[quote=livinincali][quote=bearishgurl]
I don’t think SD County’s population increase (if any) is actually due to Americans from other CA counties and other states moving here.
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Really. We’re military town. There’s thousands of Marines at Miramar and their families that weren’t born here. There’s tons of defense contractors that hire those former military members in this city. I know far more people in their 20’s and 30’s that weren’t born here compared to those that were born here. Go to a bar on a Sunday and see how many youngish people are supporting teams other than the Chargers. This city has grown a ton over the past 50 years and a lot of it is from people that weren’t born here and were born in other American cities.[/quote]

Active duty military and their families (a very LARGE percentage of who live on base or in Navy-owned housing) are a finite portion of SD County’s population that never grows. One sponsor leaves for another duty station (with or without a family in tow) and another sponsor of same rank (or nearly same rank) with or without a family in tow takes their place (moves here from another locale). Duty stations today last anywhere from 2 years to 5 years (max). I would say that more than half (possibly 2/3) of sponsors who have families live on base or in Navy-owned housing so they don’t need market-rate housing in SD County. Single active duty personnel usually live shipboard or in furnished apts on base. Due to lack of dependents, this group doesn’t get BAQ and VHA (or whatever the housing allowance is called today) to assist with market-rate rent payments in non-military housing.

Hence, the active-duty military population in SD County (and everywhere there are military bases) is “stable.” It does not affect the population numbers one way or the other.

Active duty military who end up retiring here to work for a defense contractor already own a house. If they did not already own a house, they and their families could not afford to stay after retirement when they are evicted from base housing or lose their HUGE housing allowances (market-rate renters)! Those new military retirees who get hired by a local defense contractor aren’t new to SD …. they were already here and are NOT looking for house. Some of them have owned a home here for nearly the entire length of their Navy careers and rented it out whenever they (and their families) transferred out of SD on change of station orders … with the eye to retiring in SD when the time came.

In short, active duty military personnel and their families (as well as newly retired military personnel) are a “wash” to the population (don’t affect it) and thus are not “house shopping.” They are replacing others who left (both in military-owned housing and market rate rental housing) or they always had ties to SD (family and/or real estate).

A military member doesn’t retire from the military out of Tinker Field in Oklahoma, for example, and move their entire family to SD for a defense job …. sans a “housing allowance,” available ONLY to active duty personnel. I don’t care if the sponsor was an O-5 pay rank. This just doesn’t happen, folks.

edit: I forgot to add that a retiring military member gets one “free” move of their household goods (weight based on rank) back to the locale of the MEPPS station where they signed up to join the military. It’s a use it or lose it proposition. The vast majority DO use it …. straight out of the military quarters they and their families are being evicted from.