Federalism is very desirable because it allows different parts of the country to make different decisions, and this helps to teach us about what works. And what doesn’t.
It also means Americans can “vote with their feet” by migrating across local borders and state borders.
This happens a lot, as illustrated by this map from the Census Bureau.
While this map is fascinating, it also can be deceiving because some counties have very few people and others have millions of people.
It appears that internal migration might be a wash for states such as California and New York, for instance, since parts of both states are both green and purple.
If you look at a state-level migration map, however, you’ll find that both states lost population.
Why? Because big losses in some heavily populated cities (circled in red above) easily outweighed population gains in rural counties.
So why are people leaving some places? Are there lessons to be learned?
One obvious takeaway is that Americans are fleeing states governed by the left, as Kerry McDonald explains for the Foundation for Economic Education.
US Census Bureau data released in December showed that restrictive states such as California, Illinois, New York, and Massachusetts lost population between July 2020 and July 2021, while states with less-restrictive virus policies like Texas, Arizona, and Florida gained population during that time. …Fight or flight is a tough choice for families, but at least it’s a choice that Americans can enjoy thanks to federalism and the ability to vote with our feet.
And Americans are fleeing localities governed by the left, as Michael Barone explains in the Washington Examiner.
…the biggest losses, in both population and percentage loss, came in four of the nation’s six largest metropolitan areas: San Francisco/San Jose (-2.6 percent), New York (-1.8 percent), Chicago (-1.1 percent) and Los Angeles/Riverside (-0.8 percent). Each of the first three, in just 15 months from April 2020 to July 2021, lost a population that equaled 20 percent of their total population gain in the 20 years between 2000 and 2020. …it’s also noteworthy, and probably more permanent, that people with modest educations and incomes have fled far beyond the exurbs. …the nation’s population growth and its economic dynamism had been concentrated disproportionately in the exurbs, which typically have reasonable tax rates and development-friendly regulations. …the self-harm that liberal and progressive politicians have inflicted…voters even in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, and San Francisco are recoiling.
The moral of the story is that voters sometimes make the mistake of voting for tax-and-spend politicians, but at least they have enough sense to then escape the places being harmed by statist policies.
P.S. Switzerland in the gold standard for federalism in the world, but Canada also deserves favorable attention. And I recently learned that there’s real federalism in Spain.
P.P.S. Sadly, federalism has declined in the United States.
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Image credit: Masai Mara | CC BY 2.0.
