Are you fleeing your state?

No. My state is experiencing population growth: “Between 2010 and 2035, Virginia’s population will grow by about one third from slightly more than 8 million to approximately 10.9 million.”

source

Mass migration! Everyone out of those states! Go go go!
No I don’t plan on fleeing my state, not for at least another 4 years.

I’m just fleeing the New England winter, but I’ll be back!

Nah. same as @marinelife my state is growing ever so slowly. Its estimated that 1.1 million people will live in Montana by 2025.

I live in TN, and although there are some things I really like about living here, if the south broke away from the rest of the union I would get out of Dodge so fast people’s head would spin. LOL.

I would go back to FL in a second (I just have to hope that Southeast FL is maintained by the north).

Honestly, my husband and I are almost always willing to move if he has a great job opportunty, almost anywhere. Almost anywhere in the world that is reasonbly safe. But, we are not fleeing TN. For now it’s fine.

When I moved to FL back in 1990 I took the autotrain, and several people I spoke to on the train were going down there to find work.

No, Oregon is not on the list but I’m leaving. Taking a job elsewhere. Nothing personal, Oregonians.

California is expensive BUT..it is also one of the most diverse and beautiful states anywhere.

I was close to moving to Costa Rica a few years ago but, I love the Golden State!

Hey – New Jersey rocks. Problems? Fuggeditaboutit! I’m going to be the one to turn the lights off.

@Coloma

Northern CA is such a different world than Southern… I love most of Northern CA. Can’t say the same for southern CA.

We are leaving, as soon as we can sell our house.

I am going back to my birthplace- the Pacific Northwest (specifically, to land we own in a little town- La Center, WA- 16 mi, north of Portland, OR) . I can’t wait.

@crisw

Yes, I agree. SoCal is not my cup o’ tea at all. lol

I love the Sierras and foothills of such where I live.

I never get tired of the peace and beauty.

I am planning a road trip to Yellowstone next summer and want to come home through Idaho & Washington, two states I have never fully explored.

Good luck with your relocation, exciting! :-)

It would take a lot for me to leave beautiful, sunny So. Cal. I doubt I’ll ever leave.

Nope. North Carolina keeps growing at a disturbing rate.

No, I love Southwestern Ohio.

Well I will be leaving ohio in six months (no. 3) but not because I dislike my state.

Does the article influence any of you to now consider moving from your state?

Surprisingly my state is not on the list. I really thought it would be. If I don’t find work here soon, then I’ll be leaving. Either to Kentucky or South Carolina.

Kind of. Kansas is on that list and we will definitely be moving to some other state sometime in 2011, but we don’t know where for sure yet. Kansas isn’t really our state, it’s just were the Army has us stationed at for the time being though. It’s not to bad, but I can’t wait to get away from the Kansas wind.

Not leaving yet… the kind voters of Washington State once again kept us Income Tax free

@mrlaconic

That will be one of the benefits of living where we will- no income tax in WA and no sales tax in OR!

I’m not, but not by choice. And mine isn’t high up on the list.

I’m planning to leave TN in 2011 in order to move to England to be with my SO. As @JLeslie alluded about the state, it has its pros and cons. It’s really cheap, but is behind the times in my mind. If I hadn’t had an excellent job here, I would have moved on long ago.

@Pied_Pfeffer I met someone new a couple of days ago and in our conversation we touched on some political items and she was for social medicine, and hates this deal Obama just made on taxes, so there are some of us around town. She lived over seas for a while, and her parents were from the Northeast, but she was born in the south.

We live in So Cal and I’d like to move to Eugene, OR some day.
CA isn’t on the list, but it would be nice if about 10 million people left the LA metro area, including us.

This is a semi-arid environment and there isn’t nearly enough precipitation or water here or in the Owens river valley to support that many people.

Thanks to the disastrously myopic vision of William Mulholland and others, the LA area almost drained our wondrous Mono Lake dry.

Thanks to the protests of the Sierra Club and others, out flow from the Eastern Sierra Nevada mountains has been reverted to the Lake.

I live in one of those states. I sold my house during my divorce. I currently rent a condo. I can do my business anywhere. My state has ridiculous state taxes, and I have been gearing up to to move. We recently elected a new governor. I will see what happens before I pull the trigger. But if my state taxes do not go down in two years, I will be gone.

I totally understand why people leave Ohio. It is a red state that alternately accepts/hates gay folks. Some part of the state are better than others. But lake effect now paralyzes a big chunk of the state (where county commissioners are seen being led away in handcuffs) and then there is ultra-conservative Cincinnati (pig capital of the world apparently).

Already done. I left the horrid, hated snows of Colorado, where I grew up, for the sunny beaches of California and never regretted it for one minute. Hubby’s company relocated us to the central valley, but we visit the beach several times a year.

@Brian1946

Yay! Save Mono Lake.
My family has supported that lake for years! :-)

I just did, but it’s not one on the list. Also, I just moved over the border, like less than ten miles.

@incendiary_dan Over which border?

RI to MA

@crisw Trust me… Our property taxes make up for our lack of sales tax… Although, if I ever left, I would probably come back, too. We get a lot of rain, but practically nowhere beats our environment.

@DrasticDreamer

Yeah, but that’s why live in WA, shop in OR :>)

I already live in the best state.

California pride!

@Kayak8 So you think just because a majority of the people there tend to be more conservative than liberal and vote republican more often than democrat that it makes it a terrible state? Just because its population doesn’t agree with every liberal view in existance doesn’t make it a bad place to live. I have lived here my whole life and I am proud of Ohio. I love it here and the greater cincinnati area is my home. This country is so devided.

@Mikewlf337

“Just because its population doesn’t agree with every liberal view in existance doesn’t make it a bad place to live.”

That really depends on who you are, doesn’t it? Life can be pretty hard in a state like say, Wyoming, if you are, say Mathew Shepard.

@incendiary_dan Oh. Hahaha. I’m thinking Mexico or Canada. Lol.

I wouldn’t have mined building a little bungalo in a grove of banana trees in the mountains of Taiwan last year.

I could do banana tree, treehouse quite easily, except for the Banded Krait, Bamboo viper and Chinese Cobra factor! lol

@crisw All of Wyoming didn’t murder Matthew Shepard. Not everyone in that state is homophobic. California did vote for prop 8 so I guess the blue state California is just as homophobic.

@Mikewlf337 There’s a difference between being “homophobic” and not agreeing with something. The state of California has people who do not agree with gay marriage, that does not mean that they hate gay people, it just means that they do not agree with gay marriage. You’re making a huge leap from one idea to the other and they just don’t connect, even if you’re trying to prove that people in Wyoming aren’t all homophobic… it just doesn’t work.

My state is #2 on the list. I love it here. It’s home.

Not fleeing.

@klutzaroo she judged Wyoming because of one murder of a homosexual commited by a person living in the state. In turn I judged California for the majority vote to ban gay marriage.

@Mikewlf337 Do you think that the one incident is the only thing she was basing her opinion on? Do you know that for sure? That she has nothing more than that to base her evaluation of the population of the state’s lack of tolerance for homosexuals? I don’t think so. She may very well have knowledge of other incidents that reinforce her opinion and statements.

@klutzaroo She was talking about the state. Read her post and you will see that.

@Mikewlf337 and others

My point still stands. Matthew Shepard is but a symbol of a broader malaise. But, if you want more specifics on Wyoming-

Wyoming Suicide Facts

• 4th highest suicide rate nationally (1999‐2006) at 19.20 per 100,000
• ⅔ of Wyoming citizens believe treatment for suicidal thoughts is socially stigmatizing
• Led nation in 2002, 2003 & 2006
• Nation’s highest rate of household gun ownership (59.7%)
• 65.7% of suicide deaths were by firearm
• 3rd highest rate nationally for youth ages 15‐24 (1999‐2006) at 20.73
• 2nd leading cause of death for Wyoming youth (after auto accidents)

The population of Wyoming is 93.5% white

There are only two abortion providers in the entire state of Wyoming.

Wyoming is the most conservative state in the Nation.

In 2004, Wyoming had the third-highest divorce rate nationwide.

The teen pregnancy rate in Wyomng in on the rise due to “lack of attention toward children’s issues”

Over 70% of Wyoming residents oppose gay marriage and almost half oppose abortion.

So that’s a start.

By the way, I am not doing this to specifically bash Wyoming. I am dong this to show that there is a difference between attitudes in various states. Not all states are alike. And not all states are equally welcoming to all members of their population. If you’re a gay black male in Wyoming, you are going to have a much more difficult life than in Washington.

@crisw and your point being? What does suicide rates have to do with being conservative? Oh I know how you are going to answer this. Because we own guns. Yes I am a gun owning conservative. I have them to protect my family and for hunting. Cops don’t show up immediately when someone is attacking you or the ones you love. Of course suicide by firearm is easier but the ones who are suicidal would find another means to kill themselves if they didn’t have a gun. quite easy to kill yourself by poisoning or hanging yourself.
Wyoming is 95% white, SOOOOOO???? I guess being white is a bad thing. I know plenty of white liberals and black conservatives and vice versa.
there are only 2 abortion clinics in Wyoming. Thats because most conservatives are against abortion and therefore not many abortion clinics. The lack of abortion supporters doesn’t make wyoming a bad state.
Liberals and Coservatives both get divorces at a high rate.
Teen pregnacy is not because of conservativism. Teen pregnancy is because teenagers tend to have unprotected sex.

@Mikewlf337

“and your point being?”

I stated it, rather clearly, in the last paragraph of my post. You are spending far too much time defending conservatism and very little actually absorbing what I wrote. What you are saying only strengthens my point- not all states are equally likely to welcome all people.

I do have to address, though, your statement that “Teen pregnancy is not because of conservatism.” Read the article I linked to for the divorce stats. It is a fascinating explanation of exactly why the teen pregnancy rate is much higher in the red states. And it’s directly due to conservative attitudes.

@crisw You don’t think some communities are more accepting of gay people than others? You don’t think Christian communities that constantly speak out against the gay lifestyle, and gay marriage, does not affect the young people in the community who are still trying to understand themselves like every teen in America? You don’t think not educating teens about sex and birth control is not a problem related to teen pregnancy? Have you seen how many fluther questions there are from young people who are incredibly clueless about sex, pregnancy, their own bodies, and birth control?

I am not picking on the state of Wyoming, because what matters most is probably individal communities, and there are blue communities in red states, and vice versa. But, I have to agree that very conservative social values can lead to some of the things cited above. IMO.

Now, the link provided about teens having babies is not clear enough about teen pregnancy, so I am not sure Wyoming is statistically higher in teen pregnancy, since we can assume probably not many abortions are happening there, teen pregnancy might not be higher there than the national average.

@JLeslie

Although there may be local variations in tolerance in an otherwise intolerant state, there are other factors to consider, such as legislative policies, that will affect the entire state and all of its residents. For example, even if you live in a relatively tolerant town in Florida, if you are gay you cannot adopt a child, cannot get married, and aren’t protected from workplace discrimination.

@crisw It is arrogant of you to think I should absorb what you say. Opinion are like a certain body part and everyone has one. You can scour the web for links that support your claims and there will always be something out there to challenge you. The reason I don’t post them is because I don’t spend hours searching for them just to argue with you. I don’t have to prove anything to you.

@crisw I lived in FL for many years. It is very dissappointing to me that it took them so long to allow gay adoption (I believe it became legal about a year ago) and that gay marriage remains illegal. FL is still the south from about Orlando and North. It is not surprising that it is a swing state. Southeast FL, the Gold Coast is very blue, due to the migration of all of those northeasterners moving down, but even northern points in Palm Beach county, like Tequesta, are very heavily evangelical. FL is a perfect example of how it is really about the specific community you live in, and not the color of the electoral map necessarily.

30 years ago friends of mine moved to west Broward from NY. Their children came home from public school singing Jesus loves me. They could not believe it! They thought what the hell have they done? Boca Raton Resort used to not allow Jews. Hahaha. That is laughable. Boca Raton as a city is soooo Jewish in feel. 30% of houseolds in Boca have at least one Jewish person last I looked at stats. Approximately 25% of the population there is Jewish. 1 in 3 homes on Palm Beach, a few years ago, was sold to someone who was Jewish (not sure now with the housing bust). Palm Beach was Christian (not including the Catholics when I say Christian for this conversation) central for many many years. Many counties in FL have changed drastically in demographics and psychographics, and the politics lag behind. There is also that tricky thing in Miami-Dade that the majority of Cubans are Republicans, which I think is ridiculous, but that is a different story. The very religious Hispanics from Latin America tend to lean Republican and conservative on social issues, but I would say Hispanics, who are not Cuban, are probably split blue and red fairly evenly. I have no stats on that, just my feeling.

@Mikewlf337 If its arrogant of other people to expect you to absorb what they say, why should anyone else absorb and so on what you say? Conversation and debate are based on listening to what others say and learning from it or not learning from it, but listening to information presented. Thinking that people should listen to you without listening to what other people say is… being a conservative. Symptomatic of the larger problem with the group.

If I were any more liberal, I wouldn’t be able to live in my state. If I had just a little more religion shoved down my throat, I’d hurl. There are typical and atypical people in every single state. I’m one of the completely atypical people from my state. Does that tell anyone anything about states/areas in general?

@klutzaroo I never said that anyone should absorb what I say. I’m not arrogant. I don’t give a crap how liberal you are. I do give a crap when liberals try to change me. It is also very biased to say this state or that state is a crap hole because its conservative. I don’t think California is a craphole. I think the people in there are ruining the “do your own thing” lifestyle to “Have it our way” lifestyle.

I love my state and we just grew enough to gain more political clout. Utah is the greatest state in the US. Smile Though I could live in Oregon or Washington and really enjoy it somewhere along the coast.