Thanks for all the feedback.
My basic philosophy is to invest according to long term secular trends, especially demographic and political, and following from them, the economic health of a city or state. Looking back, we can all see that Michigan’s decline, along with other union-dominated neighboring cities in the midwest became inevitable with the predictable rise of foreign competition. The high-tax, high regulation states in the northeast are now losing population and businesses to the south and southeast.
If you google “unemployment rates by state” you’ll see that the healthiest ten states, all with unemployment rates under 7%, are inevitably low tax, business-welcoming states (with the exception of Hawaii). That’s where I’d put my money.
While AZ, like CA, NV, and FL was not a great choice for my investments because it had an even worse housing bubble than CA, it has the ingredients to come back, as will NV and Fl. CA will not, because of its entrenched liabilities and decline relative to the neighboring states.
