Quote:
Originally Posted by mhays
Quality of life is a huge part of it. That might be a mix of weather, cheap housing, strong inner cities, great scenery, etc. With quality of life, people will show up before they get jobs, and then look, vs. finding a job and then moving. Also, companies will relocate to your city without "incentives."
In the case of Washington, one of the "misc" factors is the military factor -- not just the bases themselves, which are growing on average, but also the fact that many people stationed here decide to come back later.
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The South and West are in the midst of a "big push" style development that hinges mostly on the building of economies of scale and economic linkages. Sure wide spread air conditioning helps to develop these linkages but most of it is pure economics. People feel comfortable moving before finding a job because they are moving to an area where the average amount of time finding a job is small. Businesses invest there because they are comfortable knowing that they will be profitable which induces more people to move. More businesses move in and develop an interlocking web of forward and backward linkages. This continued level of development increases economies of scale and makes the whole thing even more profitable and self sustaining.
I think it was Paul Krugman who wrote that if there was a "big push" than the opposite could also occur, I like to call it a "big fail". Michigan has suffered greatly because the economies of scale once enjoyed by Michigan's factories have collapsed. Once a link in the chain fails the whole thing collapses. Or a more apt analogy would be a house of cards, once one card is pulled the whole thing falls down.
The South and West will assuredly hit a slow down eventually once there are no longer increasing economies of scale. For sure that will not happen anytime soon. If I had to predict it will be when the Echo Boom reaches middle age but that is just a guess.