Are Californians Actually Fleeing the State? Data Says, Not Really

The Bay Area’s astronomical cost of living has long captured headlines, and the latest story goes like this: Californians are packing up and fleeing to places such as Idaho en masse, painting the state as somewhere people cannot wait to escape. It turns out, however, that they’re not actually moving in droves. Just 1.8 percent of the population moved, putting it in the bottom three of the states with the highest proportional departure rates. And when they do move, residents of the Bay Area often check listings in other parts of California first, scouring the listings for a place that would let them live a similar lifestyle at a lower cost.

According to a growing pile of headlines, hordes of Californians are fed up with their expensive coastal dystopia-state and are fleeing for cheaper, less-flammable places like Idaho, driving up housing costs, ruining the local culture, and spurring a new building boom.

But U.S. Census Bureau data tells a more complex story: Though California outmigration leaped 38 percent in 2018, that was only 1.8 percent of the huge state’s population. The state still ranks in the bottom three for proportional departure rates. And Americans overall are moving at the slowest rate since 1947.

The factors limiting big moves are demographic (more older Americans are aging in place) and, more powerfully, economic (with unemployment low and remote work increasingly common, fewer people are finding jobs good enough to move for). Some worry that our reluctance to pull up stakes is deepening regional economic inequality.

But plenty of stuck Americans do wish they could move. And Apartment List, a rental property search engine, has opened a window into the nation’s mobility dreams, as people browse for new apartments in far-flung cities or neighboring towns. This week, the company released a new analysis of where it sees renters hoping to move, based on their search habits over the second half of 2019. Better (or comparable) jobs and more affordable living seemed to be prime motivators for making a switch.

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