Some of the statistics provided by Josh Mitchell in this Wall Street Journal article were pretty interesting.
To track each state’s progress toward normal since the pandemic began, Moody’s Analytics developed an index of 13 metrics, including the value of goods and services produced, employment, retail sales and new-home listings. Eleven of the 15 states with the highest readings through mid-June were red. Eight of the bottom 10 were blue.
Behind those differences is mass migration. Forty-six million people moved to a different ZIP Code in the year through February 2022, the most in any 12-month period in records going back to 2010, according to a Moody’s analysis of Equifax Inc. consumer-credit reports. The states that gained the most, led by Florida, Texas and North Carolina, are almost all red, as defined by the Cook Political Report based on how states voted in the past two presidential elections. The states that lost the most residents are almost all blue, led by California, New York and Illinois.
Analysts who have studied the migration attributed much of it to the pandemic’s severing of the link between geography and the workplace. Remote work allowed many workers to move to red states, not because of political preferences, but for financial and lifestyle reasons—cheaper housing, better weather, less traffic and lower taxes, the analysts said.
Shorter: people are voting with their feet. Clearly, there are multiple reasons behind the moves not the least being because they can. “Work from home” has reduced the value of big cities with big office buildings and for some workers WFH is here to stay. Other factors include taxes and housing affordability. There was a story back in 2020 of an uninhabitable shack in San Francisco that sold for $2 million. You can still buy a darned nice house in Austin, Orlando, or Asheville for a lot less than that. Translation: nice homes are within the reach of people earning incomes a lot closer to the median.
And I don’t think it’s realistic to dismiss the role of law and order any longer. That’s the prime mandate for government. Not providing education or healthcare or public transport. Maintaining public order. And I think that the political leaders in the three states that have lost the largest number of residents—New York, California, and Illinois—have lost sight of that. It’s not that those other things are not worthwhile; it’s that law and order are fundamental. That was the message Ken Griffin sent to Chicago when he and Citadel pulled up stakes and moved to Florida.
I don’t know what the political implications of this internal mass migration will be. It may be that Blue States will become bluer while Red States while become purpler. Indeed, that’s a pretty good bet. But it could be that when the dust has settled the Blue States are still blue and have learned nothing from the the flight of their citizens while Red States stay red.
Living in the coastal part of a denim blue state, CA, most people seem wholly committed to socially progressive politics, no matter how run down or unsafe their neighborhoods become. With weather that is seasonally moderate, governed by a very immoderate democrat majority, we have homeless encampments everywhere where addiction, crime, uncontrolled fires and trash thrives, increasing subsidies for illegals and the poor, and rich enclaves of people who support all of the above, but remain aloof and immune to the fall-out their voting patterns feed. When these social progressives move to red states, although they may enjoy the tax breaks and less contentious, tenuous lifestyles, their ingrained ideology and voting tends to remain intact, and ends up only replicating the negative circumstances they left behind.
I’m retired, so I don’t need to consider job availability. That said, even if you are moving to a Red state, you need to move to a rural community. All cities are deep Blue, even Columbus, Ohio. You can always commute an hour or more. Just make sure you are beyond the urban gangs and governors.
And nowadays you need a gun and a stash of food, ammo, drugs/first aid stuff, and most importantly very good neighbors you can count on when the SHTF.
And he moved to Miami. Chicago at 16th in violent crime but Miami 35th. For property crime Miami 32nd and Chicago 54th. Lots of better choices if crime was a concern.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_by_crime_rate
Steve
“Lots of better choices if crime was a concern.”
LOL Yeah, and Meridian Hills has the same crime rate as 38th and Winthrop in Indianapolis. Or Sauganash vs Lawndale in Chicago.