California exodus

[14] A 1995 study published in Geographical Review attributed various causes for mass emigration from California:[15] Military base closures, businesses abandoning a state regarded as overregulated and tax-unfriendly, and growing unease about the attainability of an idyllic life along the Pacific Slope began a trend that has gained volume and velocity.

By late 1992 quality-of-life surveys found residents' perceptions of California had reached an all-time low, with only 30 percent considering the state "one of the best places to live".

Population growth slowed in the mid-1990s as the federal government cut aerospace spending after the end of the Cold War, and again after the Great Recession.

[27] The exodus increased in 2021,[28] when more than 360,000 people moved out of California, especially going to states like Texas, Arizona, Washington, Idaho, and Utah.

[6][28][30] Kenneth P. Miller said in 2022 that taxes, as well as rising costs on housing, food, and other needs and wants, are the biggest reason for Californians leaving the state.

[40] In a December 2020 column for the Los Angeles Times, journalist Michael Hiltzik argued that California's slowing population growth was a cause for concern but not a full-blown crisis.

Hiltzik quoted demographer Hank Johnson from the Public Policy Institute of California as saying that recent data "is just an incremental change from what we've been seeing over a couple of decades."

Hiltzik instead says that a lack of affordable housing is California's main problem, as it has pushed young people out of the state, and that concerns about over-regulation are being exaggerated.

Some of the largest businesses that have announced moving their headquarters include Charles Schwab, Oracle, Palantir, and Hewlett Packard Enterprise.

[41] Though they have moved to a variety of other states, Texas has received many of the new headquarters, including those of Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Oracle.

[43] Frustrated by California's Covid-19 lockdown policies, Tesla relocated its headquarters to Austin, Texas in 2020 next to the company's gigafactory.

[55] San Francisco is suffering from the opioid crisis, with the second highest rate of drug deaths of any large city in the country.

[57] Following the COVID-19 pandemic, many tech workers have embraced remote work, causing about a third of the commercial real estate in downtown San Francisco to be empty.

[59] Some observers have theorized that San Francisco could enter a "doom loop", with the downtown portion of the city having only 32% of the cell phone activity as pre-pandemic levels.