[irrational]

That is mind boggling to me. I don't know anyone that lives in the same state they grew up in. I live about 3,000 miles away from where I grew up. I have 7 siblings and none of us live in our home state (and none of us live in the same state as another one - we live in NY, CA, MI, TX, OR, OH, UT, CO - we grew up in FL).

Though, I remember that one of my brothers once lived in Pennsylvania and he met 2 women who had never left their county and were amazed that he lived in so many other places and wondered out loud if he had been scared to live in places other than where he lived right then in PA. The mind set that other places are scary to live in is so foreign to me.

[HPsquared]

Probably the "move around a lot" people don't talk much with the "don't move around much" people, and vice-versa.

[ghaff]

You have e.g. lifelong New Yorkers who may have gone to school elsewhere but can't really imagine living anyplace else.

But you have a couple of different groups broadly speaking. People who never moved out of a small town and people who gravitated back towards some major metro for any number of reasons.

And remember there are a lot of basically "small towns" that are counted with urban areas in the US.

[iak8god]

The "don't move around people" are busy hanging out with their family and high school friends.

[drivers99]

Sometimes those small town groups move together as well!

My example: Shortly after college, I moved to the city half way across the country because my high school friend lived there. And then several other of our high school friends (all from a small town) moved there with their spouses as well, and we'd all hang out and even started a company together for a while. We eventually all went our separate ways, at least as far as what states we live in. (There is still some amount of moving to be closer again going on as well. For example my ex's family and a friend from the state we moved to moved closer to her.)

[emodendroket]

When I used to live in Massachusetts I found it boggling how many people had never lived anywhere else. Southern California, where I now live, I think actually has a narrow transplant majority.

[thebradbain]

Which is fascinating, because while we know California is technically net-outward migration (people moving to other states), the demographic of people net MOVING to California is by people in the top 5%.

California is essentially gentrifying at the state level with wealthy transplants, pushing working and middle class people who grew up here out of the state.

[1] https://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-sac-skelton-income-t...

[emodendroket]

You can't win, huh? Move to California, you're gentrifying it. Move out of California, you're gentrifying wherever you go. Perhaps this framework isn't the best to think about it.

[thebradbain]

I think you’re falling into an easy trap when it comes to the word “gentrification”

No individual, be it in a state or a city or neighborhood, is to blame for gentrification. By definition gentrification is a collective movement — one billionaire with a ski chalet on a private mountain in extremely rural Montana does not gentrify the entire region, nor does it really raise the property values of any home near it.

Gentrification is systemic, and approaching California’s population loss and gain through this framework explains pretty much everything that is wrong with California at a policy and macro level.

The reason for this “gentrification” at the state level would confirm everyone’s priors: the cost of living is simply too high for most people. That would be greatly alleviated by building more housing to increase the supply for the bottom 90% of people who struggle with their mortgage payments, rent, or scraping enough money for a down payment together and realizing they can buy a home outright twice the size in Texas for what is just the down payment in California.

[naniwaduni]

Better to not interact with California whatsoever.

[eropple]

I find Massachusetts to be pretty big, for a small place. I moved here from Maine after college and there isn't really anywhere else I want to be. I travel recreationally, but like--if I'd been born here, I don't know why I'd live somewhere else. (Spent time in California, for example. Not my thing.)

Sometimes I think about buying a place back near where I grew up, but my parents don't live there anymore and it's really not that much cheaper than my current house for losing out on a lot of things, so...I don't know why I actually would. It's just more lawn-mowing.

[ubermonkey]

I have no data, but the communities I have found in Houston are also very, very heavily comprised of out of state transplants.

Rural Texans who left home to seek their fortune are said to favor Dallas/Fort Worth more than here, and that feels fairly true, but again: no data. I know more people from out of state (or other countries) than I do from elsewhere in Texas.

[amyamyamy2]

I think this is a big part of why I believed 6 in 10 to such a massive number -- I grew up in southern California and then moved to the Bay, and it feels like most people I knew either had parents who immigrated before they were born or they themselves moved to the area for school or work.

[vlunkr]

Definitely selection bias in some way.

[rhino369]

Moving for a job has a huge social cost for most people. You leave behind everyone you know.

That might be worth it for someone who wants to forge a career or explore. But for the average person who pushes paper at a generic office? You can do that anywhere. So why not do it where everyone you know lives?

There is a trade off to never putting down roots.

[ghaff]

Well, for people going to college, not everyone has really deep roots with their high school and grade school friends. (Though some may. And family although family can move too as in my case.) There can certainly be a bigger costs as you move on especially with people who establish large local networks.

[daveslash]

I'm similar -- 3k miles, but still within the US. My siblings/cousins/family that I grew up less than 10 miles from are now spread between NY, CA, PA, TX, RI, NH, NC, ME, MI.

I was travelling through PA once as well and was at a local dive bar chatting up some folks - and they'd never even left their county either - not even for casual travel.

[jcims]

I’m from northwestern PA and most of my family on my dads side (9 kids, Irish Catholic) is like that. A divorce separated my brother and I from the pack and we live a few hundred miles away.

My moms side (7 kids, German Methodist) is scattered about, CA,OH,NC,NY,CO,GA and one uncle that stayed near my grandma in PA.

Hands down, far and away I’d take the first situation over the second. The family bonds and stories are incredible. They get together all the time, work together, some go to church together. It’s an incredibly tight knit family and at last look three of the women that divorced out of the family still come to gatherings and still carry that family name for decades.

[bombcar]

Those large families are impressive; I'm tangentially related by marriage to one and know of a few others in the area, and you quickly realize how something like the Mafia could easily start.

You let it be known you need some help with X and suddenly a cousin appears who specializes in X.

[wronglebowski]

Maybe it's just the area. I'm in the Philly suburbs and while I love it here I cannot express how little people travel. Even going downtown is a "big deal" if you've grown up to believe either,

1. Cities are awful dangerous places with no value 2. Strip malls and chain restaurants are the pinnacle of civilization

When I moved from Bucks County to Chester County I was "moving away" and many people just wrote me off. Despite being an hour or two drive away.

[lotsofpulp]

I notice I do not hang out with people that live further than 30min (reliably). I might be willing to make the trek if I was single, but with kids and spouse, it becomes too time consuming for my taste.

[bombcar]

30min away is about the limit for "eh, let's go over" - anything more and you're talking planning, etc.

This is the reason people are willing to commute so damn far; you're forced to commute but if you're not near your friends, you'll never see them again.

[bombcar]

A lot of this depends on where in the country you are.

You can't hardly move at all in Texas without ending up in another county, but you can go 1000+ miles and still be in the same state.

Whereas there are counties in California that are larger than the nine smallest states.

There are many Californians that have been to another country (Mexico) but have never been to another state; they're far away.