Trump’s 2024 election win overshadowed Colorado voting on par with Illinois and New York. Colorado is the heavily white college educated town with no opposing coalition to it on a statewide level. It will be interesting to see how that experiment continues to play out.
Re: SEC
In the 1960’s, there was a group of Southern Ivies that looked to start the Magnolia Conference. It included schools like Vanderbilt, Tulane, SMU, Rice, Georgia Tech, and Duke. If it came to fruition, they probably add a school like Miami, Virginia, or TCU. It would have been interesting to see the result in a world of Ivy League elite schools in the northeast versus Southern Ivies situated in booming Sun Belt cities and states with SEC aesthetics.
Re: "Californication." It's mostly about cost of living. The fact is that you can sell a house in an expensive region (like coastal california, NYC tri-state area, etc), move somewhere cheaper, buy a new house and invest the difference. This is the single biggest driver of migration, especially among the older set (retirement age). Colorado, like California, has stunning natural amenities, and was cheaper until recently (it's still cheaper than CA, but the difference is much smaller than it used to be). People usually want to move to states that still have opportunities and activity going on, so they go to places like TX or FL as opposed to truly cheap places like MS or WV, at least in aggregate.
More broadly, state lines actually obscure the trends. If you look at a large state with a still growing population, such as TX, you see that what's happening is that rural parts of TX continue to slowly depopulate while the metros drive the lion's share of the population growth. (https://demographics.texas.gov/Visualizations/2024/Estimates2024/ slightly old but gives the idea). What people in working age groups are doing, by and large, is sorting into two separate subsets. Most, by the numbers, are moving to metros with decent economies (job opportunities) where cost of living is still attainable. TX, as a state, does well here because it has 4 such metros. Another subset pursues high paying careers in expensive cities that have good job markets but very high cost of living (your NYC, SF, etc). California has several of these types of cities (SF, SJ, LA, SD). The absolute number of working age people who can afford to get started in these markets is smaller, so that combined with the retirement cash-out effect described above drives the migration pattern of wealth concentration but population flatlining.
Most new housing in the US these days is being built in suburban and exurban counties, as opposed to downtown cores. There are many reasons for this, that vary from region to region, but that's the trend. Examples:
Note the migration to lower cost inland counties in CA, for example.
Other states mirror this pattern. Rural areas with no jobs are depopulating, people are migrating to counties that have affordable real estate + job market access. The sunbelt is where most of these counties in the US are nowadays.
This is mainly correct but people will still move places they consider desirable-- and avoid even cheap areas considered undesirable. Here in Florida housing costs are very high, especially when the astronomical costs of property insurance are included. Yet people are still moving here in droves-- but to the coastal metro areas (and Orlando) not to the more affordable interior, domain of "Florida Man" and the so-called "crackers".
Re: Most new housing in the US these days is being built in suburban and exurban counties, as opposed to downtown cores.
Well, downtown areas are already build up. There can be some rebuilding (we see that here in St Pete where new downtown high rises are on the drawing board) but the bulk of new construction will be on undeveloped land at the metastizing fringes of the metro area.
Exactly. Lots of people move to Florida, relatively few move to eg Kansas or North Dakota or what have you. and even within Florida, they move to mostly exurbs of desirable regions.
Re: Downtown areas. This is true to a degree, but it depends where you are. I can speak to an expensive metro area I know well, Boston (because I live here). The core downtown is already densely built up, that's true. The problem lies in communities a little further out, where single family zoning in large areas of close-in suburbs like Brookline, Newton, etc could really be redeveloped into far denser housing. This would be another way to reduce cost and keep commute times reasonable, but because of the "town" style local government we have in this region, NIMBY-ism contributes in a big way to the affordability problem. California, actually, has a major problem with this as well. Look how much land in the Los Angeles basin is zoned single family. The area really could (and should) have much denser housing style to meet the demand to live there, but that's been a problem for decades.
Houston, interestingly, is an example of a city with very limited zoning restrictions. It's one (of several) factors that I think contributes to it being so dynamic these days.
I am always curious when I see "____________ converted to Catholicism" rather than "______________ joined the Catholic church". Does the Catholic church not fall under the Christianity umbrella?
Depends on who you ask. There's probably a split between evangelicals between those who, like me, who take a friendlier view of Rome (that is, that those Catholics who are putting their faith in Christ are saved) vs some others who view it as a false church. The other direction, doesn't the Catholic church basically teach that if you are a confirmed Catholic who leaves that church, you are basically going to hell?
Re: Colorado
Trump’s 2024 election win overshadowed Colorado voting on par with Illinois and New York. Colorado is the heavily white college educated town with no opposing coalition to it on a statewide level. It will be interesting to see how that experiment continues to play out.
Re: SEC
In the 1960’s, there was a group of Southern Ivies that looked to start the Magnolia Conference. It included schools like Vanderbilt, Tulane, SMU, Rice, Georgia Tech, and Duke. If it came to fruition, they probably add a school like Miami, Virginia, or TCU. It would have been interesting to see the result in a world of Ivy League elite schools in the northeast versus Southern Ivies situated in booming Sun Belt cities and states with SEC aesthetics.
Re: "Californication." It's mostly about cost of living. The fact is that you can sell a house in an expensive region (like coastal california, NYC tri-state area, etc), move somewhere cheaper, buy a new house and invest the difference. This is the single biggest driver of migration, especially among the older set (retirement age). Colorado, like California, has stunning natural amenities, and was cheaper until recently (it's still cheaper than CA, but the difference is much smaller than it used to be). People usually want to move to states that still have opportunities and activity going on, so they go to places like TX or FL as opposed to truly cheap places like MS or WV, at least in aggregate.
More broadly, state lines actually obscure the trends. If you look at a large state with a still growing population, such as TX, you see that what's happening is that rural parts of TX continue to slowly depopulate while the metros drive the lion's share of the population growth. (https://demographics.texas.gov/Visualizations/2024/Estimates2024/ slightly old but gives the idea). What people in working age groups are doing, by and large, is sorting into two separate subsets. Most, by the numbers, are moving to metros with decent economies (job opportunities) where cost of living is still attainable. TX, as a state, does well here because it has 4 such metros. Another subset pursues high paying careers in expensive cities that have good job markets but very high cost of living (your NYC, SF, etc). California has several of these types of cities (SF, SJ, LA, SD). The absolute number of working age people who can afford to get started in these markets is smaller, so that combined with the retirement cash-out effect described above drives the migration pattern of wealth concentration but population flatlining.
Most new housing in the US these days is being built in suburban and exurban counties, as opposed to downtown cores. There are many reasons for this, that vary from region to region, but that's the trend. Examples:
GA (https://www.axios.com/local/atlanta/2023/04/11/georgia-population-changes-pandemic)
NC (https://www.axios.com/local/raleigh/2025/01/07/north-carolina-population-growth-cities-wake-chatham-census)
Notice the "donut" surrounding Atlanta, and see how few counties in NC are really driving most of that state's population growth.
The pattern is similar even in "blue" states:
MN (https://www.axios.com/local/twin-cities/2021/08/17/minnesota-county-population-growth-map-census)
CA (https://www.axios.com/local/san-diego/2025/01/02/population-counties-california-shift-trends),
Note the migration to lower cost inland counties in CA, for example.
Other states mirror this pattern. Rural areas with no jobs are depopulating, people are migrating to counties that have affordable real estate + job market access. The sunbelt is where most of these counties in the US are nowadays.
This is mainly correct but people will still move places they consider desirable-- and avoid even cheap areas considered undesirable. Here in Florida housing costs are very high, especially when the astronomical costs of property insurance are included. Yet people are still moving here in droves-- but to the coastal metro areas (and Orlando) not to the more affordable interior, domain of "Florida Man" and the so-called "crackers".
Re: Most new housing in the US these days is being built in suburban and exurban counties, as opposed to downtown cores.
Well, downtown areas are already build up. There can be some rebuilding (we see that here in St Pete where new downtown high rises are on the drawing board) but the bulk of new construction will be on undeveloped land at the metastizing fringes of the metro area.
Exactly. Lots of people move to Florida, relatively few move to eg Kansas or North Dakota or what have you. and even within Florida, they move to mostly exurbs of desirable regions.
Re: Downtown areas. This is true to a degree, but it depends where you are. I can speak to an expensive metro area I know well, Boston (because I live here). The core downtown is already densely built up, that's true. The problem lies in communities a little further out, where single family zoning in large areas of close-in suburbs like Brookline, Newton, etc could really be redeveloped into far denser housing. This would be another way to reduce cost and keep commute times reasonable, but because of the "town" style local government we have in this region, NIMBY-ism contributes in a big way to the affordability problem. California, actually, has a major problem with this as well. Look how much land in the Los Angeles basin is zoned single family. The area really could (and should) have much denser housing style to meet the demand to live there, but that's been a problem for decades.
Houston, interestingly, is an example of a city with very limited zoning restrictions. It's one (of several) factors that I think contributes to it being so dynamic these days.
I am always curious when I see "____________ converted to Catholicism" rather than "______________ joined the Catholic church". Does the Catholic church not fall under the Christianity umbrella?
Depends on who you ask. There's probably a split between evangelicals between those who, like me, who take a friendlier view of Rome (that is, that those Catholics who are putting their faith in Christ are saved) vs some others who view it as a false church. The other direction, doesn't the Catholic church basically teach that if you are a confirmed Catholic who leaves that church, you are basically going to hell?