Austonia AM
100% Austin news, info, and entertainment, straight to your inbox at 6 a.m. every morning.
In five minutes, you're fully informed and ready to start another great day in our city.
×
Popular
Oracle is one of several big California companies to relocate its headquarter to Austin recently. (CC)
The announcement came after extensive population growth in the Lone Star State, especially among the Hispanic population, which has grown by more than 2 million people between 2010 and 2020. Locally, it seems like every other person is from California with Texas being the number one state for Californians to move to.
With Austin and other Texas metros offering more "bang for your buck" housing as well as the Techsodus, which has seen several tech companies from California and elsewhere bring their headquarters to Texas, Californians are coming into the state in rapid succession.
Over 80,000 Californians moved to Texas in both 2018 and 2019, according to the Census Bureau, with a net migration of around 45,000 each year. That number appears to have only increased in recent years, aided by each state's response to the COVID pandemic and the public migration of influential figures such as Tesla CEO Elon Musk and podcaster Joe Rogan.
By contrast, California's growth is at a standstill for the first time in nearly two centuries.
While the state has seen changes such as new tech jobs and, already, the reshaping of some Texas cities, this marks the first time that the California migration can be seen in Texas' national politics.
With two new congressional seats, the state will have 38 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives for the next decade.
The migration has already started to shuffle the U.S' political geography. Young people, who tend to vote Democratic, have flocked to Texas' urban centers. According to an Associated Press analysis of American Community Survey data, the 20-34-year-old population grew by 22% in Austin, 24% in San Antonio and 19% in Houston since 2010.
Bruce Robison & Kelly Willis perform at Beto Rally at the Pan American Neighborhood Park in Austin.
Texas, a once-conservative stronghold, was threatened by the power of young, liberal voters, many of them migrants from other states, when Beto O'Rourke almost beat an incumbent Republican senator for the first time in 40 years.
With two more seats in the House of Representatives, the U.S' second-biggest state going blue would have a bigger impact than ever before.
But if the people migrating to Texas bring the politics of the state they're moving from, will Texas stay an affordable, job-laden haven?
This fall, the census will release more extensive data, which will be used by state lawmakers to start the difficult, often-contested process of redrawing legislative and congressional districts.
Until then, Texas' housing market will continue to climb, Tesla's Gigafactory will come closer to completion in the Texas capital and, if the trend continues, 85,000 Californians will begin filing in to the ever-growing Lone Star State.
From Your Site Articles
- California tech employees move to austin for business and way of ... ›
- James Van Der Beek moves family to Texas from California - austonia ›
- California startup brings new housing approach to Austin - austonia ›
- Joah Spearman responds to a California's man hate of Austin ... ›
- California tech employees move to austin for business and way of ... ›
- California man warns against moving to Austin in Op-Ed - austonia ›
- Musk labels Austin as next US 'boomtown' on Joe Rogan podcast ... ›
- Is the "Texodus" over for storm-damaged Austin? - austonia ›
- Californians love Austin, but does the city love them back? - austonia ›
- California drops in population for first time in its history - austonia ›
Related Articles Around the Web
Miami and Austin are going head-to-head for tech transplants. (Pexels)
California expats and industry experts say Austin remains the bigger draw, especially for Californians in the tech sector, but some warn that this advantage could shift to Miami if the city doesn't address the policy challenges that prompted the migration in the first place: housing affordability.
"If Austin doesn't accommodate this influx, I think all the talent will come to Miami," said Peter Yared, a tech entrepreneur who moved to Miami from San Francisco in September. "I think Miami's going to be the one that sucks it all up."
Push factors
Both Texas and Florida promise business-friendly state tax policies, and their governors tout the relocations of companies such as Tesla and Oracle from California. But Darien Shanske, a law professor at the University of California Davis whose specialties include state and local taxation, said this is a red herring because corporate taxes are based on where sales occur rather than headquarter locations.
This is not to say state policies are irrelevant. "The area in which California regulatory policy has been, in my opinion, not a complete failure but problematic … is housing policy," Shanske said. Austin and Miami can offer "not cheap, just cheaper" housing than what is available in Silicon Valley. Plus, both cities are developing a critical mass of talent, which further draws Californians in. "If you're a software engineer, you want to live near other software engineers," he added.
But not every Californian is motivated to move. "San Francisco is a fantastic place to live if you can afford it," said Brandy Aven, a professor of entrepreneurship at Carnegie Mellon University's Tepper School of Business. As a result, it's more common for what she called the labor—engineers, programmers and even company founders—to relocate to cities such as Austin and Miami than the monied venture capitalists. Burgeoning tech cities may find that they need to develop homegrown investor networks to support local ventures in the absence of Californian transplants, but she believes this is doable.
Pull factors
Paul O'Brien, CEO of the Austin-based MediaTech Ventures and a startup veteran, moved to Austin from California in 2009, during the Great Recession. "I'm a firm believer that the world has been seeking an alternative to Silicon Valley for a long time," he said, pointing to Austin as the natural heir for myriad reasons.
Austin has regional appeal as the epicenter of three of the country's largest cities—Houston, Dallas and San Antonio—and their respective industry niches. Tech entrepreneurs could cater to the local consumer goods industry or Houston's oil and gas sector. Plus the city has cultural appeal, thanks to the Red River District and South by Southwest, which made it attractive to job seekers. "The whole reason everyone moved to Silicon Valley is opportunity," O'Brien said. "The whole reason people are now looking beyond Silicon Valley to somewhere else is opportunity."
It's less clear what Miami's key industries are, O'Brien said, but the city offers other selling points, including the mayor's buy-in and "a tremendous depth of wealth" to support a technology and startup ecosystem.
Although Yared didn't consider moving to Austin, he is aware of its appeal to engineers, especially now that their hero, Elon Musk, has moved there, shunning California. "Austin has a lock on tech," he said, but Miami draws a different crowd, including financiers from New York. This parallel migration, coupled with the city's more outwardly pro-growth building policies, gives him hope that Miami could supplant Austin in the coming years. "In the end, communities get to choose what they want," he said.
From Your Site Articles
- Minister of Culture Matthew McConaughey talks preserving Austin ... ›
- Migration insights of Austin, who is moving to the city and who is ... ›
- Californians love Austin, but does the city love them back? - austonia ›
- California tech employees move to austin for business and way of ... ›
- Elon Musk says $1.1 billion Tesla factory will be in Austin - austonia ›
- Blockcap, a cryptocurrency company, moves to Austin with plans for growth - austonia ›
Related Articles Around the Web
