Another study confirms Californians are packing up and moving out. Where are they going?
U-Haul, the national rental truck company, is providing yet more evidence that California is dropping in popularity as a place to live, even as Sacramento is gaining ground as a COVID-19 era landing spot.
The company’s annual migration analysis ranks California last among states in net migration to and from other states. Put another way, California lost more residents to other states than any other state, as measured by “one-way” U-Haul trucks crossing state lines.
Tennessee saw the biggest net influx nationally, followed by Texas and Florida.
At the same time, though, the Sacramento region ranked as the 11th most popular area in the country for U-Haul moving truck arrivals, ranking behind only Surprise, Ariz. and St. George, Utah among “go-to” areas in the western United States.
Redding was the only other California city to make the list, in 16th place.
The U-Haul data represent do-it-yourself movers, not all people who moved. The data show that people are moving into California from others states as well, just not as many as are leaving.
The company’s data, however, does corroborate a slew of other recent data that suggest California, particular the urban coast, is no longer a growth area. California’s annual Department of Finance population numbers last month showed that state growth had essentially stalled for the first time in modern history.
Overall, some 200,000 more people left the state than moved here in that time period, July 2019 to end of June 2020, according to the finance department’s demographics unit.
Sacramento, Placer and Yolo counties, however, grew in population during that same period, according to the state. El Dorado in fact had the largest percentage growth in the state at 1.7%.
The U-Haul analysis suggests that the Sacramento region’s population growth during the pandemic came at the expense mainly of the Bay Area, where housing costs are among the highest in the country.
According to U-Haul, the top landing sites for people leaving the Bay Area were Sacramento, San Diego and Stockton. Outside of California, the top destinations were Reno, Las Vegas, Portland, Phoenix and Seattle.
The new numbers serve as a warning to California policymakers.
“This data should focus public attention on problems with housing costs and the state’s business climate,” said economic Jeffrey Michael, head of the Center for Business and Policy Research at the University of the Pacific in Stockton. “Policy-makers need to take greater account of this trend in financial and infrastructure planning.”
State officials said the latest population numbers may have been affected by the early stages of the COVID-19 shutdown.
“While domestic out-migration continued along previous trends, domestic in-migration seemed to slow in 2019-20, especially from April to June when the stay-at-home order was in effect,” the state Department of Finance said in a statement in December, after initial population statistics for 2020 were published.
State officials said California remains a desirable place to live.
“There is still strong demand to live in the state, as evidenced by the record high home prices reached this year, and hundreds of thousands of people – disproportionately ones with higher incomes – who are willing to continue to put down roots in the state,” the finance department said in its statement.
This story was originally published January 4, 2021 at 2:57 PM with the headline "Another study confirms Californians are packing up and moving out. Where are they going?."