From a late April trip, our Hertz rental. Note the California plates, evidence that a modern-day Joad family escaped California’s lockdowns and 13 percent state income tax via a one-way trip:
It was common to see cars with insignia relating to dealers in New England or New York and Florida plates, indicating a permanent move. Example:
Separately, Matty’s Gelato (Juno Beach, near Ivanka Trump’s new house in Jupiter, Florida) is great!
Related:
Woke infection is spreading quickly and inexorably, turning formerly nice places into progressive wasteland, anti-Midas touch as it were. Witness Texas, New Hampshire, Colorado, and soon Florida.
https://www.city-journal.org/california-migration-politics
“Beset by high housing costs, crippling taxes, astronomical gas prices, wildfires, and rolling blackouts, Californians are heading for the exits. That’s sparking anxiety in places where these Golden State migrants are relocating. A mayoral candidate in Boise, Idaho, recently suggested building a wall to keep out Californians, who account for 60 percent of domestic migration into the growing state. The election of increasingly progressive candidates in Colorado sparked talk there of the “Californication” of the Centennial State.
Early last year, the Dallas News described the “California-ing” of North Texas, citing a study showing that 8,300 Californians move to the area yearly. Texas governor Greg Abbott launched a petition titled “Don’t California My Texas.”
It’s not the left-wing clowns who leave CA these days… CA has a large republican minority which is rapidly out-migrating to places tolerant to conservative views. It became outright dangerous to express these views in metro areas… people are literally losing jobs for being insufficiently leftist.
Republicans who wanted to leave California did so, they had plenty of time and reasons in the past decades. Those who remain there stack there for various reasons which did not dramatically change with the coronaplague. Afraid that majority of CA refugees now are CA Democrat Party voters who are just waiting to tell Democrat politicians: “let’s never be cross again” as their mask mandates are gone and wokedness of their unfair normal life in Florida will again become unbearable.
A., conservative flight from CA might have have been a phenomenon in the past, but now it’s mainly democratic woke millenial voters fleeing expensive shitholes in NY, MA, CA and bringing their voting patterns with them, naturally:
“But domestic migration is key. Just look at Texas. CNN exit polls for the state’s 2018 Senate election showed that Beto O’Rourke was buoyed by recent movers, winning more than 60 percent of those who had moved to Texas within the past 10 years.”
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/09/american-migration-patterns-should-terrify-gop/598153/
I’d observed a similar phenomenon during my many years living in MA where migrating massholes transformed NH into a democratic state.
https://www.concordmonitor.com/politically-important-new-hampshire-has-a-very-mobile-population-5823837
I personally knew a Brandeis prof who bought a farm house in NH and whose stated goal was to convert neighbor savages to progressive religion.
I’m a refugee from California who fled to Texas in 2012. I always tell people that I came here to get away from California, not to bring it with me.
Heard from a NH resident that they are seeing a lot of trucks with TX plates. The rats must be going around in circles. Anyway if people would rather move their entire families than ignore unenforceable mandates they are weak and have no future, no matter where they end up.
You’re gonna love Jupiter. I give you a year unless you bail completely with no home to return to. Florida is wacky, take it from a native.
I’ve been waiting for this comment. I grew up in palm beach county and escaped to Boston. No doubt the area has changed since 2005 (eg Scripps convinced a bunch of interesting people to move down). As a fellow alum, I’m really looking forward to following your evolving view on the place.
@ajm: How much wackier than, say, New Jersey could it possibly be? I’ve lived in Jersey and visited Florida pretty extensively and thought Florida was comparatively calm, just weird in different ways.
Florida experts: We’re going to rent for a little while to see how the kids do (especially our allergic one). I do think there were some great things about the Boston area, especially all of the interesting people one could meet in-person. But if you factor in kids+suburbs (see “kids”)+coronapanic, this is no longer a big percentage of the hours in our year. We spend a lot of time at home, a lot of time walking around with the dog, a lot of time on Zoom (working/teaching), etc.
Let’s also talk about “wacky”. Garland Greene: “Now you’re talking semantics. What if I told you insane was working fifty hours a week in some office for fifty years at the end of which they tell you to piss off; ending up in some retirement village hoping to die before suffering the indignity of trying to make it to the toilet on time? Wouldn’t you consider that to be insane?” https://youtu.be/XL6Bve-NhbM
People who live in Massachusetts believe that they’re in control of a respiratory virus and that their 14 months of #BelievingScience by shutting down and wearing masks has mostly won the war against COVID-19. Folks in Florida don’t believe that they can control the virus, so it is best for the old/vulnerable to refrain from entering indoor public spaces. Given that Florida has one third the COVID-19 death rate (when you adjust for population over 65) of Massachusetts, which population is “wackier”?
Be careful renting out your house in a state such as Massachusetts. If you rent it out while you are in Florida there is a chance that you may never get it back. I am not sure of the local laws in Massachusetts but this is very true in California. Honestly you should just keep it vacant so you have a place to stay if you come back for a visit. You have been warned!
TS: Thanks for the advice! But we are done with Massachusetts, I think. We are going to sell everything that we own here. For maximum human happiness we should try to find someone in FL or SD or Sweden who yearns to wait for the next round of governor’s orders before deciding how to live, who wants to wear a mask outdoors, etc. That person would love occupying our former MA real estate!
Just some more advice for our fine host Phil from your favorite talking bird. Make sure you sell your house in Massachusetts before sleepy Joe takes away the 1031 exchange! This will happen. You have been warned!
It’s not just the age profile that you have to adjust for when comparing CV19 stats between FLA and MA. the population density is 1:2 and, compared with MA, FLA has no winter.
/df,
Miami to Fort Lauderdale is one big party with no breaks and separation because of worm weather. In Boston suburbs nobody could be seen outside in the good times. I always wondered why Massachusetts has traffic cameras at every intersection (sometimes every 100′) with nobody willing to move in in the first place because of terrible weather outside of car window, flimsy houses and not exactly friendly hosts
If you eventually buy in Florida, be careful of HOAs. Their overreach can be way worse than any mask mandates.
I left greater Boston for the east coast of FL over 30 years ago. Timely though serendipitous investments in FL real estate secured my financial future by the time a reached 50 y/o. After this week’s 90 degree days + 90% humidity, I’ve re-committed to my early retirement plan to spend summers in coastal southern NH.