Many are high density as well.
There is a base safety issue that trumps even taxes. I don't want to live as a disarmed peon. I especially don't want to live as a disarmed peon in a dense urban environment filled with armed criminals.
I left NYC after being mugged and shot at. The turning point was being laughed at by the old guys in the crony-run gun shop across for the downtown police station. "Gedda load of this kid! He tinks he can jus come in here and buy a gun".
I moved to California and did just that. I never looked back and would never again consider living in such a place. That's just me, but I suspect there are many others who feel this way.
I think it would be very useful for one of these socialist hell holes to collapse, utterly. That would provide the object lesson. NY almost did in the 1970s, but got a bail out. I'm not sure who the poster child is. It is one of the things the R's should have been much harder on. Mass. should be punished for Ted and John. If the cash-transfer Big Dig had been ended would they have had another decade of prosperity? Do they produce ANYTHING of value in that state? (PhDs from MIT do have some value I suppose. BA's from Welsley (Hillary) less.)