Maybe Not Altogether

April 24, 2006
8:20 AM CST

I tend to agree with Alan Gottlieb of the Second Amendment Foundation more than I disagree with him, but this is one of those times.

The whole thing started with this article (which shows that America is fleeing the big cities of LA, NYC and Chicago):

Americans are leaving the nation’s big cities in search of cheaper homes and open spaces farther out.

Nearly every large metropolitan area had more people move out than move in from 2000 to 2004, with a few exceptions in the South and Southwest, according to a report being released Thursday by the Census Bureau.

Northeasterners are moving South and West. West Coast residents are moving inland. Midwesterners are chasing better job markets. And just about everywhere, people are escaping to the outer suburbs, also known as exurbs.

Gottlieb claims that this is because people in cities have to deal with stringent gun control laws:

“This is no mystery,” said SAF founder Alan Gottlieb. “Those states are infamous for their anti-gun attitudes. Countless times have we heard from people who have moved from those states because they wanted to escape the Draconian gun laws.

“The Census Bureau reports that New York City, Chicago and Los Angeles lost the most residents between 2000 and 2004,” Gottlieb continued. “Anti-gun politicians and their restrictive gun laws have made it virtually impossible for average law-abiding citizens to get a concealed pistol license in Los Angeles or New York City. In Chicago, you can’t own an unregistered handgun, and they no longer register handguns.”

Well, maybe that’s a contributory factor, but it’s not the main one. Let me try to guess the big ones:

• Outrageous housing costs. For what you pay for a 2-bedroom condo in NYC, you can buy a 3,000sq.ft. house in Phoenix or St. Petersburg. Sell your 3BR 2BA bungalow in Los Angeles, and buy the house of your dreams in Houston or even Santa Fe.
• Taxes. No income tax in Texas, vs. state and city taxes in NYC, plus frightening property taxes by comparison (and let me tell you, Dallas-area property taxes are steep, Bubba).
• Telecommuting. As more and more people can work from home, there’s little need to live in the city.
• Weather. NYC, Boston and Chicago’s winter weather is a major turnoff for many, hence the attraction for Atlanta, St, Pete and Arizona. LA has almost perfect weather, but then there’s that earthquake thing, and housing prices, and taxes, and...
• Crime. Mean streets vs. suburban idylls; crappy, dangerous city public schools vs. crappy but safe suburban public schools; gangs vs. no gangs. The suburbs are not Eden, but compared to the city, they are for many people.

The bright-lights big-city propaganda spiel has broken down, possibly forever, and it’s going to take a major rethink on the part of the city managers to reverse the flow.

In my family’s particular case, only one of the issues is guns. If Chicago wasn’t so hard-ass about gun ownership, though, it would be far more likely to attract us back there. We loved living in the city—actually, on the North Shore—and all things being equal, we’d move back in a heartbeat. Unfortunately, all things will never be equal. Illinois is a basket case, and Chicago a cesspit, politically speaking, so the chances of us ever moving back are very slim to nada. And the taxes… oy. Plus, the thought of being represented in the House by Jan Schakowski (Soc) and in the Senate by Dick Durbin/Barack Obama, and having as our mayor Hizzoner Richard Daley… nah, we’re never going back. What a bunch of slimeballs. And the people of Illinois elected those people—so you can see why we’re not going there except to visit, maybe.

And I bet the same things are being said by people who have left New York, and Boston, and Detroit, and Philadelphia, and Baltimore, and all the rest of the Blue State Archipelago.

Sure, guns are an issue with many. But the antipathy towards guns is just another manifestation of how the governments of those places view the population.

To quote State Rep. Suzanna Gratia Hupp of Texas:

“How a politician stands on the Second Amendment tells you how he or she views you as an individual… as a trustworthy and productive citizen, or as part of an unruly crowd that needs to be lorded over, controlled, supervised, and taken care of.”

If there’s a better description of big-city government attitude than the latter part of that statement, I haven’t thought of it yet.

Comments

Bottom of Comments | Original Post

Firearms are like a vulcan mind meld for politicians ... if he wants to disarm you, he is basically a little control freak, and you should return the favor by not trusting him with an elected position.

Author ID: 1358 | 4/24/2006 08:38 AM CST | #61780


Kim,
I suspect you’re right, that the gun issue is only a small part of the overall problem.  In fact a lot of the folks who are leaving the cities will be bringing their anti-gun ideas WITH them, so places that are now nice, gun-wise, better be very very careful.

Author ID: 5213 | 4/24/2006 08:40 AM CST | #61782


Amen, Brutuh!  Well said.

Author ID: 6848 | 4/24/2006 08:42 AM CST | #61783


And I don’t think the gasoline prices will reverse this trend to the exurbs.  $4 or $5 a gallon for gasoline will be a minor inconvience when compared to housing prices, taxes, and crime.

It used to be a convenience to live in the city, but then, you used to be able to visit a city park - or even walk through your neighborhood at night, too.  Those days are gone forever.

You can still go for a walk after dark in the exurbs.

Author ID: 7407 | 4/24/2006 08:45 AM CST | #61784


I agree that the bright lights schtick has broken, and possibly more than we’ve discussed.

It seems to me that that rationale for the raison d’etre of a megalopolis has been severely eroded and undermined.

The huge cities of our day largely exist on accretion and the momentum they gained during the industrial revolution. Enough energy is injected into the system to keep it limping along, but I’m not aware of any fundamentally new megalopolises that have gone up outside the 3rd world in the last 50 years.

If we ever get the chance to do it over, I’d argue that there’s no need to build a city larger than say, 100k people. You get much bigger than that, and the perversions of population density hit their own self sustaining critical mass.

In other words, all things considered, I’m not convinced that there’s a strong economic reason to have huge cities, and I think that both individually and as a society, we’d be better off with a system of widely distributed microcities surrounded by suburbs, which are in turn surrounded by agricultural or wild spaces.

Of course, it’s always easier to design a system from scratch with a clean board than to design a system AND the transition from current state to desired state, which is engineering notation for “my pipe dream ain’t gonna happen short of nuclear warfare and sociological reboot”.  Given that as an apparent prerequisite, I guess we’ll prefer to limp along.

Author ID: 188 | 4/24/2006 09:06 AM CST | #61786


geek, re: engineer-speak:
Don’t I know it!
also cue: Jared Diamond, on optimal social fragmentation.
100K population seems to be a good arbitrary number.

I agree with Kim (shocker!), and particulary Ms. Gratia.
The gun issue is a convenient shorthand for all the other things wrong about our cities.  The older I get, the worse it grates on me.  My own escape is in the plotting stage as we speak.

Author ID: 6572 | 4/24/2006 09:34 AM CST | #61787


I agree with Kim (and the others here) who view the larger picture rather than one focused on guns alone.

Politicans like big cities, it’s more votes and easier to control the masses - many of their citizens come to RELY on the government because the also feel there’s safety in numbers even though that safety is an illusion.  Hence, they no longer feel the need to protect themselves (the police will come protect me) so we don’t need any ICKY GUNS.

People leaving the cities are doing so to get away from so much government intervention/influence/meddling/intrusion of privacy, etc., and welcome the freedom.  However, some can’t seem to shake their big-city ways and want to bring some of it with them.  Instead of moving into an area and adapting to that area, they immediately want to change the area to those things they liked from the city.  Sime people are intimidated by too much freedom and feel lost without the government telling them what they can and can’t do.

Gotta’ watch those anti-gun attitudes when people move away from the cities.

Author ID: 2187 | 4/24/2006 11:03 AM CST | #61794


The full impact of this won’t be known until the next census, and seats in the House are reapportioned, enough people leave and blue state political influence at the national level will decrease.  I hope that’s the way it works out.

Author ID: 2868 | 4/24/2006 12:22 PM CST | #61803


A few things to comment on
1. Obama got elected by the people of Illinois
even tho this is technically correct I think you will find they were elected by the people of the LARGER cities in Illinois. Most of the downstate is staunchly republican. Along with the fact that the republicans decided not to run against him

2 Gun control is driving people out.
I seriously doubt gun control is as much of a factor in moving out as it is in not moving in.

3. I think the reason that a lot of people are leaving the cities is the taxes on corporations. There are few land intensive (manufacturing, warehousing) companies in the cities because the taxes have driven them out, no job in the city no need for workers in the city. In the suburbs and rural areas you get a much closer ratio of taxes vs municipal services partly because of a higher percentage of tax payers vs non-taxpayers (unemployed, welfare, homeless and just plain not working)

4 As far as the expense of taxes I think you will find that for the same house (not condo, cooperative) in LA, Boston, Chicago, Barstow, Carson City, Roswell, Maine woods, or Adirondacks the dollar value of taxes is amazingly consistant. The dollar cost of the dwelling and land is where the BIG difference is.

The biggest concern I believe is in the quality of life, the feeling of being part of a community instead of a warehouse.

Author ID: 7935 | 4/24/2006 01:41 PM CST | #61810


Regarding the weather, well, I’m sure there is some truth to it.  But as Bruce of Mass Backwards put it, weather doesn’t explain why MA is losing population and the upper New England states are gaining.

Author ID: 6518 | 4/24/2006 02:49 PM CST | #61819


I dunno, I think blue staters moving to red states is watering down the red states.  Colorado’s legislature got taken over by the Democrats the last election, I blame Californians moving in.

Author ID: 1185 | 4/24/2006 03:15 PM CST | #61822


I agree-except for one thing. Suburbs often have a gang problem. I’m about an hour outside of NYC. The several small towns I live and work in are sort of viewed together as one large town. There are city-esque places, as well as backwoodsy places within a 10 minute drive of one another. Many gangs from the city that are well know, such as the Bloods, Crips, and Latin Kings have spread to occupy the burbs. Many smaller less-known gangs have formed.

There have been multiple gang battles in my school that have resulted in ambulances being called, and consequently, myself being called from class to assist. There have been all kinds of shootings and stabbings in the area. For a small group of towns, we have a big gang problem and alot of violent crime. I do not walk my streets unarmed. It wouldn’t be safe. My quiet, small-town ambulance corps is even considering an investment in bullet proof vests, if we can get the funding.

Author ID: 5976 | 4/24/2006 03:32 PM CST | #61824


Philadelphia has been losing people for quite some time; really since the bottom fell out of textiles (a major Philly industry).  Gun control hasn’t got much to do with the depopulation, because as far as I know (I could be wrong), the gun laws here aren’t too strict.  Out of 1.5 million people in the city, 28,000 have concealed carry permits.  This sounds small until you consider that a. Philly is 80% Democrat, and b. NYC has 4 times the population and only 16,000 such permits.  Really, the problem is that Philadelphia has a serious crime problem (the Italian mob has been replaced by the Russian mob and there is much petty crime), the job market is bad, the municipal government is run by people who practically redefine the term corruption, and the public schools are terrible.

Author ID: 7635 | 4/24/2006 08:03 PM CST | #61837


Rep. Hupp’s comment carries extra resonance with me because she speaks from personal experience:

http://www.house.state.tx.us/members/dist54/bio/hupp.htm

llater,

llamas

Author ID: 7419 | 4/25/2006 05:51 AM CST | #61856


I voted with my feet in 1983 and left Austintatious.  WRT city government, the inmates had taken over the asylum.  Taxes and fees for “services” had gotten outrageous.

I see things haven’t gotten better with age…

We have a steady trickle of retirees here in the desert.  A common view is that the crime and taxation, elsewhere, played a large part in their decision-making.  Over-crowding was also a major part of the deal.

We also have “Internet folks” who can make a living anywhere they can have a telephone and an ISP.

I don’t recall ever hearing that gun control laws had really been contributory.

‘Rat

Author ID: 6252 | 4/25/2006 10:15 AM CST | #61921