This article appears as part of a special issue of The American Prospect magazine on state policy divergence and aggression. Subscribe here.
In 2030, political power may shift to the South. Based on the Census Bureau’s population estimates, early projections show California losing four congressional seats and New York three, while Texas would gain four seats and Florida three.
Over the past two decades, the South grew at a much faster rate than the Northeast. Even though Republican states have been criticized for abortion bans, neglected public education systems, and weak social welfare policies, this growth largely comes from domestic migration. Many Americans are packing up and leaving blue states for red ones to beat soaring housing costs.
A record number of Americans cannot afford their rents, homelessness has reached historic levels, and rural locales and smaller communities outside major metro areas can be expensive as well. Home affordability is a national crisis, and blue states and blue cities have been especially hard-hit. Longtime residents can’t find homes in their price ranges, and the high prices put off potential newcomers. To attract people and claw back political power, blue states must fix their housing policies.
The reasons for migration fall into three categories: housing, jobs, and family. While employment rates have returned to pre-pandemic levels across the U.S., housing prices have continued to increase in most areas. A National Association of Realtors economist found an inverse relationship between the number of jobs created in a state and its net domestic migration in 2022. (Texas and Florida, however, both have high job creation rates and increasing numbers of new transplants.) People also continue to flee blue states with high median property values, even when those states boast healthy numbers of new job openings.
California has experienced population losses across nearly all demographic and socioeconomic groups, including college graduates, a group that typically flocks to blue states. And, since 2014, 700,000 Californians have attributed their departures to the state’s exorbitant housing prices. Texas is the top destination for Golden State transplants.
“The people who are moving out of California just recently were, by and large, people at the lower and moderate incomes,” explains Eric McGhee, a senior fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC), “and that really gives you a signal that they’re having trouble affording living in California.” In PPIC’s recent statewide survey, 53 percent of the people polled said housing costs are a financial strain. When people leave California for a new state, about half of them buy a house—only a third of the new arrivals do so.
According to the Albany-based Fiscal Policy Institute (FPI), over a third of the households leaving New York do so to find affordable housing. Families with young children are especially likely to move. And, while Republicans have criticized blue states’ high tax rates, the average family that departs saves 15 times more on housing than on taxes in their new state.
“We do think that it’s indicative of a pretty serious policy failure that so many young and working-class families can’t afford to make it in New York,” says Andrew Perry, an FPI senior policy analyst. An FPI analysis found that while Florida, the top destination for those leaving New York, permitted an average of 6.9 new housing units for every 1,000 residents from 2014 to 2023, New York permitted only 2.1 new units. Over that same period, peer states such as New Jersey and California added only slightly more housing, permitting 3.3 and 2.7 new units, respectively.
Blue states and cities have historically had “more of a taste for regulation,” which has “stymied development over the past 50 years,” explains Riordan Frost, a senior research analyst at Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies.
Fresh approaches have met with mixed success. Last year, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) proposed a slew of housing proposals, including housing construction mandates. However, state lawmakers and local leaders torpedoed the plan. This year, the governor advanced a more conservative approach, trading in mandates for tax incentives and zoning reforms. A New York State Assembly member has also proposed a new state housing authority to create social housing—publicly controlled, affordable housing that is available to all.
California abolished single-family-only zoning in 2021, but in April a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge ruled the plan unconstitutional, arguing that it unfairly imposed on local authority. California Attorney General Rob Bonta has appealed the ruling.
In August, Massachusetts authorized billions to facilitate the construction or restoration of 65,000 housing units, direct $2.2 billion to public housing, and establish a permanent fund to spur the development of mixed-income, multifamily housing.
Blue states must also ensure that new—and smaller—single-family homes and multifamily units come in at price points that the middle class can afford. Bold policies that confront these housing crises head-on could stanch the political hemorrhaging and give blue-state residents the option to stay in the places they’ve called home.
