It’s common in Manhattan these days to hear people swear that they will be heading for Florida soon. If the data are any indication, it’s not all New York bluster: according to the Census Bureau, the Empire State lost 126,000 residents between July 2019 and July 2020, and the Sunshine State picked up 241,000. Out West, it’s a similar story, with California shrinking by 70,000 residents and Texas growing by 374,000. The pandemic has kicked America’s Great Reshuffle into overdrive.
Excessive taxation and overregulation are certainly part of what’s driving these trends, but there’s more to it. Plenty of people still want to live in cities like New York City and Los Angeles, for all their problems. The trouble is that New York and California’s cities have refused to build enough housing to accommodate all this demand over the past few decades, forcing millions to move elsewhere for reasonably priced accommodations.
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