The latest book… Bubble in the Sun: The Florida Boom of the 1920s and How It Brought on the Great Depression (Christopher Knowlton). I’m enjoying it so far (listening via Audible). Timely, considering that home prices in the decent neighborhoods of Florida have roughly doubled since the lockdowns began in the Northeast and California.
The author notes that at some point in the 1920s, Florida had 60 million single-family house lots mapped out and ready to sell.
Chart of Florida population growth from 1900-1930 (source):
For context, here’s Maskachusetts v. Florida over 120 years:
Note that 1947 is highlighted as an important year for window air conditioners and the 1960s as when home central A/C become standard (energy.gov).
Calif* has Greenspunchussets 1 & 2 beat by a few countries. Unless they all get forced back to on site jobs, the Fl*rida boom is here to stay. Calif* isn’t going to go bust.
The lion kingdom sometimes ponders moving to some forgotten midwest town that was big in the postwar period, live where the John Hughes movies were set, but the practicality of tornadoes & extreme cold weigh in.
Groucho Marx lost a lot of money in that bubble!
https://www.npr.org/transcripts/114181633
I am surprised that the graph depicting the Massachusetts population against Florida does not show a “dip” as generations retired, finally tired of the snow and general challenges in Massachusetts thereby leading them to move to Florida. It would appear that enough people moved into Massachusetts to be the same number that moved out over the course of several generations.
JJ: Massachusetts replenished (not to say “replaced”) its lost native-born population with 1.2 million immigrants (through 2018). See https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/research/immigrants-in-massachusetts (which mentions 250,000 “undocumented immigrants”, but I am not sure how this number can be established with any certainty)
Immigrants and their children are approximately one third of the Maskachusetts population, according to this page.