A poll released on June 3 by the Bay Area Council — a business-sponsored, public policy advocacy organization for the San Francisco Bay area — revealed that 46 percent of Bay Area residents surveyed said they are likely to move out of the area in the next few years. The figures show an increasing number of Bay area residents signaling their intentions to abandon the region, rising from 40 percent last year and 34 percent in 2016.
Those conducting the survey attribute the exodus to the cost of housing, which has risen out of reach for all but the most affluent residents. The pollsters concluded that workers who want a better quality of life, but who cannot find housing they can afford in the Bay area will go elsewhere.
“They couldn’t be more clear what the big problems are — and it is exclusively about the cost of housing,” John Grubb, chief operating officer for the Bay Area Council, was quoted as saying by Mercury News. “They don’t see … enough action coming, and so they’re looking at taking matters into their own hands. And unfortunately, what they’re going to take into their hands is the steering wheel of a U-Haul to go somewhere else where there’s a better combination of salary and lower housing costs.”
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The survey indicated that only one-quarter of those intending to leave the Bay area plan to stay in California, reported San Francisco Business Times.
Sixty-one percent said they would relocate outside California, with 10 percent considering Texas. Oregon, Nevada, and Arizona were also mentioned as potential destinations. Six percent said they want to go anywhere that was affordable and had lower taxes.
This trend was noted in an article in The New American back in 2012. That report quoted economist Mark Perry, who wrote:
The American people and businesses are voting with their feet and their one-way truck rentals to escape California and its forced unionism, high taxes, and high unemployment rate for a better life in low-tax, business-friendly, right-to-work states like Texas.
Photo: U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Digital Visual Library
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