When bad times came in earlier days, Americans were likely to up and leave town for greener pastures.
This time, they’re hunkering down. It’s the new depression mentality.

Those that are moving seem to be moving out of the two states that had the biggest booms in housing – Florida and California.The reason is clear. With the housing market in crisis, the economies of the two sunshine states have been hit proportionately hard.

CNN Money reports:

“The Florida economy is based on growth and home construction,” said Lang. With building projects dying on the vine, unemployment soared to 7.6% for the state in 2008. It’s now up to 10.7%.

The same job problems plague many California cities, especially Central Valley towns like Stockton, Fresno and Merced. Construction-related job losses helped send state unemployment to 8.7% by December 2008 from 5.9% a year earlier. Today, some cities report breathtakingly high unemployment rates: 30.2% in El Centro; 17.6% in Merced; and 17.2% in Yuba City.

So, if people aren’t heading for the good life in California and Florida, where are they going?
D.C., Alaska and Wyoming. (Seriously……

…To be fair, however, small populations in these places convert modest in-migration increases into large percentage gains. They’re each among the smallest states (or district) in the Union. That’s just the opposite of California and Florida where each percentage point represents hundreds of thousands of people….In terms of net migration — those moving in minus those leaving — Texas was the star performer in 2008, with the population growing by 140,000.”

My Comment:

I thought of Texas – way back in 2003. Houston or San Antonio, I thought. I liked the fact that Houston had a large Asian community and was reckoned one of the best places to begin a new business and one of the best places for immigrants. Property was also reasonably priced and the place had a healthy libertarian community. It’s reputed to be a safe, family-friendly city – and greener than you’d think. And there are all those jobs in the energy business.

But there are negatives. Both places are a long way off from anywhere else. In many ways, you’d be going to a new country. To get to any other city in Texas, let alone anywhere else, is a long haul. Houston’s roads are congested. The housing is largely modern – no old architecture. The weather is extremely hot and humid, and there’s hurricane season. I told a friend of mine he’d find me on a ranch, chewing baccy, spitting, and eying down rattlesnakes. I’d fit right in, I said. I probably would have. But I would have lost something in fitting in. In Uruguay, subtly, I feel I gain by fitting in.

And the prison system – not that I was planning on ending up in it – has serious problems. I am not sure it would have been the ideal place for a political blogger.

I still wonder about Texas and if I made a mistake coming here. My reasoning was that if I was going to uproot that much, I might as well go abroad, where I’d also have the advantage of being out of the country. But I admit to being conflicted about it all…still.

What made up my mind for me ultimately was the privacy issue. You can move to Texas, but you can’t move out of the way of the snoop state. And you can’t get away from litigators and stalkers…from enemies with their malevolence and the government with its benevolence….