55 ms·

Goodbye, New York, California and Illinois – Hello where?

• yboris 7y ago
  Would be great if their charts were showing % rather than absolute numbers (or at least would show % in addition to absolute numbers). It shouldn't be too surprising: California and New York are in top 5 by population size. ps - their use of "hemorrhaging" to describe movement of people feels inappropriate.
  • freehunter 7y ago
    “Hemorrhaging” is a pretty common way to describe an exodus of people or money. It’s a common metaphor that’s also used in “stop the bleeding” or the similar “stem the tide”. Business is full of otherwise wildly inappropriate phrases, like “drink the kool-aid” in reference to the mass suicide of nearly 1000 people in the Jonestown cult. I have no idea how that’s considered an appropriate phrase for any situation but I hear it constantly in office settings.
    • triceratops 7y ago
      It was long enough ago that many people have forgotten the origin of the phrase. It's just become one of those sayings that means "buy completely into the idea".
    • yboris 7y ago
      I think you're right in that it's a common phrase in conversation. It just doesn't seem appropriate for a new outlet that attempts to be more-objective than sensationalist. I do see this is an opinion rather than a regular article, but still ... "Hemorrhaging" evokes memories of bleeding, indicating severe danger. I pay a lot of attention to metaphors after reading "Metaphors We Live By" (an excellent classic book).
      • freehunter 7y ago
        No, it’s quite common in all kinds of media outlets. Serious news, sports news, opinion pieces, left wing, right wing, entertainment, startups, investing... you’d be hard pressed to find a news outlet that doesn’t use the word “hemorrhaging” in reference to non-blood things. Most words have more than one meaning, this one included. Here’s one from Entrepreneur: https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/284063 https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/284063 New York Times article saying companies are hemorrhaging money: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/25/health/antibiotics-new-resistance.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/25/health/antibiotics-new-re... CBS Sports talking about how a football team is hemorrhaging players: https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/cowboys-vs-eagles-injuries-lane-johnson-and-jordan-howard-on-the-mend-cowboys-hemorrhaging-linebackers/ https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/cowboys-vs-eagles-injurie... Wall Street Journal: https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-investors-dont-care-that-snap-and-lyft-are-hemorrhaging-money-11556289952 https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-investors-dont-care-that-sn... LA Times: https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-bus-ridership-falling-los-angeles-la-metro-20190627-story.html https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-bus-ridership-f... Fox News: https://www.foxnews.com/world/pope-laments-hemorrhaging-of-priests-and-nuns-in-europe https://www.foxnews.com/world/pope-laments-hemorrhaging-of-p... The Motley Fool: https://www.fool.com/investing/2018/07/24/without-nest-alphabets-moonshots-are-still-hemorrh.aspx https://www.fool.com/investing/2018/07/24/without-nest-alpha...
        • yboris 7y ago
          "hemorrhaging money and going out of business" seems a lot more palatable to me (good analogy: humans bleed to death, companies 'bleed' money to 'death'). It feels overly catastrophic to use the word when some people are moving out of a state. I thought America prides itself on "mobility".
    • magduf 7y ago
      >Business is full of otherwise wildly inappropriate phrases, like “drink the kool-aid” in reference to the mass suicide of nearly 1000 people in the Jonestown cult. I have no idea how that’s considered an appropriate phrase for any situation I'm sorry, I don't see the problem. It's a completely apt metaphor for people buying into group-think, with disastrous results. The Jonestown tragedy is a perfect example of what happens when people don't question what they're told, and we should never forget it.
    • sgustard 7y ago
      The issue with the word is that implies something that if left unchecked will cause disaster. So 100k people per year have left, and yet "California’s population still grew by about 2 million over this period". I really don't see the problem.
      • goles 7y ago
        But in areas that do have negative growth, more people leave the tax base gets lower, the government has less funding to address issues that cause people to leave, move people leave, etc. No?
  • deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  • zone411 7y ago
    My company did a map like this. The highest percentages in 2015-2016 are HI to CA, WY to CO, ND to MN, DE to PA, NH to MA, NM to TX, KS to MO, OR to WA. A map without neighboring states is more interesting.
• tardo99 7y ago
  I live in California. An interesting thing we learned is that if we move out of the country for, say, 3 years, unless we set up our lives so we have no intention of remaining California residents, the state will continue to pursue us for income taxes even while overseas. Federal law has a different system which makes more sense -- a tax exemption while overseas. Given that we expect to spend a substantial amount of time overseas in the future for personal reasons, I'm thinking we may need to move to a zero tax state in the US first, just to get out from under the sway of California. I'm curious if anyone else on HN has experience with this.
  • gamblor956 7y ago
    This is a misunderstanding of how CA tax law works. If you move to say, Nevada, before moving to China or wherever, but you always intended to return to CA afterwards, then for state tax purposes you never stopped being a CA resident. So, for example, if you keep a storage locker with your furniture in Cupertino for when you return, you clearly never intended to permanently leave and so you're still a CA resident for tax purposes. If you don't plan on coming back to CA after moving to China or wherever, you stop being a CA resident immediately and only owe state taxes for the part of the year you still lived in CA. And it's easy to show that you are no longer a CA resident, for example, by selling all of your CA-based property.
    • seanmcdirmid 7y ago
      If you own a house in California and visit it often, even if you are living in China, they might still claim you are on the hook for California taxes. I guess you really have to move out and then rent the house out or sell it to be off the hook. The biggest issue with CA and moving abroad temporarily is that CA doesn't have a foreign earned income exclusion or foreign tax credit. So you really don't want to be a CA resident if you need to move out of the USA. Since I moved to Switzerland (and then China, ironically enough) from CA, it was something I had to look into...I wasn't sure if they would come back and say I was a CA resident even though I really had no ties there. In particular, if I wanted to vote, I could have in CA, but that would have been a bad mistake. On the other hand, I wasn't eligible to vote in any other state, so I spent 11 years not voting. When I finally left China, it was for a job in CA...which also gave me some pause as I didn't intend to return to CA in the first place.
• dfsegoat 7y ago
  Sonoma County, CA here. We've lost more people from our county than any other in the state between 2017-2018 [1], and it is only continuing. From the few of these people I have spoken with - anecdotally: - None left because of the fire risk, specifically. [though some obviously did - 2] - Most left because of the cost of living: $600k avg home price. - Some also left because of political and human environment: We have homeless encampments on our bike trails. We have fires caused by illegal cooking fires at these encampments. Petty crime is increasing, and state laws are only enabling this - people are sick of it. 1 - https://www.pressdemocrat.com/news/9149705-181/sonoma-county-population-continues-to https://www.pressdemocrat.com/news/9149705-181/sonoma-county... 2 - https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/arizona/2019/04/24/sonoma-county-residents-leaving-california-move-arizona-heres-why/3563636002/ https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/arizona/2019/04/2...
  • triceratops 7y ago
    > $600k avg home price. > homeless encampments on our bike trails These seem linked somehow...
    • option 7y ago
      Are they really? An honest question - suppose the housing does a nosedive to 100K. I still find it hard to believe that those living on the streets in tents with no jobs will rush to buy houses. The other category of “invisible” homeless - those living in cars and at friends places/garages will of course benefit if the average price of the housing drops
      • Touche 7y ago
        You understand rent would also go down too right?
      • ivanbakel 7y ago
        That would be the most naive interpretation of the relationship - what if, for example, the invisible homeless also burden charities and other support systems in a way that leads to more visible homelessness? What if, given that high prices are a sign of lack of supply, visible homelessness is just a symptom of lack of construction in the county? "Suppose the house price drops" is a very non-specific hypothetical. Why would the house price drop, and what impact could that have on homelessness?
• ourmandave 7y ago
  The numbers are shown in tables with Net Migration (taxpayers and dependents) and their Average Income of departing taxpayers. So 75,386 (taxpayers and dependents) moved from IL to FL and their average income was $135K. That seems to imply that they all took their high paying jobs with them somehow.
  • blululu 7y ago
    This may be slightly skewed by the effect of retirees (people earn the most before they retire). Illinois has high taxes and terrible weather. A lot of affluent people leave the state and retire to Florida. I'm not sure if the article's analysis is really concerned with these nuances.
    • OrangeMango 7y ago
      > Illinois has high taxes and terrible weather Illinois has a flat income tax; at $135k income you would only be beat by the states that have no income tax (like Florida). Most of the states on that list also have weather that is either terrible in the summer or terrible in the winter, so I doubt that weather is really a factor in people moving.
      • magduf 7y ago
        You'd be surprised; I've met plenty of people that talk about how much they like warm weather and want to move south for that reason. Personally, I lived in Arizona for a while and have no desire to live in a hot climate again.
        • sudosteph 7y ago
          I think it's the snow that really gets people. It just interferes with everyday life in a way heat doesn't (ie, limiting car usage and driving safety until it's cleared). This mostly applies to car-oriented lifestyles though - since walking in high heat vs snowy or icy conditions are both quite risky. Also, there is actually a pretty strong correlation between shoveling snow and heart attacks in older folks: https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/can-shoveling-snow-put-your-heart-at-risk-2017120612887 https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/can-shoveling-snow-put-y... . So it definitely makes sense to relocate if that is a factor.
• siculars 7y ago
  Having left NYC for Texas 5 years ago, I can confirm the grass is greener on the other side.
  • alehul 7y ago
    What part of Texas, and how has it been better? As someone from the northeast, I'm intrigued!
    • coding123 7y ago
      Can't stand the rampant cell towers there, where they literally let people have one, give them money and only the neighbors that live there get screwed.
  • blahneverdies 7y ago
    I'd assume that grass was brown and dead. (But no state taxes would be nice.)
    • azimuth11 7y ago
      The tech job market in Dallas and Houston is pretty hot.
      • LeoTinnitus 7y ago
        How's the water? One of the main things that scared me out of Texas living is it's too hot and the water is algae tasting.
        • inetknght 7y ago
          I currently live in Houston. I don't drink tap water directly. It goes through a brita water filter. After that, it's generally fine. As for too hot... I 100% agree. I'd move if I could keep my job. I want to move north where it's cold. But I don't want to move where people are.
• neonate 7y ago
  http://archive.md/vo0cm http://archive.md/vo0cm
• whatsmyusername 7y ago
  Pittsburgh is great.
  • RobRivera 7y ago
    There was a recent article about a googler who suffered from Industrial air pollution and claims Pittsburgh is not a place to move to.
    • whatsmyusername 7y ago
      And about 10 articles debunking it. Pittsburgh's air quality is roughly on par with the bay area. Granted, it ain't great but compared to where else Google is based? shrug ex: https://weather.com/news/news/2019-04-24-most-air-polluted-cities-us-2019-climate-change https://weather.com/news/news/2019-04-24-most-air-polluted-c... Balance this against a growing tech scene (Fintech, robotics, self driving, all sorts of interesting stuff. No VC money but there are orgs like PNC's Numo and CMU investing), a great food scene (Walters makes bang'n brisket but Spork is the best place to eat in the city), pretty good cultural events (the ballet is probably my favorite), easy access to NY/DC/etc, and an excellent cost of living (my 3 bedroom, 1.5 bath was 160k and has appreciated 25k in 2 years). Clarion coke works to the southeast is absolutely an air pollution quagmire but it has little to no impact on the city (except potentially the extreme east side). Biggest downside is we're stuck in Pennsylvania. To the Googler's point, Google's office is located in Bakery Square. This is directly next to Penn Avenue which is a major thoroughfare. If you spent most of your time next to bumper to bumper traffic it'd be likely you'd have a poor opinion of Pittsburgh's air quality even though it's entirely unrepresentative of the city as a whole.
• volkk 7y ago
  What's the story behind the more affluent going to Wyoming? Would love to understand this
  • QuercusMax 7y ago
    Probably a tax dodge / vacation home thing. I have no actual information to back this up, but usually when rich people start moving somewhere it's to save money.
  • ore0s 7y ago
    Tax haven! https://www.npr.org/2016/04/08/473477551/why-wyomings-laws-make-it-an-easy-tax-haven https://www.npr.org/2016/04/08/473477551/why-wyomings-laws-m...
    • volkk 7y ago
      okay but you don't have to entirely relocate your home there do you? this doesn't sound right
    • driverdan 7y ago
      That's some weak reporting. It says it's easy to setup shell corps with a registered agent. That's true for most states and is perfectly legal. They should have discussed how WY makes it easier than most states to avoid being directly connected in any documentation of the shell corp. This makes it harder to track down the real owners in cases when they're being used illegally or sought for litigation.
  • pb7 7y ago
    I'm guessing there is a lot of cheap land near beautiful nature, skiing, hiking, etc that people tend to do in retirement.
  • codingdave 7y ago
    At least one factor is one of the lowest property tax rates in the country. When you have no mortgage, housing prices don't drive your monthly burn rate as much as property taxes. It changes the picture completely on what you look at when choosing where to go.
• zone411 7y ago
  We made a map using domestic migration data: https://twitter.com/LechMazur/status/1202655115628466177 https://twitter.com/LechMazur/status/1202655115628466177
  • glofish 7y ago
    the direction (your arrows) are too small and hard to see, yet the most important part of a visualization perhaps put the arrow at the end, that way one can see which connection is a source and which one is a target
    • zone411 7y ago
      The ends are actually pointed towards the destination state. I think the direction is pretty visible once you expand https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ELCwc3xWkAEEbgW?format=jpg&name=large https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ELCwc3xWkAEEbgW?format=jpg&name=... but point taken, thanks.
  • mdavidn 7y ago
    It seems obvious that states with the largest populations would see the most people leave. This graphic would be more interesting if the scale were per 1,000 capita.
    • bduerst 7y ago
      I tend to agree, but how would you weight it between states? Per 1000 capita in the source state or the destination state? Also that would overweight the low pop density states, assuming there's a baseline immigration rate, painting an entirely different picture with the Dakotas/Wyoming/etc.
• chadlavi 7y ago
  I'd like to cordially invite more folks to leave New York to make room (and depressed housing prices) for the rest of us. Thanks in advance!
  • Ozumandias 7y ago
    After you, sir.
• vondur 7y ago
  Pretty easy to figure out in California. High cost of living, crime is out of control, homeless taking over parts of the city. Our state government is either unwilling or unable to address these issues. So sale your overpriced property and move to a state with more sensible policies and taxes. Seems pretty reasonable.
  • sharkmerry 7y ago
    Crime has ticked up slightly compared to the lows, but it has comparable rates to the 60s right now. Before the explosion of crime in the 70s and 80s
    • vondur 7y ago
      Many people aren’t bothering to report crimes now. The police won’t do anything about it. You can pretty much get away will minor property crimes/theft now without any repercussions.
      • krapp 7y ago
        >You can pretty much get away will minor property crimes/theft now without any repercussions. Only if you're white.
        • corporate_shi11 7y ago
          Except it's mainly non whites committing those crimes.
      • wwweston 7y ago
        If we're making assertions contrary to data and treading on unfalsifiable positions, then I suppose the source is anecdotes, and I suppose mine are as good as any: I lived in Los Angeles in the early 90s for two years, and visited frequently through the rest of the decade. Experienced petty crime on at least 3 occasions, had a few close calls with violent crime, saw the Rodney King riots unfold, and heard some pretty crazy stories. I've spent the last 8 years in LA... I've experienced zero instances of petty crime. I know it's not gone from some conversations I've had and everyone here has their take on LA's various problems, but across demographics nearly everyone I know agrees that this city is definitely a safer, more chill, higher quality of life place than it was 20-30 years ago. Except in one regard: housing is less affordable -- how much less depends on which boom/bust cycle you're looking at and who you're looking at, but definitely less affordable. So, not coincidentally, homelessness has become a much more serious issue. The weirdest thing is that this is apparently happening with a net outflow from the state. Rents up over 60% with a stable/decreasing demand pool for housing is an odd dynamic and likely means this is no ordinary supply problem. I can't speak to the Bay Area or the rest of California, but that's what things look like in LA.
• glofish 7y ago
  Considering that Florida is slowly but surely going underwater it is weird to see it as the most popular destination to move to.
  • toomuchtodo 7y ago
    Lots of Florida will escape sea level rise, and the benefits (lower cost of living, no state income tax, tropic climate with no snow) can be realized immediately. You care even less if you’re a renter or >10 feet above sea level. Migration numbers don’t lie, lots of folks love Florida, or at least like it enough to move and stay put.
    • glofish 7y ago
      Are you saying that if you are 10 ft above water you'll be fine in Florida even when areas under 10ft flood? I really doubt that. It is not about actually losing your home, it is about quality of life, the main reason for moving there in the first place. There will be a big cost of any flooding, borne by all Floridians
      • toomuchtodo 7y ago
        Yes, and Florida real estate market fundamentals as well as the mortgage bond market and property insurance support my thesis. I specifically paid for sea level rise models before buying Florida real estate, and will likely sell before I die and sea level rise has meaningfully occurred. I-4 and I-75 will be untouched, and other infra is already designed around the Florida environment (hurricanes, high water table). Stay away from the coast, build to current code, and you’ll be fine. Storm surge is your primary coastal concern. Miami aquifer sea water intrusion is a different issue, but I’m not in Miami. Due to Florida’s population, federal funds are likely to be requested and paid out to mitigate the worst effects. Plenty of water to desal with cheap wind and solar.
        • glofish 7y ago
          I am curious to see how this works out long term. There is a lot of alarmism, but mostly where alarmism also sells copies. There is wisdom in crowds, no question about that - we would be foolish to ignore that. Lots of people move to Florida.
• deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
• rb808 7y ago
  To me its fascinating the growth of state's pop. TX is sucking up people so fast. NY has hardly changed in 70 years. State 1850 1900 1950 2020 NY 3 7 17 19 IL 1 4.8 8.7 13 CA .1 1.5 10.5 39 TX .2 3 8 29 FL .1 0.5 2.7 21
  • xxpor 7y ago
    Texas has built housing. NY essentially hasn't.
    • driverdan 7y ago
      That's not true. NY more than NYC. NYC has been building housing and the rest of the state has plenty.
      • asdff 7y ago
        scale nyc housing construction to a per capita level and it's actually pretty paltry
  • sharkmerry 7y ago
    According to your Numbers from 1950 to 2020, Texas only went up 3.625x. CA went up 3.71x and Florida did 7.77x. Definitely grew compared to New york, but hardly sucking up people so fast
    • rb808 7y ago
      You're right, just the last 10-30 years CA pop growth has stopped while TX has continued at 20%/decade.
• jedberg 7y ago
  Every person I know who's left California did it because of housing costs (except for one, who did it to get away from "the damn liberal government that wants to take my guns"). We have a major housing cost crisis in this state, as well as a big NIMBY problem. There have been good solutions run up through the state house, that either fail to pass or get so watered down they are no longer effective, in large part because the most liberal parts of the state happen the also be the wealthiest, so they vote against it. It's one of the few areas in California where the GOP and the Dems agree. They only want to help poor people if it doesn't affect their property value.
  • harimau777 7y ago
    Did the laws have protections for the current home owners? It seems perfectly reasonable to me that people would want to protect themselves if they don't have any assurances that developers won't just build ugly tower blocks. On the other hand, if people are opposing development that involves real architects developing aesthetically pleasing designs that respect the existing community, then it seems reasonable to me to criticize NIMBYism.
    • jedberg 7y ago
      > It seems perfectly reasonable to me that people would want to protect themselves if they don't have any assurances that developers won't just build ugly tower blocks. If developers want to build ugly tower blocks, and people would actually buy those blocks, why stop them? Just because I bought my house ten years ago doesn't give me the right to stop someone from building something "ugly". At least, it shouldn't. It's important to remember that just because the law says, "you can now build a thing", that doesn't mean the thing will get built. First, the current property owner has to sell, and sell at a price that it makes sense to build the ugly thing. Then a developer has to want to take the risk of building the thing. It turns out, making it legal to build things doesn't really mean they spring up instantly. It's a slow process that takes decades to play out. In the 70s, a section of San Francisco that was zone single family only was rezoned to dual/triple/quads-allowed. Since the 70s, only a few of the single family have been torn down and replaced with quads.
• sudosteph 7y ago
  Native North Carolinian checking in. I'm from Charlotte and I can honestly say that I grew up with more friends who had parents from New York than from NC. A lot of middle class people from upstate NY settled in Charlotte due to the economic opportunities and weather. I'd wager that this migration really started about 30 years ago, and we're seeing the numbers increase even further due to network effects. For example, we've got a sizeable community of former Buffalo residents who gather over football games at restaurants that are run by other Buffalo natives. For what it's worth, New Yorkers seem to be very culturally compatible with North Carolinians, we get along just fine. I feel like I've seen a bit less animosity for New Yorkers in NC than I saw for Californians in Seattle. There are jokes (ie, the town of Cary in the NC Triangle is sometimes said to stand for "Containment Area for Relocated Yankees"), but it never feels like genuine resentment. I may just be biased though because buffalo-style pizza in particular has spoiled every other style of pizza for me. Please Buffalo peeps: keep coming here and sharing your food culture with us.
  • ardit33 7y ago
    Upstate NY and NYC proper are very different areas (might as well be different states). Upstate NY have more in common with west MA, Vermont, NH, than with folks in the NYC area (where most of NY residents live). The difference even more than someone from Alexandria/D.C with south VA, (e.g Danville, Roanoke, Halifax County etc...).
    • sudosteph 7y ago
      Yeah, I've noticed that as well, which is why I mentioned "upstate" specifically. We do get people from both parts, but tbh I don't think most of us NC people can tell the difference other than by food preferences and that the people from upstate tend to be more 2nd amendment. Otherwise, both seem more similar to each to other than to southerners. But is it wrong to call people from upstate NY "New Yorkers" - or is that term only reserved for city people? If so, what are they called?
      • antcas 7y ago
• tempsy 7y ago
  I’m curious about inter-California migration as well. I live in SF and wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of people in SF move to LA. Personally I would be more than happy moving to San Diego. In my opinion the best city on the west coast and relatively cheap for a coastal city.
• jamisteven 7y ago
  Californians arent all moving just due to housing costs, overall cost of living there is pretty nuts and unless you work in big tech, your salary is not that great. State plus federal income tax alone was a deal breaker for me when I was there.
  • CamperBob2 7y ago
    State plus federal income tax alone was a deal breaker for me when I was there. Especially now that state income tax is no longer Federally deductible. I've found it very surprising that people on both the pro-tax and anti-tax sides don't make a bigger stink about that.
    • mdavidn 7y ago
      That and property tax on high-value housing is basically no longer deductible either. I think Republicans backed this plan hoping it would create pressure to decrease taxes in blue states. Instead, the double taxation has only incensed taxpayers like me.
• jshaqaw 7y ago
  Cost of living is real. Weather is real. Outside of a few highly nomadic ultra-high net worth types the tax advantages of moving states is just too trivial in absolute terms for most people to bother with. The idea that masses of people are moving for lower taxes seems like a rhetorical invention of the WSJ editorial page versus anything rooted in reality.
  • driverdan 7y ago
    CA's income tax is very high. The effective tax rate is 7%+ for most tech workers. That's a huge amount of income to give up, especially if you're comparing to a state with no or low income tax.
    • asdff 7y ago
      Should be higher imo
      • sun_bear 7y ago
        Nobody is preventing you from paying more. Problem solved.
  • rayiner 7y ago
    > tax advantages of moving states is just too trivial It’s not. For a family with $85,000 a year, getting rid of state tax could mean an extra several hundred dollars a month in income.
    • jayd16 7y ago
      You'll spend the time and effort to move for a couple grand a year? Does that really make sense? How many years does it take to break even?
      • GhettoChild 7y ago
        It makes sense when you are also significantly decreasing your cost of living at the same time in addition to cutting taxes and want to purchase a home something that really isn'y possible in NYC or the bay on that income but is easily possible in a state with low cost of living.
• shaneprrlt 7y ago
  Illinoisan here, have a lot of family and friends that have escaped. Escape is literally how they talk about it too. Most of the complaints I hear is about cost of living and property taxes. All the costs and taxes of a state like California, without any of the beautiful weather (except for 3 months of the year during summer). It's a big issue, and part of the reason, I believe, that they just legalized recreational cannabis.
  • GhettoChild 7y ago
    The main difference I see between Illinois and CA/NY is that the cost of housing is MUCH more reasonable so that the overall cost of living in the area is MUCH more reasonable.
    • charlesu 7y ago
      It's not more reasonable when you consider the property taxes. A $350,000 house looks great until you factor in $10,000 annual property taxes.
      • deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
      • GhettoChild 7y ago
        Even when taking property taxes into account it is. look up how much comparable homes to that 350k home in illinois are in NY/CA and how much their property taxes are in addition to that significantly higher home prices.
        • lotsofpulp 7y ago
          And you have significantly fewer opportunities to earn income.
      • sk5t 7y ago
        3% FMV property tax is pretty rough, but do you get a tolerable school system as part of that bargain?
• shoes_for_thee 7y ago
  I left NY because of all the commie bullshit. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
  • dang 7y ago
    Ok, but please don't post ideological flamebait to Hacker News. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
• rmason 7y ago
  Surprised to see Michigan still on the list. Ten years ago it should have been number one. But things have gotten much better, dramatically better in the last two years. Reports I've seen is that the state should see an increase in population in the 2020 census. Last time that happened would have been perhaps in the early nineties.
• enad 7y ago
  I grew up in Central California and then lived in the Bay Area from 2001 until 2010. Had kids, and a online job, so we next moved to the Sierra Nevada foothills, where we lived for a decade. We moved to a suburb of Houston, Texas about a year ago. Best decision ever. In a nutshell: Overall, quality of life has gone way up. Taxes have gone down. Wages have gone up. Everything is cheaper, which means we all get to do more fun stuff. On the negative side of the equation: The avocados are smaller here.
  • aazaa 7y ago
    > Taxes have gone down. Are the kids school age? If so, what do you think of the public schools?
    • enad 7y ago
      The schools are very good compared to what they had in California. We live in one the top 500 school districts in the country (there are about 10,000 of them).
  • highdesertmuse 7y ago
    Serious question:do you still vote Democrat?
    • weiming 7y ago
      Tongue-in-cheek comment that I've read somewhere is that folks flee Democrat-run cities due to high taxes and mismanagement and move elsewhere, but then continue voting Democrat to bring back the same policies they wanted to escape from.
      • jayd16 7y ago
        Or, you know, they just want to move to a smaller city. Houston's still a third as dense as LA, NY or Chicago so its not like politics are the only differences.
      • reaperducer 7y ago
• jedberg 7y ago
  Which part of Texas? I feel like the heat, humidity, and conservatives would get to me. Edit: What I meant by "conservatives" was not the people. They are entitled to their opinion. What I meant was how they would affect me and my kids. For example, by choosing what textbooks my kids get to use (which are basically the California textbooks with all the "Americans weren't the good people here" parts taken out).
  • mbesto 7y ago
    FYI - Austin is as blue as they come (and way less of the neoliberalism you see in SV). Houston from what I can tell has become much more liberal too (partly because a large influx of Katrina refugees). Hot take - with all of the migration to Texas, this state will be blue in the next 10 years. The only "conservative" things you find in those areas is (1) big trucks (2) guns (3) tobacco (4) sports. Not much different than what you might see in rural CA.
    • rayiner 7y ago
      > Hot take - with all of the migration to Texas, this state will be blue in the next 10 years. And will have all the problems of California, New York, etc. in another 10-20 years after that.
      • d1zzy 7y ago
        As long as no Prop 13 gets voted in it should be much better than California. Everyone complaining about policies in California make it sound like Texas is perfect. I'm pretty sure it could use a lot of improvements on its policies. There are some large factors that have had a disproportionate effect on the housing problems California faces and one of those is Prop 13 so it is much better to focus on avoiding repeating those mistakes than making general blanket statements.
        • xyzzyz 7y ago
          Prop 13 does produce some distortion in the market, but much bigger problem is the sheer inability to build anything. If California had similar zoning and building rules as Texas, Prop 13 would not really be relevant, since houses would not be appreciating in value fast enough for Prop 13 to make any difference.
• kull 7y ago
  Go Austin!
• whalesalad 7y ago
  My wife and I moved here to California (my home state) mid-2018 from Michigan (her home state). We moved out here for a startup, but shortly after relocating the founder ran out of money and could no longer pay me. This was a huge shock because on the surface everything was fine and dandy. Got totally bamboozled. I still remember walking into our co-working spot to pick up some mail and was told that I should leave the premisis becuase our bills were way past due and I could not have access to our mail. I was like uhh wow holy shit, he isn't paying you either. That was a surreal moment. After the move and the shit show of the startup, our savings had basically evaporated. I had to get to work ASAP. I am very fortunate to have a support group of friends and family and was able to land a gig working on a Rails-based ecommerce site for a furniture company. Fast forward to now and I am still a freelance consultant with usually 3-4 clients or projects happening simultaneously. I have done pretty well for myself, but the last year was one of the most stressful and chaotic years of my life. I am seriously struggling with my mental health. Throughout the entire time we've been able to save a little more money, but all-in-all we are pissing away a tremendous amount of cash every month on our rent and other expenses that are a little higher here in CA. Moving here to Orange County was predicated on the killer salary from the new gig. The current plan is to head back to Michigan. My wife's family is all there, so as far as a state to flee to it makes the most sense. Our rent will cut in half for what will be a far bigger property with a lot more breathing room. An idea we are tossing around is buying land and building our own home from scratch, which is something we could never even imagine doing here in California. I think that I have a tougher time appreciating all the wonderful things our state has to offer. Having grown up here I just see all the traffic and density and lack of breathing room and want to head for the hills. It makes the higher living cost tougher to swallow. Plus, knowing we'll really never be able to afford the kind of property and home that we know we can have over in Michigan, it makes sense to get out of here without planting deep roots again.
  • JMTQp8lwXL 7y ago
    I am curious what a "killer salary" looks like in Orange County, compared to LA and SFBA (assuming it's a tech job).
    • 7y ago
• kbradero 7y ago
  Detroit. Best place ever.
  • OrgNet 7y ago
    free homes? (if you don't count the tear-down costs)
• slg 7y ago
  Ignoring the age of people in this data seems like a mistake. Considering the age of boomers and the states this article says people are moving to, I would venture a guess that recent retirees make up decent percentage of the people moving. Two 30 year olds moving from California to Nevada so they can afford to raise a family is saying something fundamentally different and in my opinion more important than two 65 year olds moving from New York to retire in Florida.
• linuxftw 7y ago
  Rest of the country here. Stay in your crap-hole states, we don't want you.
• 52-6F-62 7y ago
  Come to Canada >:] We could use some denser populations to provide a larger tax base and to promote inter-city transit infrastructure.
  • downerending 7y ago
    Sadly, Canada won't let you in unless you're young or rich.
    • 52-6F-62 7y ago
      Honestly was being half tongue in cheek, but your comment made me look it up because I never have. It sounds like we have a program similar to the USA’s TN Visa program: https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/services/immigrate-canada/express-entry/eligibility.html https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/se... FWIW, it can be expensive here, but Amazon and others are hiring like stink.
• Keverw 7y ago
  Ohio is losing people too, called brain drain. Was reading that a senate report said Ohio's best and brightest are leaving, especially the more educated. I could see how moving to Texas or Florida would be appealing, warmer so no winter blues, friendlier to businesses, less taxes and simpler tax structures and some cities have more tech than others too such as Austin. I know Michigan is in a similar situation too with losing people. I know after the 2020 census Ohio is predicted to lose at least 1 house seat and lose some of the federal funds. Looks like Ohio is attracting more immigrants from other countries, than people from other states. Really think it's a shame tech is so centralized in a handful of cities, but I do see things like warm weather and walkability attracting people. I'd love to live somewhere where I wouldn't be far from my office, places to eat and shop without needing a car. I figured maybe around where the domain in Austin would be a cool place to live maybe. Seems like it's cheap to live in Ohio but not much to do other than drinking, playing video games, bowling or doing drugs (Dayton was ranked top city for heroin overdoses) and not that many jobs in tech, and then even huge loss in manufacturing too. I know people say Austin is the next Silicon Valley, but I feel like the cost of living for housing keeps going up, so sounds like going to have similar problems as in California. I'm surprised tech companies don't invest big in the midwest, Google could probably buy an entire city if they wanted to but not sure if they'd attract a lot of workers. But it's interesting to watch migration patterns, I guess tech is the new gold rush. Seems like sometimes you have to vote with your feet. I was thinking Utah would be a nice place to live since the mountains are pretty, and was surprised to learn they have only a flat 5% tax rate, and no city income taxes either as I thought every state also had cities taxing people. While Ohio you have state, city, school district(some are done based on income as a %, while other districts use property taxes), and then if you own a business or self employed making enough (maybe you're a lawyer who decided to work independently grossing enough to qualify for paying it) there's a business activity tax. So I think a simpler tax structure would be nice. I kinda feel there should just be one tax only to simplify things, and let the cities or states argue over who gets what. Then some tax software won't even help with city taxes, I think Michigan that's the case since cities haven't standardized on things, I know there was a proposal in Ohio for the state to collect city taxes on the city behalf and redistribute them to the cities while charging the cities a service fee but the cities didn't like that idea. I know some cities go as high as 2.5% percent, I think it's a little insane some cities with less population and square miles of Utah needs to collect half of what the entire state of Utah collects, makes me feel like there's a lot of waste or people are paid too highly working for the city.
• Glyptodon 7y ago
  I find it interesting that Illinois and New York's leavers seem to have much more income banding with respect to destinations than California's, which in turn seems to at least partially be related to Californians not going to Florida. My first instinct is to assume that well-off-ish retirees in Illinois and New York retire to Florida, while in California they just stay in California. (Though other possibilities exist: for example, California leavers could be in two groups for most of the exit states, and so happen to average incomes out more than for Illinois or New York.) I also find it interesting that the income-destination pairs of leavers for those two states seems like they might indicate potential easy presumptions about general political and socioeconomic status compared to California. Curious if there's actual data backing supporting these obvious presumptions.
• formerchamp 7y ago
  SF and NYC in a nutshell: High taxes to fund entitlement programs like "affordable housing" and the homeless industrious complex, high regulations that only allow mega corps to succeed, landlord unfriendly laws so no chances taken on good borderline tenants, and no firearms for law abiding citizens so criminals are emboldened.
  • untog 7y ago
    On the flip side: high taxes means access to things like public transportation, meaning that you don't need to own and maintain a car. And crime rates in NYC, at least, are at absolute historic lows. The firearms part of your statement really makes no sense at all. Some other pluses: a huge concentration of culture, entertainment, dining. Regional transportation hubs to travel to other cities is relatively quick.
    • formerchamp 7y ago
      Pubic transit is a drop in the bucket compared to "affordable housing" which no one who has a full time minimum wage job qualifies for. And the homeless industrial complex just keeps getting more and more funding with no accountability or results in sight. It's almost like they want more homeless to justify their $300K/yr "non-profit" jobs.
    • newfangle 7y ago
      This is hilarious, yeah in SF the 55 percent taxes i pay really do provide me great public transportation
      • d1zzy 7y ago
        lol what? 55% taxes?
        • newfangle 7y ago
          I pay 55 percent taxes total if that wasnt clear.
• iron0013 7y ago
  One thing I’ve noticed is that expatriates from blue states tend to bring their politics with them when they move. Denver’s influx of out-of-staters was a big part of why Colorado moved from purple to solid blue, and now the same thing is happening in TX as folks flock to Austin and Houston, GA as the black diaspora returns to Atlanta, and NC as the Research Triangle booms. Heck, even Utah’s starting to look more purplish thanks to its tech industry (and the CA imports that inevitably come along with it). It’s going to be exciting to see what happens when Texas reaches its tipping point.
• chiph 7y ago
  If you want to explore this exodus yourself, one of the things you can do is use the uhaul.com website. They have dynamic pricing based on availability and demand. At the current time, renting a 26' truck to move one-way from Mountain View CA to Dallas TX will cost you $4,230. But driving the opposite direction will only cost you $846.
  • GhettoChild 7y ago
    At those prices one is better off just buying a trailer and keeping it.
    • kelnos 7y ago
      Hell, I wonder if you could buy a used 26' truck in Mountain View, do the move, and sell it in Dallas for more than $4,230 less than you paid for it.
      • GhettoChild 7y ago
        Im sure you can.
• dragonwriter 7y ago
  > New York, California and Illinois have been hemorrhaging residents. Well, no. At least California (about which I see a lot of these stories) is gaining residents. Yes, it has negative net interstate migration. But it has both positive net natural population growth and positive net total migration, because the positive net international migration more than offsets negative net interstate migration.
  • alecco 7y ago
    So, white flight?
    • dragonwriter 7y ago
      > So, white flight? Given the racial dynamics of wealth and the fact that the interstate inmigration is wealthy and the interstate outmigration is less wealthy, probably not “white flight” as that is usually conceived.
• GhettoChild 7y ago
  Look at cheap states with no state income Tax. The states without income tax are Texas, Washington, Tennessee, South Dakota, Alaska, Nevada, and Florida. Find the one which most fits what you are looking for in a place to live and give it a whirl.
• misiti3780 7y ago
  I live in NYC now but I dont know how long I will stay here. You cant really buy an apartment for < 1MM and the taxes are out of control. NY State has to be one of the worst states to live in right now. NYC even has a mansion tax on any house purchased over 1MM dollars, and manhattan has a huge amount of empty high end condos now because no one wants to buy them
• iancmceachern 7y ago
  I think it comes down to one's priorities in life. I would rather rent somewhere that I want to live that has the activities and culture I enjoy than own a big house where I dont want to live that doesn't have those things.
• newfangle 7y ago
  And this sucks for the rest of the country because these people have no sepf awareness and will vote for the same dumb policies that screwed up their original homes.
• dkwod023903 7y ago
  Bay Area native here. The cost of living here has always been high, there have always been a lot of homeless people, and crime used to be worse. The tech industry has metastasized, overthrown the culture, and drained the soul out of the place. The ethos and pathos of the tech industry have undergone a transformation from creation to extraction. We shot for the moon and got surveillance capitalism and the "gig economy" instead. Now everybody here is "the right type of people". You can be whoever you want, so long as it's sustainable and organic.
  • GhettoChild 7y ago
    so many catchphrases and clichés in this post.
    • dkwod023903 7y ago
      You hit it on the nose GhettoChild
• deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
• atomi 7y ago
  I wouldn't leave California for a million dollars. To quote a famous Californian, "I'd rather be dead in California than alive in Arizona."
  • filoleg 7y ago
    Good for you, I totally respect that. Which, unfortunately, isn't something I am able to say about a lot of Californian expats.
    • atomi 7y ago
      A lot of "Californians" are transplants or foreign born. Many of those are also conservative and don't mind moving to more conservative states. Native born are typically more loyal.
    • dang 7y ago
      Please don't take HN threads further into regional flamewar (or any flamewar). https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
      • atomi 7y ago
        You got a tough job buddy.
  • kortilla 7y ago
    I’m sure there are lots of people in Arizona that would love for you to die there as well. I’m honestly surprised that so many “forward thinking” people can spout off such nationalist bullshit with a straight face.
    • cyphar 7y ago
      It's a reference to Arrested Development. There's also no need to take it personally -- not to mention that both Arizona and California are in the same country (thus making it by definition not nationalistic to say you prefer one to the other).
• deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
• twodave 7y ago
  If I’m honest, as a young professional from Florida I always envied those able to uproot and move to the west coast. My whole family (both mine and my wife’s) is here on the east coast, and I spent a lot of years somewhat resentful of the missed opportunities. Today, at the age of 35, my position has completely reversed. If anything, with the advent of the remote workplace, I’d rather be in a low cost area such as the one I live in, and the “opportunities” I’m missing out on these days just don’t seem so attractive anymore.
• zelly 7y ago
  You can do software anywhere you can get a network connection, but if VCs aren't there, then you don't get a job. VCs have to be the first movers on this. So I have a suggestion for any of you reading. A major reason for SV being where it is, is the climate. A number of studies have been done on this. The best place for high-quality entrepreneurship and general civilization-building is a Mediterranean climate. The Bay is not the only place with this property. Most of coastal California has the same climate. So why don't some VCs move to other places? How about Monterey? Orange County? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediterranean_climate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediterranean_climate
• tqi 7y ago
  I wonder if there has been an increase in cases of families splitting up, with one (or both) parents living cheaply in high cost / high income areas and sending money back to families in lower cost / lower income areas?
• aezakmi 7y ago
  I love it when vermin from the shore want to infest other places, I would confine them into the hellhole they created. Unfortunately I'm a minority.
• incantations 7y ago
  Californians vote for open-borders and then wonder why the housing costs are so high
• make3 7y ago
  Come to Montreal
• someonehere 7y ago
  California my whole life. I live in SF. Considering moving to Washington. I can live on the west side of Puget Sound and take an express ferry across the Sound and get to downtown Seattle for work. What a condo goes for in SF you can get a beach front house with some land. I once saw a property on one of the islands with a dozen acres for less than a million. Farm house on it and it’s still commutable to downtown Seattle via the ferry.
• tidology 7y ago
  Besides the usual issues with SF, Bay Area .. really California: homeless, cost of living, fires (health), earthquake one of the most concerning aspect for me are taxes! You pay tons of state taxes to get pretty much nothing in return. I and my wife have 2 years of run away. Wait for my kid to finish the pre-school cycle, after which we are out of here. We have already begun to look into alternatives and evaluating pro/cons and yes Texas comes as one of the top choices along with Colorado.
  • tropo 7y ago
    So... are you going to vote like a Californian, ruining those states, and then look for a new state? People sort of end up with the government they deserve, even if they don't like the result. California would be great if it were filled with a mix of people from Texas, Wyoming, Oklahoma, West Virginia, New Hampshire, Florida, Iowa, Idaho, and Kentucky. The laws would be very different. There would be much more freedom, including lower taxes.
• unixhero 7y ago
  As an European, what's the difficulty to get a citizenship for the US in 2020?
  • tropo 7y ago
    The situation is really only difficult for a handful of countries with very high migration. You aren't in China, India, or similar. It ought to be pretty easy for you. Note that this is based on birth country, not your current country.
• imroot 7y ago
  Florida's upsides: No Sales Tax. If you're not looking for waterfront, housing is super affordable. Amazing place if you're single. Florida's Downsides: Homeless are more aggressive than in SF. Florida Man. Frequently 10% sales tax in most places due to lack of income tax. Higher property taxes if you're in a really progressive area. You're swapping out earthquakes for hurricanes. A lot of "Keeping up with the Jones'" mentality here. Not a great place for tech.
  • nmfisher 7y ago
    I'm still trying to understand how it all works in the USA, so please bear with me. What do you mean by "No Sales Tax", then go on to say "Frequently 10% sales tax"?
    • oplav 7y ago
      I think they probably mean no income tax.
    • souprock 7y ago
      Clearly that is wrong. There is no income tax. The sales tax is 6% to the state, and counties can increase it for their own purposes, up to a maximum of 8%. The average is 6.65%. At certain times in summer, school supplies and hurricane supplies are 0%. Grocery items are 0%.
      • imroot 7y ago
        Yup -- my apologies -- No Income tax.
• 205guy 7y ago
  There is something about California that really brings out the whining and hypocrisy in conservatives. They want to move there for the big bucks in tech, but they don't want to be a minority party/culture. CA has lots of problems, but when I hear "housing is too expensive, lots of homelessness and petty crime, AND it's so liberal that they just can't fix anything," I know the last one is the key. They complain about the NIMBYs who keep real-estate prices high (as if that were the only thing), complain that no one is building denser housing, then leave and move to sprawling suburbia with it's HOAs and de-facto segregated zoning. Go try to build a 4-plex in your new neighborhood, then get back to us. Cue all the complaints about the entrenched residents in their Prop 13 homes or rent-controlled units, building permits and red tape nightmares. Yes, there is a problem. You not making it and having to move away (after moving there 2 or 3 years ago) is not the problem. Look at it this way, the system is working for 80-90% of the long-term residents, and they're aware of the hardships for the disadvantaged among them. Why should they go out of their way to accomodate conservatives who want to undermine their tax-and-spend heaven? As for the Democrats who leave CA and vote Democrat elsewhere, why not? They didn't get in early enough on this wealth train (OK, jokes about CAHSR will be tolerated), so they're going somewhere else, and trying to get it started there. CA is defined by excess of liberal values, elswhere by lack, so they're just trying to bring some moderation. They won't be very successful, and I will tell them not to go whining about the conservative values in their new home, so there. California just is. It's the world's 4th largest economy by itself. For good or ill, it's home to so many internet companies (and other industries) that have made so much money in the internet revolution that it has skewed its cost-of-living and real-estate markets off the charts. It has made many of its residents fabulously weathly, both in relative and absolute terms, and they want to stay and enjoy it mostly the way it is. In SF/SV, it has redefined middle-class at around 300K combined income, and that money (at least what's not dedicated to housing) drives a lot of other sectors (public transit, restaurants, and other quality-of-life businesses). Yeah, I know, all those have issues and/or are overpriced, no need to comment to say that. It also leans very liberal in the coastal cities, meaning tolerance, compassion, social justice, sanctuary, etc. It seems like they still have a democracy, and since they're still the majority, they get to keep experimenting. It's not going anywhere, and it's not going to change much, and certainly not because of the whining. Deal with it.
• agensaequivocum 7y ago
  Having left Orange County California for Phoenix Arizona in early 2019, I definitely plan on staying. We can easily afford a house, the community here is unbelievably better (many young large families, an amazing Diocese), lower income and property taxes, cheaper gas, constitutional carry. Sure it may get a little hot in the summer but you can easily drive up to Flagstaff to escape the heat, and, in the winter, go skiing for much cheaper than Big Bear.
  • dmode 7y ago
    Having lived in Arizona for 3 years, IMO, it is one of the worst places to live in the US
    • agensaequivocum 7y ago
      Why?
• peignoir 7y ago
  I did move to Puerto Rico, there is a small and growing tech ecosystem there and growing. A lot of tax incentive and flights to Miami and nyc are cheap. Rents are cheap and this is a good deal for remote workers
• Jemm 7y ago
  Judging by the influx of tech companies , Toronto seems to be a popular destination for Americans.