Hari Raghavan and his wife decided to move to the East Coast after seven years in the Bay Area.
The high cost of living in California made them want to leave. Before selecting Miami for its sunny weather and sense of safety, they made a list of potential relocation cities.
Raghavan's wife used to call him every day during her seven-minute walk home from the train station because she felt safer with someone on the phone. When Raghavan moved to Miami, they accidentally left their garage door open and were floored when they returned.
Raghavan said that they moved to the Bay Area because they had to be there if they wanted to work in tech and start-ups.
He said there wasn't a lot of interest in California's quality of life. He said that it made them question where they wanted to live.
The first year of the Pandemic caused people to leave coastal California. New data shows it continued even after the restrictions were lifted.
A report from the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago shows that California is second in the country for outbound moves. California had an outbound move rate of over fifty percent. In 2020-21, that rate increased to over 50%.
Drivings of Californians are leaving for states like Texas, Virginia, Washington and Florida due to changes in work-life balance, opportunities for remote work and more people quitting their jobs. Between April 2020 and January 2022, the state lost more than 352,000 residents.
San Francisco and Los Angeles rank first and second in the country, respectively, for outbound moves as the cost of living and housing prices continue to balloon and homeowners flee to less expensive cities.
Los Angeles residents are flocking to places like Phoenix, Las Vegas, San Diego, San Antonio and Dallas. According to the report, the number of Los Angeles residents leaving the city jumped from 33,000 in the second quarter of 2021 to nearly 41,000 in the same period of four years.
Matthew Kahn, an economics professor at USC, said that California has high housing prices. Privileged households relocated when they had the chance.
The state's environmentalism is making it hard to build housing in desirable downtown areas. Middle-class people can't afford to go to the suburbs. The headaches add up because we don't have road pricing. Many people say "enough" when you create the possibility of work from home.
Urban crime, a growing unhoused population, public school quality and overall quality of life are some of the reasons why people are leaving.
There are fights about which kids get into which elite public schools in New York and San Francisco. "If the middle class looks at this quality of life declining, that's a push factor to leave."
A June report that tracked the change in spending power of a home buyer was cited by Fairweather. More than 70% of homes in Houston and 50% of homes in Phoenix were affordable using a 3% interest rate.
Fairweather said that it's an affordability problem. People stay in their homes longer because their property taxes don't reflect the true value because California has prioritized single- family zone. People have no choice but to leave California because of the housing shortage.
California experienced a major population boom in the late 20th century, reaching 37 million people by 2000 but has lost residents since, with new growth lagging behind the rest of the country. The state's population increased by 5.8% from 2010 to 2020, below the national growth rate of 6.8%, and resulted in the loss of a congressional seat in 2021.
UCLA economics professor Lee Ohanian said that California has relied on immigration to offset its population decline.
The lowest levels of immigration in decades were caused by delays in processing migration requests.
Estimates show that there was a net increase of 244,000 new immigrants between 2020 and 2021.
Ohanian pointed out that the national median home sales price has reached a record high. The state of California has a median home price of $800,000.
California is at risk of becoming a state for very, very wealthy people and very, very low-income people who receive state and local and federal aid that allow them to live here, according to Ohanian. Those in the middle who are making $78,000 a year should be worried, especially if they want to buy a home.
Los Angeles County has suffered from slowed population growth, as have rural parts of the state, while some parts of the Bay Area have seen some gains.
Since she last lived in Los Angeles, Fairweather has noticed less affordable places to rent.
She said that it used to be possible to find affordable housing on the Eastside. You had to find a place to live near South Central. There is no affordable way to commute to downtown Los Angeles.
Kenny Phung, a native of the Bay Area, decided to leave California last fall because of high rent prices. Phung found a two-bedroom apartment in Portland for less than half the cost of a three-bedroom apartment in Los Angeles. He works at a company in San Jose that allows him to work from home.
It didn't make sense. I don't understand why I would want to live in California when I can try out new things and save money.
He said that downtown Miami has multiple skyscrapers, more affordable housing, well-paved roads and better infrastructure as reasons why Raghavan decided to leave the Golden State.
He said that the Bay Area has become a land of small annoyances. Everything is affected by housing and real estate. Rent is more expensive for restaurants and it causes people to commute over longer distances. Everything becomes a big deal.
The story was originally published in the LA Times.
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