
Why Americans Stopped Moving to the Richest States - jseliger
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/01/stuck-why-americans-stopped-moving-to-the-richest-states/282969/
======
_delirium
While it can give you some insight, I'm wary of this kind of state-level
analysis of migration, since the conclusions aren't necessarily the same if
you look at movement on a more fine-grained scale. States are big places
(well, some are). Texas is not very wealthy on average, for example, but some
parts of it are much wealthier than other parts. And people are generally
moving to the richer parts, not the poorer parts: the largest population
increases are in counties that rank in the top-50 highest-income counties in
the country (Collin County, Fort Bend County, etc.). Therefore assuming
someone moving to Texas is moving to some kind of 'median Texas' is an
oversimplification that might produce misleading conclusions.

It's possible people are still typically moving from wealthier to poorer areas
(e.g. from Manhattan to Dallas), but we'd need more specific data than state-
level flows to conclude that.

~~~
jasonwocky
That's a great point. I'm pretty sure the term of art for this would be an
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecological_fallacy](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecological_fallacy)

------
robotcookies
> "Americans are moving far less often than in the past, and when they do
> migrate it is typically no longer from places with low wages to places with
> higher wages"

Might have something to do with the aging population and baby boomers
retiring. When you stop working, you no longer need to migrate to where the
jobs are. Surprised the article didn't mention this.

~~~
bane
Housing prices are _still_ recovering from the crash as well. Lots of people
are still underwater and/or their home would sell at a loss compared to 7-8
years ago. Moving means taking accepting that loss.

~~~
mfringel
Exactly. Being underwater on a house means not being able to pull up sticks
and just move. Strategic default might get you clear of the house, but your
credit rating (and therefore your ability to rent) will be trashed.

------
bane
Over the last 10 years, salaries have largely flattened out and while in
increase in people in given area has meant demand didn't. Cost of living being
high and getting higher and salaries aren't able to keep up means people don't
move there.

Why struggle, working 16 hour days to move up in a career so you can afford
the $700k 2000 sq ft home on a postage stamp sized property in a so-so part of
town when you can move to Arkansas, work at a remote development shop and
afford a $350k 4000 sq ft home in a gated community with and acre and a half
of wooded property with an in-ground pool?

~~~
jasonwocky
> Why struggle, working 16 hour days to move up in a career so you can afford
> the $700k 2000 sq ft home on a postage stamp sized property in a so-so part
> of town when you can move to Arkansas, work at a remote development shop and
> afford a $350k 4000 sq ft home in a gated community with and acre and a half
> of wooded property with an in-ground pool?

That's a pretty big strawman. There are tons of other options for someone ,
and not all of us and our families need 4000 sq ft (or even 2000 sq ft) and
1.5 acres of property to be happy. I like living in densely populated areas
rather than the equivalent of a personal ivory tower.

I think that American dream of owning a big house with a huge amount of
property has done more harm than good.

~~~
bane
I'm just presenting a possible equation that describes the phenomenon in
question.

Lots of people ask themselves similar questions, but with different metrics.

\- Why live in an old 400 sq ft efficiency with exposed ductwork and pipes
<80th st. Manhattan when I can live 15 minutes away in Williamsburg and have a
modern 2 bedroom for the same price?

\- Why live in SF, making below market wages working for some startup, renting
a bedroom in some guy's basement, when I could live in a deluxe 3rd floor
walkup in Sunnyvale?

\- Why live in either place when I can take a dev job near Miami and enjoy
round the year sun and beach, own a house and have a better cost of living
anyway?

I'm not saying I agree with these questions, or the motivations behind them.
But then again, I live in a very walkable, high service suburb instead of the
nearest big metro area also. But I'd just as happily live in a small 2 br in
NY. I grew up pretty rural and remember asking myself questions like

\- Why do I have to spend 2+ hours a day driving to/from work every day?

\- Wouldn't it be nice if I could live in a place where I could walk 5-10
minutes to get any of my basic services taken care of?

\- Wouldn't it be great to live in a place where I simply didn't need a car?

\- I'd like to have more people nearby to associate with.

\- etc.

So I get the desire both ways.

------
x0054
My friend just moved to Kansas City and purchased a house for $42k, all cash.
It's a good house, ok neighbors, and ok living. Now he sit's at home, hacking
away at a startup we are working on. I am moving to Palm Spring soon, for much
of the same reason. If you make your money online, why not live cheep, at
least while you are starting out.

~~~
awjr
I'm curious, does he have a family? Although I like the idea of moving
somewhere cheap, persuading my family that this is a good idea is quite
impossible :)

~~~
dwiel
Yeah, thats my problem. I want to live somewhere boring and cheap, because all
I need is a place to live within walking distance of a grocery and a good
internet connection. My wife on the other hand is concerned about things like
weather, and fun things to do.

~~~
w1ntermute
From the house that you described your friend buying, it's probably in the
downtown part of Kansas City. The Kansas City School District lost
accreditation 2 years ago, meaning colleges don't have to accept diplomas
awarded by any of the schools in the district. Not exactly the sort of place
you'd want your children growing up, if you have any.

~~~
x0054
Yeah, I totally agree. If you have kids or family, this is probably not the
route to go. I am personally not a fan of Kansas City. My buddy did not have
family when he decided to move from San Diego to Kansas City, so it was easy
for him. He moved for the Google Fiber :)

As for me, my wife and I work together. She's my partner on most of my crazy
business schemes, and we are in agreement about the move to the high desert
area. We are moving to a house with solar panels (and battery storage) and
trucked in water and gas. So, it's completely off the grid. I am still trying
to figure out the internet, so far it looks like I'll be VPNing through a
t-mobile phone ;)

I think once we have kids, we would have about 3 year grace period to get our
act together. You can raise a 3 year old anywhere, but once they are older you
really do need to worry about things like schools, playgrounds, kid friendly
neighborhoods, and all those things. We intend to come back to San Diego in
the end, no matter what.

~~~
w1ntermute
> My buddy did not have family when he decided to move from San Diego to
> Kansas City, so it was easy for him. He moved for the Google Fiber :)

If I were in his position, I would've waited for Google Fiber to launch in
Austin (this year) and then moved there, or just moved now into an area that's
going to get Google Fiber. It's a much nicer city - a lot of young people
thanks to UT Austin (meaning a good dating scene), vibrant downtown culture,
and a strong ecosystem of tech companies and startups (for a city that's not
SF, NY, Boston or Seattle, anyway).

~~~
x0054
You're preaching to the choir. I made that argument. Personally I would move
to Povo, Utah (not well research, so don't judge if Povo actually sucks). I
like the nature and the climate of Utah better. But Austin is perfect for
going out, culture, and large tech community. Kansas is perfect if you intend
to live in your house, sit online, and not really interact with the other
residents. I have actually visited Kansas City, it's not as bad as one might
think, or much worse, depending on your outlook on hipsters. It's got a lot of
people who, I swear, are living in Kansas ironically. The 30-somethings with
philosophy degrees, black socks to their knees, smoking thin cigarets out of
their sterling silver cigaret cases, and generally looking cool just for the
sake of looking cool.

It was very strange to see a large, metropolitan city, on Tuesday, during
daytime, around noon, completely and utterly empty. As if a zombi apocalypse
rolled through and everyone was killed. That is Downtown Kansas City. I am not
even kidding, I have pictures somewhere.

~~~
w1ntermute
> Personally I would move to Povo, Utah (not well research, so don't judge if
> Povo actually sucks). I like the nature and the climate of Utah better.

Right, Provo is another option. But my distaste for warm climates is only
eclipsed by my distaste for religion, particularly fundamentalist ones like
Mormonism. Provo is home to BYU and the largest Missionary Training Center for
the LDS church. I don't mind religious people too much if they keep to
themselves, but I can only imagine how often you would get accosted in public
in Provo by "missionaries in training" trying to practice their "pitch". I'd
be willing to tolerate the heat in Austin if it meant avoiding that.

~~~
x0054
Hmm, I did not know that about Povo. I am religious my self, but of the live
and let live, nondenominational, type. I would not want to live in a place
where people try to convert me all the time. That's something to consider.

------
api
"Some of America's most productive cities for medium- and low-income
families—Boston, Honolulu, San Jose, New York—are also the most expensive.
This is often due to (or at least, exacerbated by) exclusionary zoning and
housing regulations that limit the number of available units, which drives up
the price of housing, ensuring that low-income families can't afford to live
there."

Bingo.

Real estate right now is basically Satan. Anything that can be done to break
real estate markets is good.

------
jupiterjaz
I blame NIMBYs. Landowners in rich cities stop anything that might bring down
the value of their property, especially additional housing.

------
11thEarlOfMar
If the housing prices are increasing, it would mean that demand is increasing.
But if so many people are leaving, demand should be decreasing and prices
should be soft.

So I'd be curious to know how the survey was conducted, and whether it
included families immigrating to the US.

In my county, Alameda, Ca., 30% of residents were born outside the US. That's
a very strong immigration level and bound to affect the housing prices and
keep demand and prices strong.

~~~
michaelochurch
_If the housing prices are increasing, it would mean that demand is
increasing. But if so many people are leaving, demand should be decreasing and
prices should be soft._

Housing has a few problems. One is that it's price inelastic. If you destroyed
5% of the housing in Manhattan, prices and rents would at least double, and
possibly go up 4-10x. We know this because of the 9/11 Boom (which was
actually fueled by speculators anticipating future supply destruction-- which,
thankfully, never came). It's counterintuitive, but something that objectively
destroys value can (with inelasticity) increase the bulk value of what's out
there. If 5% of housing was destroyed and prices doubled, most people would
say that the housing market "improved by 90%". Well, no.

Increasing housing prices are, make no mistake, signs of something bad. Supply
problems (mostly, rooted in NIMBY regulations) are a big part of what's going
wrong. Another issue is that most localities are losing jobs, while a few
"star cities" (SF, NYC) win.

The second problem with housing is that, because people are emotional about
it, they don't sell when there is cause for prices to go down. They _hoard_.
This negative correlation between price and volume means that housing prices
barely drop when they're "supposed to", but drop cataclysmically when the real
estate problem starts destroying real wealth (as in 2008) and jobs disappear
and foreclosures happen.

Real estate is the blood-engorged cancer of the economy. It's a tax that goes
nowhere and anyone who thinks high rents and property prices is good is just
on the wrong side.

~~~
freehunter
I've been looking to move in the near future, and I'm trying to find a city
with a good nightlife and good job prospects that doesn't have insane housing
costs if you live in the city and insane commute times if you live outside.
I'm not making a ton of money where I am right now, but anywhere I'm looking
at for tech jobs I'd be taking a pay cut even if my salary doubled because
cost of living is so high. Housing in cities is just insane, and investment
money slash NIMBY isn't helping.

~~~
techsupporter
Not to sound flippant, but so are you and everybody else. I have yet to read
anywhere on the Internet that someone is looking for a boring town that's
dedicated solely to cars with cheap housing and crap for jobs. What you seek
is in very high demand, especially with the nascent trend of moving back into
cities so it will be quite expensive relative to what you get.

NIMBYism accounts for a lot because people hate change and people moved
somewhere for a specific aesthetic but simple market demand accomplishes a
lot.

~~~
poulsbohemian
Three years ago we made a move against this trend. We moved from a large
metropolitan tech-heavy area to a low-cost but rural and isolated area. It has
lots of problem - no jobs, lots of poverty, etc, but if you are
entrepreneurial and can figure out how to either travel for your work or make
your location irrelevant, lots of places otherwise ignored suddenly become
practical.

------
pessimizer
Does anyone know more about the Equality of Opportunity project? I'm trying to
navigate their site to figure out the methodology for determining their
numbers.

At this point, I'm not willing to believe that all of the cities with the
highest rents also have the highest upward mobility. I'm assuming that they
just found the places where the upwardly mobile either 1. _moved to_ or 2.
_grew up in during the cities ' transitions_ into rich cities from struggling
cities (an awful lot of cities went through that transition in the last 50
years.)

That would still be interesting stat, but say nothing about the chances for
someone moving into the city now, who would be faced with crippling rents and
3 applicants for every open position.

I think people are moving away from unlivable cites to livable cities, and
that there's lots of reverse migration to get closer to extended families. I'm
considering the same.

edit: I still can't figure it out, this is the closest I could find -
[http://www.equality-of-opportunity.org/index.php/faq-s](http://www.equality-
of-opportunity.org/index.php/faq-s). I'll email to find out if they accounted
for migration.

------
spikels
This article is crap. When the evidence does not fit your theory you don't
complain about the evidence: Stupid American don't want to move to the rust
belt and get rich!

Perhaps ideology is getting in the way of thinking. What about cost of living,
actual job opening, baby boomers retiring, skills mismatches, cultural
preferences, etc.

BTW-Internal migration has actually been studied for more than a century. This
recent paper from the Fed has a good survey:

[http://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1257/jep.25.3.173](http://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1257/jep.25.3.173)

------
commentzorro
WTF?! This entire article is predicated on a Atlas Van Lines survey. Atlas is
an expensive moving company used only by corporate/govt and fairly wealthy
customers. How is this representative in the least. Maybe for a survey showing
where the wealthy are retiring or businesses are trying to establish
themselves in new markets.

The article shows the right approach in their leading graphics but then
ignores it. Show where people renting cheap U-Haul type moving trucks are
moving or no-name movers to find out where the bulk of average to lower income
and/or young people are moving. That's the trend you want to look at.

------
showerst
I'm assuming ND, MT, and maybe TX are due to the shale oil boom?

~~~
ImprovedSilence
ND and MT, probably yes. TX is just TX being awesome.

~~~
001sky
Notwithstanding the Awesome, there is plenty of fracking goin' on.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Tight_natural_gas_plays_i...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Tight_natural_gas_plays_in_the_lower_48_states_of_the_USA.jpg)

~~~
scarecrowbob
This meets with my experience, not to mention that north of Amarillo and
Midland/Odessa are currently booming, at least as far as can see when I'm out
there. Not to downplay the larger cities in the state that are growing.

~~~
tunap
Are all the improvements 'Public Works', say, highway/freeway construction?
That was the feeling I got spending many months of the last two years in
Austin & Dallas. Every freeway was being built, expanded or repaired... my GPS
was constantly telling me to exit when nothing but dirt & Jersey barriers
existed. Cannot recall the source, but I believe all this work is done w/ Fed
stimulus + taxes from all the oil/gas they're pumping & petro refining.

