Follow the Money: Where Americans Are Moving

If you want to know where people are moving from and to, Forbes.com has a handy dandy map that shows net population moves within the United States. It's interesting to see how places like Los Angeles and San Diego are losing population to other parts of the country (except that there's a net influx from the NY metro area), but Manhattan is seeing a net inflow. Yet, while Manhattan is seeing an influx, Staten Island, the Bronx, Queens, Nassau, Suffolk, Orange , Rockland, Passaic,  Essex, and Bergen Counties are all seeing losses. Brooklyn has a mixed flow.

Moreover, those losses are also showing that those leaving are taking with them higher paying jobs than the population coming to replace them.

That means a shrinking tax base.

These maps show that people are moving and taking their tax revenues with them and is correlative to the high tax burdens in major metropolitan areas like New York City, Los Angeles, or other areas that have long pursued tax and spend policies.

It's yet another reminder that the high tax burdens and tax and spend policies are sending those people who can afford to move away out of the state, increasing the tax burden on those that remain.

Detroit's map is indicative of what has happened:

That flight from Detroit has meant thousands of abandoned buildings and an inability to provide services for those residents who remain. The city's solution? Demolish thousands of buildings and return them to park land status or hope for some form of urban renewal (that wont come unless there's fundamental changes in the tax and spend nature of the local government). And even then, the local government can't get the job done right because they didn't take environmental concerns into account and started demolishing buildings without knowing whether there was asbestos present.