Same basic story if you break it down by income levels.
Why is this? There are large classes of people who can't stand to live in the MAGAsphere, and I mean huge classes of people like females, people of color, homosexuals, and non-christians. Whenever these people scrape together enough money to do so, they escape to a jurisdiction that recognizes their personhood, whether that be New York, California, or Austin.
No one is leaving Democratic states to go to some hell-hole Republican area. They are leaving Democrat cities to live in OTHER Democrat cities, the only difference between cost of living. That's it, simple as that. It has nothing to do with "wokeness" etc. It's basically, Austin cheap, San Fran expensive.
Tons of people are moving to Arizona and Texas from the Midwest and California. Now these states are turning blue, but the policies that made them attractive to those people (less regulation, resulting in more housing built and more jobs) are definitely not “democrat” policies.
Go read that study by the government on internal US migration.
These “shackles” you’re talking about took me from someone who used to live in a ghetto to someone in the top 1%. The taxes are a small price to pay. Obsessing over marginal income tax rates is the wrong variable to optimize in life.
Do what you love, where you love, because it’s your passion, not because you can shave 3% off of your effective tax.
Most entrepreneurs don’t obsess over taxes, they’re focused on growth and solving problems, profit comes later.
The constant hyper focus on marginal tax rates is a form of bean counter myopia. It’s what you do when your company is effectively in maintenance mode and beholden to the bean counters on Wall Street, not when your trying to win your market space.
Wake me when Apple decides To move its HQ to a red state.
SpaceX and Tesla leaving CA are bigger loses, but they haven't left yet, and it's unclear he'll move them, other than opening up more plants elsewhere. Boca Chica/Austin might eventually become the new locus of new hiring for example, but the Dragon/Falcon business might remain in CA for example.
HP leaving is basically a zombie company leaving on life support, it would be like IBM or Kodak leaving.
The real power of the Bay Area is the startup economy, and I think it will be hard to dislodge that, just like it's hard to dislodge Shenzhen, because of the "nexus" effect, or chicken and egg as you mentioned. If all of your customers and workers, and supply chain, and investors are in one spot, as an entrepreneur, you're going to gravitate there, even if the costs are high.
I mean, you get can Silicon Hills, and Silicon Alleys elsewhere, but I don't think they'll overtake the Bay Area.
However, I could see Texas, Arizona, Nevada, becoming the "Mars Plateau" in the future. Realistically, Musk needs a coastal port for logistics, ability to mine resources, and a state that would be complicit in dealing with angry laborers or neighbors who don't like Sonic Booms going off all the time.
CA's just not going to let him run as roughshod as he wants, e.g. the worker safety and labor issues at his plants, the environmental impacts of what he's doing in Boca Chica, etc. That slows down his time schedule a lot, I don't blame him, he wants to get to Mars quick, but then again, if I were living near a Starship test area, I'd also be annoyed by all of the traffic, tourists, and explosions, so I don't object to him trying to get as far away from regulated residential areas as possible.
University graduates and skilled workers?
California and NYC were great great states, and after decades of democrat governments, companies decide to move thousands of kilometers so they can leave these states in favor of Republican states.
There's so many of individual decisions along these lines.
YEt, I am not aware of anyone leaving a red state to live under the woke shackles.