California Dreamin' Over? Record Number of Residents Moving

[Don Buckbee]

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,479704,00.html

California Dreamin' Over? Record Number of Residents Moving
Tuesday, January 13, 2009



LOS ANGELES — With a house purchase near Denver in the works, the 38-year-old engineering contractor plans to move his family 1,200 miles away from his home state's lemon groves, sunshine and beaches. For him, years of rising taxes, dead-end schools, unchecked illegal immigration and clogged traffic have robbed the Golden State of its allure.

Is there something left of the California dream?

"If you are a Hollywood actor," Reilly says, "but not for us."

Since the days of the Gold Rush, California has represented the Promised Land, an image celebrated in the songs of the Beach Boys and embodied by Silicon Valley's instant millionaires and the young men and women who achieve stardom in Hollywood.

But for many California families last year, tomorrow started somewhere else.

The number of people leaving California for another state outstripped the number moving in from another state during the year ending on July 1, 2008. California lost a net total of 144,000 people during that period — more than any other state, according to census estimates. That is about equal to the population of Syracuse, N.Y.

The state with the next-highest net loss through migration between states was New York, which lost just over 126,000 residents.

California's loss is extremely small in a state of 38 million. And, in fact, the state's population continues to increase overall because of births and immigration, legal and illegal. But it is the fourth consecutive year that more residents decamped from California for other states than arrived here from within the U.S.

A losing streak that long hasn't happened in California since the recession of the early 1990s, when departures outstripped arrivals from other states by 362,000 in 1994 alone.

In part because of the boom in population in other Western states, California could lose a congressional seat for the first time in its history.

Why are so many looking for an exit?

Among other things: California's unemployment rate hit 8.4 percent in November, the third-highest in the nation, and it is expected to get worse. A record 236,000 foreclosures are projected for 2008, more than the prior nine years combined, according to research firm MDA DataQuick. Personal income was about flat last year.

With state government facing a $41.6 billion budget hole over 18 months, residents are bracing for higher taxes, cuts in education and postponed tax rebates. A multibillion-dollar plan to remake downtown Los Angeles has stalled, and office vacancy rates there and in San Diego and San Jose surpass the 10.2 percent national average.

Median housing prices have nose-dived one-third from a 2006 peak, but many homes are still out of reach for middle-class families. Some small towns are on the brink of bankruptcy. Normally recession-proof Hollywood has been hit by layoffs.

"You see wages go down and the cost of living go up," Reilly says. His property taxes will be $1,300 in Colorado, down from $4,300 on his three-bedroom house in Nipomo, about 80 miles up the coast from Santa Barbara.

California's obituary has been written before — "California: The Endangered Dream" was the title of a 1991 Time magazine cover story. The Golden State and its huge economy — by itself, the eighth-largest in the world — have shown resilience, weathering the aerospace bust, the dot-com crash and an energy crunch in recent years.

But this time, the news just keeps getting worse.

A state board halted lending for about 2,000 public works projects in California worth more than $16 billion because the state could not afford them. A report by Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., last month said the state lost 100,000 jobs in the last year and the erosion of home prices eliminated over $1 trillion in wealth.

"I don't think the California dream, per se, is over. It has become and will continue to become grittier," says New America Foundation senior fellow Gregory Rodriguez. "Now, perhaps, we have to reassess the California of our imagination."

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is among those who say the state needs to create itself anew, rebuilding roads, schools and transit.

"We've lived off the investments our parents made in the '50s and '60s for a long time," says Tim Hodson, director of the Center for California Studies at California State University, Sacramento. "We're somewhat in the position of a Rust Belt state in the 1970s."

Financial adviser Barry Hartz lived in California for 60 years and once ran for state Assembly before relocating with his wife last year to Colorado Springs, Colo., where his son's family had moved.

"The saddest thing I saw was the escalation of home prices to the point our kids, when they got married, could not live in the community where they lived and grew up," Hartz says. "Some people call that progress."

[azsigman]

The problem I see is that all the libbys leaving Kalifornia want to bring it with them and change their new digs to a mirror image of their old. Want change ??? Fine and welcome. But leave the Gold State crap back there and adjust to a new lifestyle.

[22WRF]

I kinda liked it better when we had them all in one corral. Now they will be spreading their liberal disease amongst us.

[45nut]

Well said 22WRF. I have kinfolk in Kali and I'd just soon they stay there. I'd rather that the whole freaking state broke off and fell into the sea.

Like stated above, it's better when we have all of them in one place!

[Don Buckbee]

Originally Posted by azsigman

The problem I see is that all the libbys leaving Kalifornia want to bring it with them and change their new digs to a mirror image of their old. Want change ??? Fine and welcome. But leave the Gold State crap back there and adjust to a new lifestyle.

The problem is all of those losers who do that are Liberals. Rational Conservatives don't do that.

[22WRF]

Woman from Cali bought a house down the road from us. Moved in stayed 3 mo and moved back to LA. Guess she couldn't cope with the life style here.

[Don Buckbee]

Yep, she probably had to inhale and exhale all by herself... i.e., she had to work for what she got there.

[Teejay9]

Well, gentlemen, we're not all liberals here, believe me. It's just that it's so nice and warm!
I think, perhaps the influx of illegal immigrants from the South might have something to do with it. On the news yesterday, they showed a class room in L.A. and on the board was written in chalk, "Si! Tu puedes (Yes! you can!)." Ooops, I think I just made your point. TJ

[Bruce FLinch]

Originally Posted by Don Buckbee

The problem is all of those losers who do that are Liberals. Rational Conservatives don't do that.

Yeah!

I actually think more Conservatives than Liberals are leaving. Between the taxes, economy, & entitlements to the Non-deserving...

[Teejay9]

Whatchou talkin' 'bout, Bruce?

[Bruce FLinch]

Originally Posted by Teejay9

Whatchou talkin' 'bout, Bruce?

Did you forget your or your ?

[glocknut]

Originally Posted by Teejay9

Whatchou talkin' 'bout, Bruce?

HOLY CR*P.... Gary Coleman is on our forum?!!!! Hey man, i voted for you!!!

mike
gn

[Teejay9]

Well, we're movin' on up!

[LurpyGeek]

Originally Posted by Bruce FLinch

I actually think more Conservatives than Liberals are leaving. Between the taxes, economy, & entitlements to the Non-deserving...

I think this is very true. I have a lot of friends in some very conservative area's of CA where I spent a lot of time. These seem to be the area's where more people are leaving. I wonder about some of those figures in the story above though. If you factor in all of the undocumented illegals, they could shift a lot.

[Bruce FLinch]

Originally Posted by Teejay9

Well, we're movin' on up!

To the East Coast......

( I wish )

[Teejay9]

To the White house!! TJ