[quote=EconProf][quote=sdrealtor][quote=EconProf]sdr, thanks for making my point. Working from home means people are choosing to live away from the big cities and are moving into exurban areas, or entirely different states. Thus the move out of CA to neighboring states while keeping their job and “checking in” at the home office weekly or monthly.
Your comment that people moving “says nothing about politics”…? For many people,it might be fully explained by politics of the two areas.
Here in St. George are two trends that prove that. Direct flights from LA to little St. George were recently introduced to accommodate such workers. Housing developments near our airport are exploding. And if they spend 51% of their days here, they escape CA taxes. Second, many Californians have second homes here, and due to the COVID lockdowns in CA are spending more of their time in Utah where our schools and universities stayed largely open. Enrollment in the local university during COVID jumped about 10% while CA universities went to useless distance “learning”.[/quote]
St George is over 300 miles from salt lake city and is in the middle of nowhere. It has no industry to speak of, a college that is more comparable to a community college here than a research university and a population significantly smaller than Carlsbad. A few hundred or even thousand people going there isn’t even a rounding error vis a vis the CA population. CA still is the Golden State and more wealth is created in SD County than the entire state of Utah. SD companies received more venture funding this quarter then the entire State of Utah does for a full year. That won’t change. You’ll dominate the bingo halls[/quote]
sdr: OK, you have convinced me. You are right, I am wrong. So I’ll stop our exchanges here.
After all, the Census Bureau is just lying about people leaving CA for neighboring states in increasing numbers. And people don’t care about cost of living and housing and taxes when they decide where they live. They want good Thai restaurants. And CA schools are better because of high per-pupil spending. And roads too. And people don’t mind high taxes because bigger government is good for everyone, especially the homeless, who now come not just from the rest of the US, but now from the world. Diversity, you know. And then there’s the ocean.
So I give up. This site is all yours.[/quote]
Still no real data to support his case And he still ignores the elephant in the room. Median home price almost $500k and median income under $50k in St George. That’s a bubble!
