{"id":13205,"date":"2023-08-06T23:20:01","date_gmt":"2023-08-06T23:20:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/?p=13205"},"modified":"2023-08-06T23:20:02","modified_gmt":"2023-08-06T23:20:02","slug":"why-texans-dont-want-any-more-californians","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/?p=13205","title":{"rendered":"Why Texans Don\u2019t Want Any More Californians"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Transplants from the Golden State could change the character of their new homes. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

by Derek Thompson<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n

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cross a frightened nation divided by politics and \nculture, a fragile harmony is ascendant, as Americans in small towns and\n large cities alike cry out in trembling unison: Hey, where did all these Californians come from?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Talk of a \u201cCalifornia Exodus<\/a>\u201d is sweeping the country\u2014and so are anxieties about its effects on the rest of the West. In October, the Boise mayoral candidate Wayne Richey proposed<\/a> at an election forum to build a $26 billion wall to keep out people moving from the Golden State. (His backup plan to stop the invasion of Boise? “Trash the place.\u201d) A viral Wall Street Journal<\/em> article recounted<\/a> the plight of a small Idaho town buckling under the stress of thousands of inbound Californians. And this month, Texas Governor Greg Abbott issued a warning on Twitter to Californians moving to his state: \u201cRemember those high taxes, burdensome regulations, & socialistic agenda advanced in CA? We don’t believe in that.\u201d The sentiment was echoed in various warnings in Dallas newspapers about the awful \u201cCalifornia-ing\u201d<\/a> of North Texas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2016, President Donald Trump swept the Republican primary with a simple message: Build a wall to keep out the immigrants.<\/em> Today, a new anti-migration theme is sweeping the country: Build a wall to keep out the Californians. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

But is the California Exodus real?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From one perspective, the answer is very clearly yes<\/em>. In 2012, California gained 113,000 people on net through domestic and international migration. Last year, California lost<\/em><\/a> 40,000 people on net to migration, according to its own demographers. The state still grew, thanks to births, but at the lowest rate on record. Now the U.S. state most synonymous with all varieties of growth\u2014vegetal<\/a>, technological<\/a>, and human\u2014is at the precipice of its first-ever population decline.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When you pull back the lens a few decades, however, the \u201cexodus\u201d \ndoesn\u2019t look quite so biblical. The number of outbound Californians in \n2018 was no higher than it was in the mid-2000s\u2014or the mid-1990s. \u201cAfter\n the Cold War ended, there were huge federal cutbacks in the defense and\n aerospace industry, and the economy dried up in parts of Southern \nCalifornia,\u201d says H. D. Palmer, the deputy director for external affairs\n at the California Department of Finance. \u201cExodus<\/em> is a freighted word, but if anything was an exodus, it was the mid-1990s.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So\n if Californians aren\u2019t moving more than in previous years, why are so \nmany places suddenly freaking out about the influx of Golden Staters?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Western\n states taking in new Californians might be more anxious about change \nthan they once were. Texas, for example, has been the most popular \ndestination for outbound Californians for more than a decade, \nconsistently averaging about 60,000 to 70,000 new Golden Staters per \nyear. But now the state is at an inflection point, between its history \nas a ruby-red conservative stronghold and its future as a more mixed \nstate with blue metros and red rural areas<\/a>.\n In this context, the next SoCal family that U-Hauls into North Texas \nisn\u2019t just some nice couple with different taste in barbecue; instead, \nthey\u2019re potentially the demographic straw that breaks the GOP\u2019s back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And while California\u2019s overall out-migration isn\u2019t unprecedented, some states and counties are taking in an unprecedented share of newcomers from there. The number of Californians moving to Idaho, for instance, increased by 120 percent from 2012 to 2018. The number of Los Angeles residents moving to Dallas and Houston declined in those years, but the number of Angelenos moving to Plano, Texas, tripled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

California\u2019s population problem isn\u2019t just about \nadults who are leaving; it\u2019s also about the kids who aren\u2019t there to \nbegin with. The biggest issue, you could say, isn\u2019t exodus, but genesis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last year, I wrote<\/a> that expensive housing in America\u2019s richest cities was pushing away families with children, leading to a \u201cchildless city.\u201d California\u2019s biggest metros are on the bleeding edge of this trend. Since the end of the Great Recession, home prices in Los Angeles, San Diego, and San Francisco have increased by 70 percent<\/a>, 80 percent<\/a>, and 116 percent<\/a>, respectively. This has driven middle-class families to either move inland or leave entirely. San Francisco has the lowest percentage of children<\/a> under 18 of any major city in the U.S., and Los Angeles County has seen a 17 percent decline<\/a> in the number of kids in the past 10 years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Births are falling, due to declining fertility among all groups, including Latinos, who make up about one-third of the state\u2019s population. And deaths are increasing as the population ages. The state’s annual natural growth\u2014births minus deaths\u2014has plummeted from more than 300,000<\/a> in 2008 to 180,000 today. According to figures shared by the California Department of Finance, the median age is rising 40 percent faster than that of the rest of the U.S. population. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the state gets older, it\u2019s also getting richer. California\u2019s incoming residents<\/a> are most likely to be 20- and 30-somethings making more than $100,000 a year with bachelor\u2019s or graduate degrees, while its outgoing residents<\/a>\n tend to be less educated and earn less than $50,000. Over time, this \ntrend will make California wealthier in average income\u2014but poorer in \nelectoral power. William Frey, a demographer with the Brookings \nInstitution, has projected<\/a>\n that, for the first time ever, the state’s population slowdown will \nlikely cost it a congressional district after the 2020 census. (Texas, \nhe said, could gain three seats.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

California\u2019s crisis isn\u2019t that people don\u2019t want to be there. Lots of people want to live near the Pacific coastline, but expensive housing has drawn a velvet rope around that economy for the richer, more educated, and old. The Golden State is slowly turning platinum\u2014an exclusive and opulent shade of gray.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Derek Thompson<\/em><\/a> is a staff writer at The Atlantic, where he writes about economics, technology, and the media. He is the author of <\/em>Hit Makers<\/em><\/a> and the host of the podcast <\/em>Crazy\/Genius<\/em><\/a>. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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