The New York Times has an article on a topic that I know from personal experience -- more and more people (especially young families) are moving out of California due to unbelievably high housing costs and instead, are moving to cities in the Midwest, great plains, and south, where they can get a lot more for their money:

Last year, a half million people left California for other parts of the United States, while fewer than 400,000 Americans moved there. The net outflow has risen fivefold, to more than 100,000, since 2001, an analysis by Economy.com, a research company, shows, although immigration from other countries and births have kept the state’s population growing. . . .

Far more Californians are staying - for the weather, the landscape, the culture and other reasons - than are moving, but it is also clear that California is losing some of its attraction. . . . Some families say they have to make decisions based more on home prices than on jobs or family reasons. They end up with more space than they imagined, but they miss other things. . . .

Mr. Cannon and Ms. Dayton do miss California’s “culture and excitement and food,” he said. “We’ve been spending two and a half years trying to find good Thai food and still haven’t found it yet.”