There is no question that California is an attractive place to live: beautiful weather, amazing coastline, glamorous jobs.
But because a lot of people want to live in the Golden State, the price of housing has skyrocketed -- pushing many people out. Those that were pushed out are ending up in Nevada, and in Las Vegas in particular.
A recent report by Applied Analysis found 4.9 people on average move to Las Vegas every hour, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal; of those people, 34 percent are from California.
State of Nevada recently partnered with KPCC's Air Tal k to ask why so many people are moving east to live the California Dream.
DISCUSSION HIGHLIGHTS:
Matt Levin: “It is not good news for the California Dream. It used to be that in the 60s and the 70s it took about three times a young families income to afford a home here. That was part of the lure of California that is why so many people moved here.
And nowadays, it takes about seven times as much a young household makes to afford a home here. And it’s kind of obvious why people are saying, ‘I’m going to look at Nevada, I’m going to look at Texas, I’m going to look at Washington and Arizona as an alternative to living here”
Joel Kotkin: There is a huge difference between the Bay Area and Southern California.
Essentially, Southern California has really had basically no increase in higher wage jobs. The vast majority of the job creation is at the lower end. So, obviously, with high housing prices, there is more pressure.
The most recent analysis of the census 2017 shows that out-migration is increasing out of Southern California, also out of San Jose and now San Francisco has turned negative as well. I think a big factor overall is this disequilibrium between low-wage jobs being created and very expensive housing. That I think is driving a lot of people out.
More importantly is the generational aspect. The group that we’re really getting clobbered in and we see this in Orange County and throughout Southern California, is 35 to 44, 35 to 54, in other words, people who are at that stage of life where they want to buy a house and start a family. That’s the group we’re really losing. And surprisingly, LA County has had the biggest drop in the number of children of any major metropolitan area.
Adam J. Fowler, director of research, Beacon Economics, Matt Levin, reporter covering housing for the nonprofit news site, CALmatters, and for the California Dream project; Joel Kotkin, Presidential Fellow in Urban Futures at Chapman University and executive director of the Center for Opportunity Urbanism; Gia DeSantis, DJ at NV89,
