California, many say, is the future. A center for creative industries and new technology—look at its impressive rollout of electric vehicles and autonomous cars—it’s also a diverse state, pushing progressive policies that could be models for the rest of the country.
And people are leaving in droves for opportunities elsewhere.
The actual migration patterns in California aren’t quite as bad as that sounds—at least not yet. But a recent report by the California Legislative Analyst’s office shows that cracks continue to form in the state’s bright facade. Between 2007 and 2016, a million more people have left the state than have moved in.
Spread over a decade, that’s not terrible. It’s actually less severe than out-migration during the previous decade. But the patterns of who’s moving in, and who’s moving out, underline some of the social and economic pressure that have made California, and other coastal areas, so prohibitively expensive.
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