> At first, Stephanie Morris was nervous about leaving Modesto. She’d lived in the Central Valley her whole life, but her family couldn’t keep paying $850-a-month for her sons to share a living room while she, her husband and the baby slept in their apartment’s only bedroom. The anxiety faded by the time her family pulled out in a U-Haul bound for Salt Lake City...

Modesto? I get the gripes about Bay Area prices, but that rent is 1/3 of a one bedroom in the Bay Area, and I'm not seeing significantly cheaper apartments in SLC.

I am glad people are comfortable moving around -- that helps the economy balance and is one of the advantages for the US economy over, say, Europe's.

That being said, I wonder if the impacts will be as described in the article. Having lived in MA, NY, TX before moving to California (and having lived in Europe): the people who live in hyper conservative counties in CA are still used to conveniences and government services that don't exist in places like Texas, Utah or Idaho. I suspect they will change their new home states as much as they will relish the new environment.

(and statistically, as I mentioned in another comment: 100K net is about a quarter of a percent of California's population -- hardly a significant number overall).

>Mapping the California counties losing residents to other states (blue), ...

This is backwards -- perhaps written by an editor rather than the author of the piece. The blue counties gained population from 2018 to 2019:

http://www.dof.ca.gov/Forecasting/Demographics/Estimates/E-2...

The article’s ‘biggest losers’ map of total population outflow by county is truly awful. With a quarter of the state’s population, LA County would lead pretty much any measure if you don’t scale that measure to population.

Easily the biggest cause here is the insane cost of living California has, which is largely a 'self-own': regulations make it hard to build out or up, and with those kinds of constraints on supply, the impact of high demand is predictable.

This isn't a result of the normal partisan political issues, but it's true that there's still a political source: more 'red' metros and states usually at least permit building outwards with suburban sprawl, even if they're hostile to density. Most of coastal California is hostile to both. Even more sympathetic cases like building 100% affordable housing for seniors get pushback from the NIMBY crowd: https://sf.curbed.com/2016/10/6/13189882/1296-shotwell-affor...

Broken down, there's a few different problems that I've read about or seen:

1. Most residential land still has fairly strict limits on density. Even in the bay area, a majority of residential land appears to be reserved exclusively for single family homes. In areas where this isn't quite as much the case, like SF, there are still limits that greatly constrain supply in what is ostensibly a major city.

2. The process of development involves a huge amount of time, money and hurdles. These come in both official ones, like CEQA, which has kind of morphed away from its original intentions, and unofficial ones, like needing to please the local neighbors even if your new building completely fits within existing regulations and codes.

The last bit is particularly problematic: you essentially have the rules that exist on paper, the ones that were democratically discussed and voted and agreed upon in some form. And then you have another set of rules, the ones that exist solely in the minds of the local residents, that nobody ever voted on or transparently discussed, but are nonetheless hurdles that you must pass. And in practice, the power of these rules tends to correlate with how wealthy and entrenched those interests are.

Like, take the example I linked to. If "there's not enough parking" is a real problem, then why isn't it in zoning regulations as is? Why does it come up as a surprise, "Actually jk, you need to do these other things that the law says nothing about"?

What causes these issues is that SF agrees in the large that, say, minimum parking requirements are damaging to the urban fabric and bad for the environment, so they or their representatives reduce or get rid of them when it comes time to vote. BUT, then when it comes time to actually have such a development, local NIMBY's cry out that their parking will be impacted, and the process lets them stall or outright block the new building, actual regulations be damned.

If republicans and democrats are going to sort themselves into their own states, what does this mean for the future of the US federal government? Are we going to end up with the democrat and republican states forming two separate countries?

This article is largely about the phenomenon of alienated conservatives fleeing California, and the cottage industry that cropped up for it; the circumstances of Covid are mostly incidental, and a quick google search for “leaving California” does turn up many articles indicating a conservative exodus back in January.

I was curious about the possible phenomenon of fleeing liberals pushing red states purple, but either that’s not a thing or the author just doesn’t care.

Anecdotally, I think liberals leaving NYC is a very real phenomenon, although I couldn’t guess if the numbers were enough to push the map.

Great time to buy real estate in cities.

If Californians need this much help to figure out how to move out of California, perhaps its better for all of us if they stay in California.

I didn't know it was so wide spread. I thought myself a fringe californian who wishes to move out of this hell hole. Seeing I am not a minority is actually a breath of fresh air. Can't wait until the day I say adios commiefornia.

> "I have to keep reminding myself that I’m not moving out of California to a third-world country,” Morris said. “I’m leaving a third-world country to join America."

Ummm... having been to multiple 3rd world countries, this is laughable.

Unless parts of California lack sewage infrastructure, indoor plumbing, and have millions living in homes built from pieces of wood and metal hand-gathered it is definitely not third world or even second world.

But I'm sure she's just being purposefully hyperbolic.

California is autonomous until it doesn’t want to be I guess. Pretty sure Newsom called Trump last week for Federal wildfire aid.

Edit:

Getting pretty heavily downvoted. It’s literally what Newsom said he did on Twitter.

https://twitter.com/GavinNewsom/status/1317197526529830912

From my experience, which is a single datum, many people leaving are those in towns with a very small minority population. Northern and rural california towns. Not the urban areas. Residents there feel increasingly threatened by scenes of racial protests in the state, fearing that somehow they'll be subject to oppression. So it's very easy to pack up and leave.

This isn't a new phenomenon, people moved from the south westward after the civil war, the white flight of detroit during the civil rights period, I do believe we are seeing another similar wave in motion now.

And for my own insight on this, people are not usually entirely honest, except when in company of others of similar mindset. Over hearing at a family gathering, I learned that the main reason a relative of mine is leaving california for maine is because "there will be less crime because there are fewer black people", despite living in one of the whitest towns in the state.

California is far from being a Red state. Gerrymandering has resulted into a democratic eco-chamber where the options typically are an crazy left v/s ultra left. My current candidate is promising Islam in public schools and legalization of discrimination based on gender and race. This guy a more of a "centrist" in democratic party.

Republicans on other than continue to peddle the same outdated Republican agenda that might fly in Alabama but not in California. Their usual hatred for Spanish speaking population, Asians and Indians shows even when they need these votes to win elections. Going to an area like Fremont where most spoken language might be Telugu and demanding "must speak English in USA" is a political suicide.