states, and consider the issue of states' rights to be a generally pointless debate. * Ignore the issues for a moment with the documentary itself and with Shelby Foote, who has stated Nathan Bedford Forrest is "one of the most attractive men who ever walked through the pages of history" -- seriously, I don't even know what to do with that. And I don't know if they did their footwork -- a textual analysis of, say, newspapers prior and subsequent to the Civil War saying "the United States are" compared to "the United States is." From what I've seen regarding issues with the documentary, I would question it, but I don't know for certain. Some things they seem to have done good scholarly work on; others, not as much.

HillaryBriss 7y ago

Or compare Los Angeles to Beverly Hills. These two cities share a border. Median incomes are way, way higher in Beverly Hills. And LA's poor millions are free to crowd right into to Beverly Hills and just start grabbing up some of that wealth. But it barely happens at all. The two populations are not merging nearly as much as the shared border would predict.

coldtea 7y ago
>And LA's poor millions are free to crowd right into to Beverly Hills and just start grabbing up some of that wealth. Yeah, not really free. They can't pay rent in Beverly Hills, they can't afford to shop at Beverly Hills shops, they can't even be walking around looking poor without harassment (especially if also black/latino), they don't have access to closed communities, and so on...
- asdfman123 7y ago
  Wow, it's almost like the people who live in fancy, rich neighborhoods enforce both laws and social norms to keep their neighborhoods fancy and rich.
  - coldtea 7y ago
    Yeah, like redlining. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redlining https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redlining
- HillaryBriss 7y ago
  > They can't pay rent in Beverly Hills sure they can: eight or ten people can pool resources and rent a one bedroom apartment. happens all the time in other cities.
- HillaryBriss 7y ago
  > they can't even be walking around looking poor without harassment (especially if also black/latino) I don't quite know where you're getting that. I mean, it's not like the city has enacted some kind of Jim Crow regime. Beverly Hills residents were among Barack Obama's most generous donors. You think they would stand for that kind of evil in their own city? Beverly Hills is represented by Democrats at the state and national levels. It sits in the middle of one of California's bluest counties. Are you saying LA County is tolerating that kind of blatant discrimination in one of its cities? This isn't Louisiana or Alabama for goodness sake. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beverly_Hills%2C_California#2010 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beverly_Hills%2C_California#20...

rootusrootus 7y ago

Oregon and Washington are an interesting case. Washington has the most regressive tax system in the US. Oregon is one of the least regressive (yeah, all states are regressive). You would think that wealthy folks would really want to move across the river to escape Oregon's income tax. The problem, though, is that there are just two bridges across the river and they are frequently very busy, and 99% of everything is on the Oregon side. The only way I would move from Portland to the other side is if I am moving all the way to the Seattle area. And that is unlikely, I enjoy Portland too much.

asdfman123 7y ago
I think it comes down to the fact that people don't care as much about taxes as is commonly thought. They care about how much they like a city, or the general culture, or how close they are to mountains or the ocean. Tax is belabored because it's so ideological, like when the Kansas governor claimed cutting taxes would bring a rush of new industries into Kansas (it didn't). I know though when I chose to move from Texas to Hawaii to Washington State I never thought too much about taxes at any point.
- panzagl 7y ago
  Retirees care.
  - rootusrootus 7y ago
    That may be somewhat true, but I know a lot of retirees in Portland that could easily relocate. Also I'm not positive in the case of Oregon how much the income tax really applies to retirees.
tathougies 7y ago
The issue is washingtonians working in oregon would pay oregon tax. Tax applies if you work in the state not if you live there. Living in portland and working in Washington is the best bet if you can pull it off

sm4rk0 7y ago

But the U.S. is still one country.

tathougies 7y ago
Only to outsiders because individual states do not make treaties with foreign countries. However states do sometimes send their own commercial ambassadors and meet with world leaders. States also retain full sovereignty of their territory except for limited cases and maintain their own armies navies and air forces
- deanCommie 7y ago
  > States ... maintain their own armies navies and air forces Say what?
  - burlesona 7y ago
    This is true. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_defense_force https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_defense_force
  - tathougies 7y ago
    The National Guard are the individual armies of each state. Typically, they aide the army and obey national orders. However their commander in chief is the governor of their state not the president. As an example, California has pretty strict border controls on its state bordera. Bringing certain agricultural goods into california is illegal and they will fine or jail you depending on the severity. It is entirely possible and legal, but unlikely, that the governor of California sends it national guard troops to the border if Oregonians for example were attempting to storm the border with ferrets or something.

cpp4life 7y ago

MD to WV is nothing like the difference between Mexico or Guatemala to the US.

snowwrestler 7y ago
True but public sentiment on this is not a matter of degree; it's not like Americans go around saying "open borders between U.S. states is only a little bit bad, in proportion to relative economic differences." In my experience it's most often taken for granted, or seen as contributing to American cultural and economic strength--a good thing.

nullwasamistake 7y ago

There's a huge amount of cross border inter-state migration in the US. Maybe 30% of the population over a lifetime. I would guess less than half of citizens die in the state their parents were born. I echo your amazement with the sheer size of the open border area. It's possibly the largest in the world. US states are very culturally homogenous. Likely the highest similarity in the world among large countries. Possibly a result of such a mixed heritage and extremely pervasive cultural influences. Who really knows though. I've been to many states and the difference between even coasts is the same as maybe 300 miles of travel in Europe or Asia.

toomanybeersies 7y ago

Most people don't like migrating (whether that's intercity, interstate, or to a different country). Culture, identity and familiarity have a lot more staying power than HN readers (who tend to be a very transitory demographic) give credit.

slang800 7y ago

> U.S. states are sovereign entities with their own criminal laws, tax regimes, educational systems, property and contract rights, civil rights, economic growth, industries, natural resources, etc. States can hardly be considered sovereign entities anymore. They are subservient to federal laws, educational standards, international trade restrictions, environmental protections, etc. States aren't even allowed to leave the federation.