
14% of Americans Are Considering a Move Out of Their State Due to Current Events - sharkweek
https://www.reviews.com/insurance/homeowners/move-out-of-state-survey/
======
rossdavidh
U-Haul and similar companies have real numbers on how many people are actually
moving, which would be a lot more interesting. "Considering" something, is
pretty easy. Telling a pollster you're "considering" something, is even
easier.

Not that I don't believe the real number has increased; I would not be
surprised at all if it has. But "considering" doesn't tell me much.

~~~
LinuxBender
Agreed.

 _The survey collected 2,309 responses from US residents 18 years or older._

That is a very tiny sample to get meaningful numbers. The moving companies for
sure should have a better picture of trends. It might be a year before we see
any numbers though. [1] Perhaps a reporter could call them and ask if they
have rough current numbers.

[1] - [https://www.uhaul.com/Articles/About/19966/U-Haul-
Migration-...](https://www.uhaul.com/Articles/About/19966/U-Haul-Migration-
Trends-Top-25-Growth-Cities-Of-2019/)

------
notatoad
lots of people will tell a pollster they want to move, the number of people
who actually do it is the interesting number.

in January 2019, 26% of americans said they were considering moving to Canada
[1]. That obviously hasn't happened.

[1] [https://globalnews.ca/news/4822460/americans-move-to-
canada-...](https://globalnews.ca/news/4822460/americans-move-to-canada-poll/)

~~~
Fezzik
People even tell their friends and, I think, legitimately mean it - for the
last 10 years nearly everyone I know in Portland (Ore.) has said they want to
move to a smaller city... so far I am the only who has left. And cities keep
growing while rural areas keep shrinking.

~~~
justchilly
Actually the largest cities are shrinking, and have been for the last couple
year. It will be no doubt be exacerbated by recent events.

[https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/09/americas-t...](https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/09/americas-
three-biggest-metros-shrinking/597544/)

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redleggedfrog
Being a lifelong Oregonian, I'd be really curious to know how many of those
thinking of leaving originally came from somewhere else, because the last 25
years have seen a _huge_ influx of people moving in from out of state.

~~~
zwieback
I moved to Oregon in 1995 and have no plans of leaving. Where would I go? I
think the numbers are inflated by people annoyed by current events (rural OR
is very right-wing) but they won't actually go.

~~~
driverdan
> Where would I go?

What does this even mean? The US has 49 other states to choose from.

~~~
zwieback
It means I think Oregon is so great that I can't imagine going elsewhere. I'm
exaggerating only a little bit.

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spaetzleesser
It seems it’s an American pastime to threaten moving to another state or
_gasp_ even to another country whenever they don’t like something. Not many
follow through. Most of them will be considering for the next few decades.

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nemo44x
Sort of surprised to see Florida on there. It always seems like it's a place
that people are moving to either for the weather or low taxes. I'm guessing it
has to do with tourism being shot this year and a lot of people there not
being able to make a living? Possibly this is why Nevada is so high on the
list too, via Las Vegas.

Interesting to see NJ and CN having low numbers of people that want to move
out. I'm guessing a lot of people that want to leave NYC but stay nearby will
be moving into these locations. MA is sort of interesting though being so high
on the list. Maybe folks want to move to NH or VT if they don't have to be in
Boston?

Oregon, Portland in particular - I mean what can you say about the place now?

Illinois makes sense as Chicago has been on the decline for nearly 50 years
now and they refuse to change anything about how they do things. Sad as it's a
great city but just refuses to break their corrupt political machine.

~~~
opportune
In addition to a dearth of jobs in many areas, Florida can have deceptively
higher costs due to insurance (for sinkholes, hurricanes, bad drivers) and
needing to spend a lot on electricity for AC.

~~~
nemo44x
That's a good point - always important to consider the total cot of living
when comparing things.

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wronglebowski
I'm not sure there's enough real data here for any sort of conclusion, but it
is interesting.

For those that are considering a move strictly based on recent events what's
primary driver? Are those that are unhappy with how recent events
unfolded(Covid or political unrest) looking to move somewhere that more
closely aligns with their views?

As someone in Pennsylvania I've come to terms with the wide political
differences across the state. I couldn't imagine calling anywhere else home
despite wishing to be in a more progressive environment.

~~~
Solocomplex
As a Canadian working in Minneapolis, it is very disturbing seeing heavily
armed military vehicles on our civilian roadways. There's still some here even
now.

~~~
giantg2
I think you mean armored rather than armed. The vehicles are armored but any
heavy weaponry has been removed or made inert.

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dangus
“Considering”

I dislike the way they lumped “considering or have moved” together. The
difference is huge. They should be presented as separate data points and
compared with the baseline.

Also

> When compared against publicly available data, states like California and
> New York with high population cities are seeing a year-over-year increase of
> people moving to less-dense areas.

So, the rate of this migration is increasing. But how much? How different is
it from the baseline.

We don’t know because the article and its narrative, the story it wants to
tell is out in front of the data.

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zarkov99
There was a bloomberg piece that looked at uhaul data and showed there is a
net migration to Texas, florida, vermont, idaho from NY and CA. Something is
happening for sure.

~~~
dashundchen
Conversely, Curbed took a look at data Zillow published and found the data
didn't really match the trend pieces of "everyone is fleeing the city"

[https://www.curbed.com/2020/8/31/21404333/suburbs-housing-
bo...](https://www.curbed.com/2020/8/31/21404333/suburbs-housing-boom-urban-
exodus-coronavirus)

------
hapless
Americans are highly mobile. About 15% of the population moves _every_ year.
Their core "finding" is nonsense.

Additionally, this survey is terrible. 2,300 people nationwide is plenty to
collect national aggregate data, but it tells you _nothing_ about the states
-- odds are, aside from texas and california, you won't have a statistically
significant sample of the states

~~~
giantg2
I agree that the data is pretty much worthless since it doesn't measure actual
population or the reasons. But at the same time, a lot of that 15% who do move
are not moving out of state. So I wouldn't list that as a reason.

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Nasrudith
It would be nice to have a trend or at least prior year baseline of
"considering moving" when attributing significance. Some of the west coast
ones could have a high baseline as many always consider the possibility of
making their money go further elsewhere. (Remote work going very mainstream
may inspire them to pull the trigger on it.)

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sokoloff
Seems like with only 2309 total respondents (nationwide) that reporting per-
state percentages down to the tenth of a percent is not the right handling of
significant digits of information. That's an average of fewer than 50
respondents to a yes/no question per-state reported to 1 part in 1000
precision.

------
kangnkodos
Why is Massachusetts #5 on the list? Just coronavirus in general? How would
moving help? Is racism worse in Boston than other cities?

If anyone has a guess, let me know.

Maybe since people are working remote, and their kids are going to school on
zoom, they are thinking of moving to a state with a lower cost of living? I
could see that.

~~~
saddestcatever
My guess is cost of living. Either between "working remote" while paying city
rent prices, or paying real estate taxes for one of the better school
districts, I imagine there's a high percentage of residents that don't believe
they are getting what they are paying for.

It's interesting that California is right there next to Massachusetts, but New
York is further down the list

~~~
nemo44x
I wonder if for NY not being as high as CA or MA it's because Long Island is
maybe a place people in NYC are considering. So although they want to leave
the city they are choosing to stay in the state by virtue of moving to Long
Island.

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boomboomsubban
What the hell is their cut off for a state to count as significant data? They
interviewed 2300 people, with 50 states that's 46 per state, and only nine
weren't significant? If one answer can change the result by 2%, that doesn't
seem significant enough.

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joezydeco
Would have been nice to see where these residents think they will go.
Domestically? Internationally?

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reaperducer
That doesn't seem all that high. I saw a government figure (Census?) which
stayed that 30% of Americans move in a given year.

So about half of those moves being out of state doesn't seem out of line.

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jimbob45
This stuff happens in Oregon fairly frequently. Maybe not the actual danger of
fire but at least the poor air quality which is the most visible byproduct of
the fires by far.

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horns4lyfe
And here I thought buying an expensive house in Portland was a good idea.
Great. Anecdotally, I don't know anyone that's left recently.

~~~
enahs-sf
An expensive house in Portland feels like a relatively affordable compared to
what the same money buys in the Bay Area.

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jkw
What's the baseline of each state though? Pre-covid, what % of the state
already considered moving?

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m3kw9
So that’s more like a shuffle than moving out

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untilHellbanned
We're considering moving from the US altogether. My family is jewish and made
their way to the US during the holocaust. We're ironically using that status
to get citizenship and potentially move to Germany or Austria.

~~~
zwieback
I grew up in Germany and left in 1992 to come to the US. Since then I heard
there's been a steady increase in Jewish population, when I grew up there I
didn't know a single Jew. It's interesting because my generation is pretty
much defined by trying to make up for the horrors committed by my
grandparents' generation but it was more of a theoretical undertaking. Now
there seems to be more of a chance for face-to-face reconciliation. THere's
still a ton of anti-semitism though.

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nine_zeros
Where will they go? Every state has its own kind of problems.

~~~
giantg2
Yeah, but those problems affect people differently, making some places more
attractive on an individual basis.

For example, if you are a gun owner you would find the laws in places like NJ,
NY, and CA to be very problematic. The same way that if you value access to
abortion you will find those states less problematic.

