Press On: The California Exodus

By Gary Dickson

In a state of more than 37 million people, you wouldn't think that a loss of population would be a concern to anyone. In fact, some would probably consider it a blessing.

But, the reality is that when people stop migrating to a particular location, that has generally been a strong signal that something is wrong there, such as a lack of jobs or cost of living expenses that are out of whack.

Here in California, according to an article by Bill Watkins in New Geography, the state has been in a negative domestic migration mode at least since 1990. U.S. Census statistics indicate that 3,642,490 people have left California since 1990. Watkins stated, "If they were in one city, it would be the third largest city in America "

My father left Oklahoma as a teenager to move in with his sister and brother-in-law in Richmond , to work in the shipyard during World War II.

Back then thousands of people had left the dustbowl ravaged Midwest for jobs in California. It's interesting that today Texas, Oklahoma and Arkansas all have a net-positive domestic migration number, while California is in the red.

The word, regarding California, is out in Mexico, too. Even illegal immigration numbers into the state have slowed. Those choosing to leave Mexico for the United States are choosing to settle in states other than California.

Since 2000 the immigrant population has been frozen at 27 percent of the population.

In 2010 California

reached a 100-year low in the percentage of its total population that had moved here from out-of-state or out-of-country of about 20 percent. It was the first time in more than 100 years that the majority of California residents were native-born.

What is causing the migration reversal for California? Well, initially it was housing prices that were so far out-of-line with many other places around the country.

When the housing bubble burst one would have thought that would have caused people to run toward California, due to the housing bargains, but by then the jobs had all gone away.

So, a lack of jobs became the other major cause for people to move elsewhere and for people elsewhere not to come here.

Another factor is how business owners view their opportunity to successfully conduct business in California , or not.

A recent survey by Small Business California, a San Francisco-based business advocacy group, indicated that one out of five California small-business owners don't plan to be in California in three years.

Some of the comments provided by business owners included, "We will go where we can operate profitably.", "The way things are going we'll have to move out of state just to survive." and "If I am (still in business in 2014), it will be in another state. The business and regulatory climate in CA is too oppressive."

With all that is great about California , there are some obvious problems that have to be fixed if the 20-year run of negative migration is ended.

Response to last week's column

Last week I wrote about coincidences and asked readers to send me their own. I heard about some amazing coincidences from a number of readers, but the one that took the prize was from Fawn Meade.

She wrote about how several remarkable coincidences fell into place to save her husband Claude's life a couple of years ago. Claude became very sick while Fawn was visiting relatives in Southern California, Claude became ill with what they thought was the flu.

His flu-like symptoms turned out to be a gangrenous gall bladder. Fawn concluded her story with the statement that, "Well, one more day and I would have lost my husband. One more day if I hadn't come home a day early as I did due to the Swine Flu scare, one more day if Dr. Andrus hadn't called to bring him in now rather than the next day, one more day if that silver-haired doctor had not come in."

Fawn will receive three free months of the Record-Bee for sharing the winning story. If anyone would like to read her entire story, let me know. I will e-mail it to you.

Gary Dickson is the publisher of the Record-Bee. Call him at 263-5636, ext. 24. Email him at gdickson@record-bee.com.

Source: http://www.record-bee.com/ci_19647756?source=rss_viewed

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