Migration

The broader concept of population movement across geographies, tied in Kyle’s notes to economic opportunity and cost of living. Its main grounding is the California Diaspora page, which frames the outflow from California as one instance of a “larger diaspora from high-COL to low-COL places” — people leaving expensive metros for cheaper ones. That page surfaces a notable side effect: blue-state residents moving to red states turn them into swing states, with the asymmetry driven by highly-educated people moving into California while younger, lower-income people leave. Migration sits alongside City Building in this cluster, since housing costs and city affordability are treated as central drivers of where people move.

Context: Migration is the movement of people from one place to another, whether across borders (immigration/emigration) or within a country (internal migration); economists commonly model it as a response to differences in wages, housing costs, and opportunity between regions.

Where this appears

• California Diaspora — the outflow from California as one case of broader high-cost-to-low-cost migration, with downstream effects on state politics.