Writing in
The Atlantic, Derek Thompson asks (and answers)
the question "How America Lost Its Mojo." By this he means the following:
Americans today are strangely averse to change. They are less likely to switch jobs, or move between states, or create new companies than they were 30 years ago.
Thompson examines a variety of possible causes, including the aging population and the shift to tech jobs, but concludes the real reason is ... wait for it ... stratospheric housing costs in the most productive cities. He observes:
If labor markets were operating efficiently, workers would be moving to where their work was most valuable. Instead, the opposite is happening. People aren’t moving toward productivity. They’re moving toward cheap housing.
Whereas the middle class used to move toward productivity and jobs, (snip) they’re now barricaded from the most productive places by housing costs. So they’re moving toward cheap housing, instead. Tighter land-use regulations in rich metros pushed up housing values.
As an economist, Thompson completely ignores geographic sorting by political orientation as a reason people are moving to places with cheaper housing costs. Those tend to be the so-called "red states" which is to say, places that often elect Republicans. Places with high housing costs tend to be in "blue states" like NY, CA, CN, IL, where Democrats normally dominate local and statewide offices. He also omits considering "white flight" as a factor.
