Posted on 12/10/2006 10:28:48 AM PST by NormsRevenge
Wayne Brown gave up $40,000 in income to move from the Bay Area to Kansas. And he feels great.
It got to be too much last year for the college information-technology officer: the commute to downtown San Francisco that sometimes took two hours, the housing-price spiral and the high-wire borrowing that paid for it.
``I would find myself sitting in traffic,'' Brown recalled, ``screaming at people.''
When the Kansas job came up in early 2005, Brown and his wife, Teresa, sold two Bay Area homes and happily settled in a suburb of Kansas City. They have never looked back.
The Browns are an example of what demographers say appears to be an unprecedented phenomenon -- even in a good economy, more people are leaving California for other states than are arriving from the rest of the country.
Between 2004 and 2005, the migration flow into California from the other 49 states started flowing the other way. Data from the state Department of Finance shows that, for the first time this decade, more people left California in 2005 for another state than the number who moved in. Mary Heim, a finance department demographer, says this particular kind of outflow will continue for the foreseeable future.
Unlike the tens of thousands who left Silicon Valley following the tech bust earlier this decade, the new migration is about the quest for something besides a job: a better quality of life at a lower cost of living.
--snip--
... California's population of 37 million people is still growing, because of a surplus of births over deaths and because of foreign immigration.
(Excerpt) Read more at mercurynews.com ...
"I took a business trip to California. My host probably told me 150 times how "laid back" folks in California are. And they aren't racist like us from the South."
Yeah, whatever. I grew up in Alabama and have lived in the Bay Area for almost 10 years now. San Francisco liberals are more intolerant, close-minded, and bigoted than anyone I ever encountered in the South.
"Between 2004 and 2005, the migration flow into California from the other 49 states started flowing the other way."
Not to worry, for every US citizen that moves out 3 illegals will move in.
By the way, HTV, didn't I just read that your state just approved a large tax on cigarettes? California voters just rejected an initiative to do that. I guess in a lot of ways Texas is fiscally still more left wing than California, especially when the voters actually get to decide.
I know, I know. Shush.
Its people like you that come here and pay outlandish prices for houses that would sell for half as much to a local who knew what was normal.
You think that any price that is less than California is a bargain.
When people pay outlandish prices, everyones taxes go up, then the locals can't afford to keep their place and have to sell.
The cigarette tax was not on the ballot!
But the last two Presidents from Texas were both big spenders.
Texas does not have a state income tax and it has to have a ballanced budget.
We still have too many people who will vote for anything if it is "for the children".
They got the lottery by saying the money would go "for the children".
LOL! You sound just like my husband and I like your wife! I am doing the same thing and it is driving my honey crazy. I am definately going to ping him the article :-)!
No, it's just that since there's no income tax in Texas the state has to tax other things instead. All in all, of the things to tax, cigarettes are probably high on the list. Far better than taxing property (or income).
You got that right. People don't realize how rural and conservative most of California is. There is no place I would rather have grown up, but there's no way in heck I'd consider moving back there. The liberals have completely destroyed that state and are now in the process of spreading their cancer to the rest of the West. Just like the New Yorkers, Connectiputians and Massholes that are destroying the South.
Do you really believe that? It sounds like one of those barber shop myths that small-town people tell. "Yep Floyd, some fool from Calliforny done paid a million dollars for 2 acres of swampland with a burned down barn on it."
I'm calling you out on that one. If you have an example of a wealthy Californian paying double for a piece of real estate compared to what it's worth I'd sure like to hear about it.
Do you really believe that someone from another state would buy a home not knowing what it's real value is? . What do you think the appraisers and real estate agents are for? Do you think I wouldn't check comparable sales? If prices are going up it's because demand is going up. Period. Over the past few years real estate values have climbed everywhere.
If I had to guess, I bet I'd get property cheaper than the locals are getting it, because I would be able to pay cash, buy it immediately, and have no contingency sale to hold things up. I'd come in and low-ball their offer substantially.
By the way, who says just because I'm living in California I haven't lived up that way before and might have a good idea on things like the relative price of real estate.
Wow, thanks Nick. I get so tired of holding down the fort. Thanks for the nice comeback.
PRESCOTT An immigration-related resolution and rental rates at the Elks Opera House will be among the topics the Prescott City Council will consider this week.
The voting session will take place at 3 p.m. Tuesday, at Prescott City Hall, 201 S. Cortez St.
The council will continue the discussion it began at this past week's study session on a proposed resolution that urges stricter state and federal enforcement on illegal immigration matters.
During the study session discussion, several council members expressed support for the resolution, which maintains that "illegal immigration is creating a dangerous and intolerable situation in which terrorists are given easy access to all parts of our country"
How is Arizona going to keep growing without water?
Gee, I am going to be heading north to Washington. Am I helping to ruin that state?
Finally, I find a post I can identify with.
I am a native Californian also. My parents migrated (separately) from the Midwest, for job opportunities and warmer weather.
Los Angeles was still liveable when I was growing up. I later moved to Santa Monica and that was still nice, too, but then came a huge wave ... HUGE ... of Yuppies from New York.
That was the beginning of the end. They trashed everything good about our lifestyle and now this place is harshed out beyond belief or repair.
We also have the south-of-the-border illegals mexicanizing the place and that is another story.
But the New Yorkers were the ones who destroyed our idyll.
Have you ever thought that the ones moving from CA to AZ were conservates who just tired of living in liberal CA?
I think you mis-read the text:
The Browns are an example of what demographers say appears to be an unprecedented phenomenon -- even in a good economy, more people are leaving California for other states than are arriving from the rest of the country.
Of course illegals were not counted. They do not "arrive" in California from "the rest of the country".
Moving from the Bay area my guess would be (sadly), yes.
Not all of us are "ruining" those states. I grew up in California, but we were conservatives when we lived there and we are conservatives living in a conservative area of Arizona.
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