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Key takeaway for me: more people want to become republicans. It's not just high population to low population, because Florida as an example.
by coding123 5y ago
Key takeaway for me: more people want to become republicans.
It's not just high population to low population, because Florida as an example.
- core-utility 5y agoOr at a very minimum, they like the policies red states bring in comparison (low property tax, occasional lack of income tax, lower cost of living). That is, until those moving in vote those policies out.
- bluedino 5y agoThe economy in Florida (and Texas) is great. Lots of money there right now. I had a friend move from Ohio to Florida, he has 4 times the customers down there and they all spend more.
- op00to 5y agoI wonder where all that money is coming from. Oh yeah, resource extraction.
- mateo411 5y agoWhat are the resource extraction industries of Florida?
- tk75x 5y agoDisney, Universal, cruise lines...? If the resource is tourist cash.
- mateo411 5y agoTourism is usually considered part of the service industry and not resource extraction. Resource extraction is more like mining, timber, and extracting other raw materials from the earth.
- op00to 5y agoOil drilling, mining, the usual.
- nostromo 5y agoThe current boom in the US is from money printing, and it's nation-wide.
- beerandt 5y agoBut people in places with fewer covid restrictions have a much better ability to spend it, and have been. Eg, beach condos are getting 3-4x normal prices this summer and are still sold out.
- tastyfreeze 5y agoLess taxes means more pocket money.
- the_only_law 5y agoTexas I get, but I still don’t get the appeal of Florida. The job market feels terrible for a population this size. I’d sooner go back to GA or NC. It’s also hot as shit, and this is from someone who’s lived their entire life in the south.
- rs999gti 5y ago> appeal of Florida No state income tax, warm weather, as much pro sports as CA or TX, and beaches on three sides
- nostromo 5y agoThe old joke though is that people will leave a poorly-run state, but bring their norms and voting patterns with them.
- tamaharbor 5y agoUnfortunately that is probably not a joke.
- axaxs 5y agoNot sure they want to become Republican, as much as they just want to live in a Republican area because, generally, taxes and crime are lower. However, I don't think most ever make the connection in their head as to why that is. but yeah, you can just draw down arrows from NY and PA to FL. They're so pervasive there's a joke about their license plates... blue and yella will kill a fella. A play on the snake idiom, because of their awful driving.
- iluvcommunism 5y agoI’ve noticed that. Living in Virginia I see the folks going north and south on the 95, and almost always without exception the PA drivers are tailgating, passing, going 20 above the speed limit.
- axaxs 5y agoDefinitely. If I had to generalize license plate behavior based on my experience here - NJ - Drive like they're in NYC, no turn signals, will try to merge/squeeze into 3 inches of space. NY - Must not have lane rules, they just sit in the left lane regardless of speed. PA - Highly aggressive and dangerous. Will tailgate you, will brake check you, will drive 30 over and punish you if you happen to block their path. FL - Wildcard. Everyone is from one of the above, so who knows which you'll be dealing with.
- coding123 5y agoIn NorCal on the 5 you might also see a fully tinted purple low riding car every few weeks (I'm talking about a specific vehicle I see because I drive it all the time) with Washington plates that drives like a bat out of hell. Not that native CA drivers are much better, but they are.
- ramoz 5y agoSkeptical. Possibly more like *more people want to live in republican-built societies and economies... without any intent on changing their emotional/mental model of their politics.
- toomuchtodo 5y agoSort of. Housing in the Sunbelt is cheaper because there is more land/supply, and if there are jobs there, your dollar goes further. Of course people will bring their own politics with to a more favorable economic environment, some of which is not because of politics but because of localized economic conditions. If Texas and Florida housing is cheap, it's not necessarily because of Republicans. Texas has, comparatively, some pretty high property taxes for example. Sure, wages have been held down by business friendly conservative politics, but with remote work becoming more common, your wage isn't tied to the politics of where you live. (my note: Texas, Florida, and North Carolina will eventually tilt more progressive from young folks born or who move there, and as older conservatives "age out" at a rate of about 1.8 million people/year [1]) [1] https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/09/american-migration-patterns-should-terrify-gop/598153/ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/09/american-m...
- imtringued 5y agoTaxing property is much fairer than taxing income. If you want to pay less tax move to a cheaper community rather than a community that charges less taxes. It also stops speculation because the property becomes an obligation that has to be taken care of.
- dfxm12 5y agoTaking Florida as an example, older people move there to escape the cold and death tax. I guess keeping wealth in your family and not having to work for it is a keystone of a Republican-built society & economy.
- istorical 5y agothat's a strange takeaway to make without evidence. alternate hypotheses: remote work enabled more people to earn a high salary typically found in a large city or coastal area while moving to lower cost of living areas. also, people who lost their work in industries heavily impacted by quarantine (hospitality, food, restaurant, retail) moved back home or in with family to save money.
- core-utility 5y agoI admittedly haven't seen numbers on how many jobs have moved permanently remote, but anecdotally I don't see "former in-office, now permanently remote" jobs as any large percentage of these moves. I believe a large number are retirees or those who found new employment in a new state.
- whalesalad 5y agoMore like: most people want to live and let live. The majority does not want to be in either party, they do not want a divide.
- beerandt 5y agoMost people think they are "live and let live", but very few really are.
- notJim 5y agoThey’re just moving to places that aren’t expensive yet.
- axaxs 5y agoNot on the whole. FL is much more expensive than PA.
- beerandt 5y agoI keep seeing this. Do that many dems really believe that their policies don't significantly result in an increased cost of living? I thought this was a compromise dems knowingly and willingly made, but it seems lots of people don't want to admit low cost of living has anything to do with being a red state.
- ryandvm 5y agoI dunno. Most of these people probably aren't moving to the deeply red, shithole regions of these states. They're moving to the suburbs of purple areas like Charlotte or Charleston. I've long thought that living in a blue city in a red state provides a pretty good balance.
- dfxm12 5y agoA good balance of what?
- hackeraccount 5y agoLow taxes and a semblance of culture. :-)
- rs999gti 5y agoKeep Austin weird man
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- paxys 5y agoPeople want to move to cheaper states (mostly to be able to buy property). I doubt political affiliations have anything to do with it. In fact if we dig one level deeper I'm willing to bet most of these moves are happening to liberal enclaves in republican states (e.g. Austin, Texas).
- xfitm3 5y agoI absolutely left California due to politics, and I will never return because of it. The bay area is full of batshit crazy whackos.
- tdfx 5y agoI know people who moved from Austin to southern California and moved back within a year due to their surprise at the how far left California society is in general. Austin is fairly left-leaning but "extreme left" in Austin is still fairly "middle of the road" in California.
- beerandt 5y ago>People want to move to cheaper states (mostly to be able to buy property). I doubt political affiliations have anything to do with it. This is such a crazy disconnect, though. They might not want to move to a "red state", but they "just happen" to like the ultimate result of red state policy. >In fact if we dig one level deeper I'm willing to bet most of these moves are happening to liberal enclaves in republican states. Sure, because they put more stock in maintaining their political self-identity and label than they do in accepting the fact that they might actually prefer living in a place that's the result of red state politics. Even if that's liberal enclave. It's a form of self-denial.
- majormajor 5y agoWhen it comes to CA, The only reason people "want" to move from more expensive to cheaper places is price alone, not any other characteristics - supply and demand doesn't work like that. More expensive = more demand. People can't afford to live in expensive places the way they'd like to. What's cute most years in CA (I haven't seen Covid-data, which probably changes things) is that net migration among people making >100K is positive. So wealthy people are pushing others out. Yay free market? Is there anything naturally "Republican" about having large amounts of land for (frequently still Democratic-leaning) cities to continue to sprawl into in red states, avoiding the crunch that hit the California cities that ran out of space earlier? Another way of phrasing it: people want to move to lower population density.
- core-utility 5y agoAs someone who moved out of California recently, no. Culture and politics had a large part to do with it.
- mint2 5y agoCould make sense, as a native Californian I’m utterly baffled by Republican state policies like Texas and Florida and would want to move out, so I assume there are some who are the reverse of me.
- nemothekid 5y ago>Key takeaway for me: more people want to become republicans. Most people don't even vote. The most obvious thing I can see here is people are moving from high CoL areas to low CoL (which also tracks with the growth in remote work).
- beerandt 5y agoAre you suggesting CoL has nothing to do with political policy? People might not want to admit to themselves that they want to be republicans, but they sure want to live wherever republican policy dominates.
- nemothekid 5y ago>Are you suggesting CoL has nothing to do with political policy? When it comes to factors that affect CoL, both parties are pretty much bipartisan in their approach. >but they sure want to live wherever republican policy dominates. Because, historical, republican states have smaller cities, which mean less demand and lower CoL. Someone priced out of San Francisco isn’t going to find it cheaper to live in Phoenix than Chicago. As a result, prices are already shooting up and will probably do so until there is an equilibrium that follows a supply/demand curve.
- DinoDad13 5y agoThat is a completely non-sensical take-a-way. So pretty typical for conservatives online.
- vmception 5y agoOne party has physically more people than the other. A Republican migration can never change major and swing Democrat areas by voter numbers alone, whereas a Democrat migration can change a Republican area by voter numbers alone. Only a local partisan reality or influencing others can alter that, a Democrat migration can turn the entire country* Democrat if anyone coordinated, as only a few counties have to be swung just a little bit. I don't feel like this is a partisan observation, mathematically the opposite is not true like if you imagined a different nation that you didn't care with the same reality it is easy to notice that the opposition party does not have the numbers. *Not all local representatives, just electoral college for Presidency, the entire Senate, most of the House of Representatives.
- coding123 5y agoIf something coordinated like that happened, you would see actually people turn from blue to red because it happened. Balance will come naturally.
- vmception 5y agoRight, I think there would only be once chance to do it as I also think states would raise their voter registration residency requirements. So it would require a SuperPAC to get people to move from Democratic areas to the select Republican and swing counties at once, or heavily helped by existing and pandemic net migration.
- jefurii 5y agoI think of the California cities in the "Top MSA Origin Cities (Moving From)" list as being more Republican-leaning. It could be California Republicans fleeing to red states.
- dc-programmer 5y agoMoving to Florida or Texas is great until you find yourself in a position where you need a competent, funded government to respond to a crisis that can only be solved through collective action (hurricane, power outages, pandemic). Plus living somewhere with lax environmental and consumer protections can have net negative long term consequences. Some states like Georgia don’t even have yearly car inspections, which goes about as well as you would think. It’s easy to just look at the LCOL and good weather, but you are giving up a lot of services and protections you took for granted living in a higher tax state. Maybe it’s worth it for some people, but it’s not for me
- xfitm3 5y agoTo the contrary: people are moving to FL or TX precisely because of the lack of government response. There are plenty of people who want to see that government intervention is kept to an absolute minimum.
- dc-programmer 5y agoI don’t disagree with that analysis, but like I said different strokes for different folks. My personal view is government is the best tool we have to solve some collective problems such as natural disaster response(and the other more controversial ones like climate change and covid), but I realize that is anathema to the average techno-libertarian hackernews denizen. It’s probably a good thing people can self select into the society they want to live in by voting with their feet
- mrkstu 5y agoAs someone who lived through the recent Texas blackout, I would say the general competence of governance is fine here- that problem was notable by its relative rarity. Comparatively the continual problems w/resource management (water, power, wildfires) in California seem relatively horrific to this outsider.
- mint2 5y agoThe wild fire issue is only a thing due to a lack of regulations. Historically small and mega fires swept though all the California forests, often burning 4x the amount that’s burned in this historic fire year. Human intervention to stop those burns has created very unhealthy forests. Having houses in all these areas that burn is just a bad idea and a lot of hubris about the extent of our control over nature. Regulation to stop building in those area and enhance fire resistance of buildings is the solution, not more “freedom”. Housing developers have almost zero incentive to reduce their profit margin in order to fire proof the house or not build and thus not earn money. And water use isn’t a solved issue in other states. Either they happen to have a wetter climate or they aren’t any better. Power is a legitimate issue, but then I’d say California is actually doing pretty well because the climate change is a larger issue. Move fast and break things is better than doing nothing.
- poulsbohemian 5y agoReal estate agent in a red agrarian area turning purple... so every market is going to be different, but in my market it's coastal progressives moving inland for: 1) Weather 2) Cost of living: housing, property taxes 3) Quality of life: No commute, slower pace of life In the process there is a cultural and political struggle underway, and it's the newcomers supplanting the old ways. I've had a few prospective buyers call and say that they are escaping the godless/liberal coast and headed back to conservative small-town America, but I have yet to have a single one of those actually convert to becoming a buyer, FWIW. Point being, I foresee it not being about people wanting to become Republicans, and more a demographic shift where many traditional red areas are going to turn purple, if not blue.
- unanswered 5y agoNo, they want to move to flourishing red states, but they don't want to change their own politics.