Posted on 08/06/2003 10:34:42 AM PDT by El Conservador
The exodus of millions of people from California and New York in the late 1990s may signal the end of the nation's traditional settlement patterns from East to West.
A series of reports released by the Census Bureau (news - web sites) today shows that most of the people who moved out of New York are going to suburbs in New Jersey and Connecticut or to retirement havens and fast-growing job centers in the Southeast. Most of the people leaving California are going to other Western states such as Nevada, Arizona, Oregon, Washington and Colorado.
California and New York have been anchors in the East-to-West migration for more than a century, with New York dispatching people and California receiving them. But the pattern that has emerged in the past several years is East to East and West to West. The Census numbers, which tracked movement from 1995 through 2000, confirm the extent of the pattern.
"What it shows is that the country is finally filling out," says Robert Lang, an urban expert at Virginia Tech's Metropolitan Institute.
California and New York continue to gain population. But the growth is from births and an influx of immigrants.
The people leaving the two states are altering the economic, cultural and political dynamics of the regions they now call home. Many of the people leaving California, for example, are conservative white voters who have helped transform politics in the Rocky Mountain West from a competitive two-party environment to one that is heavily Republican.
Although New York has lost more people than it has gained from other states for three decades, California's losses are more recent. In the last five years of the 1990s, more people moved out of California than moved in. That is the first time that has happened since 1940, when the Census first began tracking migration. The numbers do not include those who moved from other countries.
About 2.2 million people left California in the late 1990s, when the state was reeling from a series of tumultuous events, including earthquakes (news - web sites), race riots, economic downturns, a wave of foreign immigration and skyrocketing housing prices. Fewer than 1.5 million moved in from other parts of the nation. Nevada was the biggest beneficiary, receiving about 200,000 people from California. Only 60,000 went the other way.
New York, home to many older industrial centers, lost 1.6 million people to other states, compared with about 725,000 who moved in. Most of the people who left New York moved to suburbs in neighboring states and sprawling cities in the Southeast where the job market was booming. The state's aging population has been moving south for decades.
The Census reports also reflect the nation's growing aging population and a desire to escape congestion:
"Part of the movement to the suburbs is moving farther out," says William Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution.
I don't know that Nevadans consider themselves "benficiaries." From what I hear in my travels out west many of the people leaving California now are bringing their nut-job ideas on politics and economics with them.
I considered taking a position in Las Vegas last year. After spending time there and seeing how the place was already on the downhill slide to becoming East California, I declined.
That being said . . . . . don't move out here!
I believe this. This has happened in my lifetime. Non stop nastiness and no one is nastier than the Vast Left Wing Conspiracy that hates and is trying to destroy this country.
I live in DFW and I believe that all the people leaving Kalifornia and NY are moving here. Bah humbug.
I've lived in CA long enough to remember complaining about east coasters bringing their liberalism to CA.
History repeats.
They sure as hell are .... so many fruit loops have been transplanted out here it's crazy.
Of course when they tell us how to BBQ they get shot ... so that reduces a few of the dumber ones.
Correcton But the growth is from the births of anchor babies and a continuing influx of illegal aliens.
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