We just learned that Manny Machado is moving to San Diego to play ball this year. He is apparently going to sign the richest contract ever. Congratulations to Manny and we wish him well. I will only remind Manny that Petco Park is not Camden Yards when it comes to hitting home runs!
As Manny packs his bags to start a new life in beautiful San Diego, a lot of Californians are thinking about leaving the Golden State. In fact, a new poll is rather amazing:
According to a new survey by Edelman Intelligence, 53 percent of Californians are considering moving out of state due to the high cost of living.
Millennials are even more likely to flee the Golden State — 63 percent of them said they want to.
Bay Area residents surveyed were especially sensitive to affordability issues, and it’s no surprise.
The median home value in San Francisco is $1.37 million, according to Zillow, and $1.09 million in San Jose.
In Edelman’s survey, 76 percent of Bay Area residents say they consider cost and availability of housing to be a serious issue.
ALSO: It’s not just people fleeing the Bay Area — these businesses are leaving, too
Sixty-two percent also call homelessness a very serious issue for California.
It appears the housing and homelessness crises have led to a pessimistic outlook: 62 percent of those surveyed say the best days of living in California are behind them.
How does California react to this?
Can you imagine a company that gets a report that over half of the customers would love to switch to a competitor? And 63% of the young customers would rather switch too!
My guess is that such a company would immediately go on emergency mode and try to find out why the customers feel the way that they do.
The’d probably hire consultants to survey customers or do focus groups and listen to real people talk about their negative attitudes. Maybe a name change for a new image? Or product upgrades to match what the competition is doing? Or even leadership shakeups to bring in people more in tune with reality? In other words, none of the company’s owners, whether public shareholders or private individuals, would be happy with the status quo.
As far as I can see, California’s leaders are not upset by these findings. Maybe they don’t think that the poll is real. Or maybe they will conclude that they need to go further left to keep the folks around.
I don’t know the answer, but it’s unsustainable when so many people want out!