Now, for a real comment. I’d suggest Arizona as a place to move, but you’d have to love the heat in the summer, and enjoy people who can’t drive for shit. Low wages also play a factor in our lovely state.

DC:  John Kerry is the same anti-family, bloated-government surrender monkey in all 50 states.

Gee, it’s hard to take you seriously over the sound of my own laughter.  JK is anti-family?  That is literally nonsense.  And opposing futile wars in favor of more constructive and intelligent policies is much more effective in the long run. I’m not a pacifist but violence is seriously overrated as a means to solving problems.

And here I thought Michigan’s problems had to do with it’s over-reliance on the Automotive and manufacturing industries as the basis for its economy.

Though the idea of moving to a red state to help make it more liberal does have a certain appeal to it.

I too always get a kick out of the use of “anti-family” and “pro-life.” It shows that the person using them is either being deliberately confrontational, or just stupid. I tent to think it’s the later. Stupid people are funny.

You beat me to it Les. I was hoping someone would bring that up. It’s all the Japanese fault!!

Les: I thought Michigan’s problems had to do with it’s over-reliance on the Automotive and manufacturing industries as the basis for its economy.

Nothing of the sort..  This is something people in Michigan tell themselves rather than own up to the fact that they caused their own economic meltdown.

Point 1: All blue states are experiencing net out-migration, not just the rust belt.  Most of the blue states people are leaving never had a substantial auto industry.  People aren’t leaving California because of the auto industry.  People aren’t leaving Connecticut because of the auto industry.

It’s the politics of blue states which destroy jobs.  Eventually, high taxes and hostility towards big business cause companies, jobs, and workers to pack up and depart for greener pastures.

Point 2: There’s nothing wrong with the auto industry.  It’s doing great, thank you very much.  Just ask the newest member of the Big Three: Toyota.

Toyota isn’t closing plants down.  In fact they just opened a new assembly plant two months ago—in San Antonio, Texas.  They haven’t decided where their next plant will be built, though they’ve narrowed it down to a somewhere in the South.  Conservative states have low taxes and low costs of living.  That translates to a ready supply of affordable, skilled workers.

And don’t forget Nissan.  They just moved their North American headquarters from Los Angeles to a sprawling facility in Williamson County, Tennessee.  It’s not just people who are fleeing the bombed-out shells of liberal cities.  Companies are leaving as well.

I can think of a few instances where foreign automotive decided to drop plants in various spots in the USA. However, there are counterexamples to that. Y’all lost the woodstock plant and a handful of others to us - because our socialized health care and education (dare I say it - regularly maintained infrastructure), despite the dropping US dollar, made southern Ontario an ideal place to lay out a plant.

Much as you might not like to admit it, Daryl, there’s a lot to be said for how a properly maintained social infrastructure contributes to the long-term wealth of a nation. And so far as the auto-industry is concerned, Toyota is Japanese. They get their central support from outside the USA, so they’re not the topic at hand.

The question remains at all times, regardless of one’s approach - are they going to manage it like a fool, or not?

Les, come on down to Austin and join the liberal rebel alliance down here.  If only to piss Daryl off.

For crying out loud, people are moving from the blue states because they’re the most populous and getting too crowded.  Haven’t you ever looked at a map, Daryl?

Where there are high concentrations of educated and professional people, there you will find liberals.  Fact of life, Daryl. 

I’m just waiting for the “new silicon” areas to go blue ... moo ha ha ha ...

Also let’s not forget Kahliforn-eeia.  Despite the extremely high concentration of liberals there, easily the most economically productive state in the country.

Their Republican governator just proposed universal health insurance for all Kahliforn-ians.  And wants the federal gov’t to require car manufacturers to double fleet average MPG to fight global warming.  He has backed state stem cell funding for their booming biotech industry. He’s said repeatedly that church and state should remain well separated.  Maybe being married to a Democrat has had an effect on him.

As Garrison Keillor says, “There’s a reason the iPod wasn’t invented in Kansas.”

Point 2: There’s nothing wrong with the auto industry.  It’s doing great, thank you very much.

WOW!  I have never seen anyone display their ignorance with one little statement as eloquently as you Daryl!

Kahliforn-eeia

Hilarious!

Les,

Move to Idaho.  Great IT job prospects, great seasons, lots of outdoor rec if you’re into that.  My wife’s family is from Alpena (upper MI for the rest of you) and starting with her, they’re migrating one-by-one to Idaho or at least considering it.  Let me know: sincerely, I can help if you’re interested in moving to Idaho.

We need more libertarians here.  The immigrants from red states are trying to impose their rigid social conformity measures onto what was originally a pretty relaxed place to live.

This last comment is obviously a dig at Daryl and Justin.  I can accept, without further investigation of the facts, that migration from blue states, based on presidential elections in 2004, may be to red states.  Note that the state’s color is based on a single poll: how would it look today if 2006 had been a presidential election year?

I can even accept the “economically freer” argument without further study.  My acceptance is based primarily on my bias that free approaches create better economies WITHOUT regard to social or political ideologies, so take it or leave it as you will.

Where your arguments lose any semblance of rationale is your linking of social conservatism to any successful economies.  There is no evidence whatsoever that the majority of the people moved from blue states just to join states with oppressive social orders.  Many of those receiving states just had less people and so lower costs of living.  I suspect many of those people moved to the red states in SPITE of the social conservatism, not because of it.

Economic freedom does not need to be tied to social conservatism.  Just the opposite.  Truly free economics don’t attempt social engineering in either direction:  no blue laws keeping bars closed on Sunday, no prohibitions on people purchasing sex toys.  No, just raw free, fair, and competitive economics.

Social freedom is more compatible with economic freedom than any other approach.  By avoiding stamping a religious agenda on an economy its more likely to prosper.  Middle East, anyone?

People voted for Bush primarily for his social conservatism, not his economic conservatism.  Those states are red because of the 50% of Americans who voted and the slightly-more-than-half of them that voted on social conservative issues, economics be damned.

Webs is closer to right track.  The economic approaches of the elected local politicians were likely a more highly weighted criterion for the voters.  So it MIGHT be said that the liberal governors, etc., had more to do with the economic freedom of those states than some remote President who courts Bible Thumpers cuz they’re credulous enough to vote for anyone carrying a Bible and says they’re born again.

You say “go to church” to make a better economy.  That’s almost as fucked up as Bush saying we can defeat the terrorists by going shopping.

This isn’t a subject that I know much about, so forgive me if these are ignorant questions, but isn’t demand a factor here? Haven’t prices historically been high in, say, NYC largely because so many people wanted to live there? And isn’t part of the reason that the red states are so affordable simply the fact that fewer people want to live in them? As more people start to move there on the basis of affordability, won’t the cost of living start to rise? Don’t many red states have incentive programs aimed at convincing people to move into the state or stay in the state, and if this is a factor in their population growth, won’t the programs eventually be suspended once there’s no longer a significant population drain?

As far as politics, there are some other questions. For example, is NYC better at creating liberals, or attracting them? If it’s the latter, one could posit that people with strong liberal tendencies have headed to NYC because they felt it was the best social option. Despite all the talk about the social differences between the red and blue states, there’s surely an even greater social difference between red states today and those same states 50 or 60 years ago.  For example, there is a vanishingly small portion of the nation where overt racism is tolerated. It may still be a bit more prevalent in the red states than the blue states overall. But if you are a black man, then living in, say, Texas is a greatly different proposition than it used to be. It’s just less necessary for certain groups of people to stay in blue states in order to live safely and comfortably, regardless of economic factors.

These are just a few of the questions that make me wonder how much the success of Republican economic policies is to thank for the current population trends. If anything, couldn’t one argue that these policies are part of what drove everyone out of the red states in the first place, causing prices to fall so much that they’ve become attractive again? Or perhaps it’s something else- maybe politics have gotten so divisive that social conservatives are fleeing liberal areas, which just happen to include the biggest population centers, thus massively offsetting any flight of liberals from socially conservative areas.

And what about GeekMom’s point- that the blue states have just gotten too populous? Surely the reason that it’s becoming easier for trained professionals to find jobs in red states has something to do with there being a hell of a lot fewer trained professionals there already, right? In this day and age, every single business of any size is going to need some kind of IT staff, but in New York or California, there’s a much larger pool of potential staff than there are jobs. Anyone not at the very top of that pool is going to be screwed unless they move somewhere where the ratio is a little more forgiving. What does that have to do with the feasibility of the Republican economic model?

All this is just to say that I have a hard time believing that the causes here are as simple as Daryl and Justin are claiming.

I just want a job. I don’t want to move but I will.

I haven’t been posting here much lately (for some reason the site runs wonky on my office computer), but I remembered this thread and thought it was an appropriate place to mention that I’ll be bucking the trend and heading to Michigan in the fall. I’ll be going to law school at UM. Can’t say I’m likely to be sticking around too long after I graduate, but I’m actually kinda exciting to be heading back to a snowy, outdoorsy kinda state. Anyway, I guess I’ll be able to get some insight on the questions I posted upthread…