Edward Glaeser and David Cutler write at The Wall Street Journal that the engine of American migration has been grinding to a halt thanks to rising home prices…(WSJ)
- Start from the beginning. Migration has been central to the American story since the beginning “In the early 19th century, New Englanders left the rocky soil of Massachusetts for the more fertile Ohio River valley. During the Dust Bowl of the 1930s, farmers fled Oklahoma for California.”
- Change is afoot. In every year between 1950 and 1992 more than 6% of Americans moved across county lines. However, “since 2007, geographic mobility has dropped by one-third, with fewer than 4% of Americans changing counties annually”
- Why is this happening? Those in power are rigging the game to make their lives better at the expense of everyone else. “In the most prosperous cities and regions, insiders have figured out how to use regulations, laws and institutions to make life easier for themselves and harder for everyone else.”
Silicon Valley is probably the best example of this problem. The four-county region grew by only 6.5% between 2010 and 2020, below the average growth rate for large counties…
