Feeling too blue? Some make a red getaway
Housing prices, cost of living — and politics — force residents to leave
Retired engineer Stewart Tagg spent four decades in the Bay Area, appreciating the blue skies, good schools and strong economy.
But in recent years, his home changed too much for his liking: higher taxes, an open immigration policy and no end in sight to the state’s liberal direction.
Tagg, 69, sold his San Jose home and moved his family to Arizona in 2014. He used a simple calculation to justify the move: 70 percent politics, 30 percent taxes.
“I’m a good old Republican,” Tagg said. “I just saw the writing on the wall.”
The Bay Area has become one of the most popular places in the country to leave in recent years. About 64,300 residents exited the region, many for other states, between 2015 and 2018, according to a recent survey by Joint Venture Silicon Valley.
But along with the high cost of living, politics has become a key component pushing some out of the liberal region. One-party
domination in Sacramento and constant chafing with neighbors have driven conservative Bay Area refugees to communities in Texas, Idaho, Colorado and Florida. Former residents say their views on immigration and taxes put them on the margins of a region they once embraced.
From 2008 to 2018, the number of registered Republicans in five counties — Santa Clara, San Mateo, Alameda, Contra Costa and San Francisco — plummeted 20 percent. Democrats now outnumber Republicans by more than 3 to 1. Statewide, independents outnumber GOP members.
Republicans were more likely to say they were going to leave the Bay Area in the next few years than residents with more liberal views, according to a poll of 1,568 registered voters conducted in February for the Silicon Valley Leadership Group and this news organization.
Republicans in their prime working years were most emphatic about leaving, with about 6 in 10 saying they want to hit the road, compared with 44 percent of all those surveyed.
Carl Guardino, CEO of the Silicon Valley Leadership Group, said the survey reflects a broader unease in residents across the political spectrum. “We hate to see anyone feeling forced out of the Bay Area due to high housing costs and high cost of living,” he said.
To be sure, real estate agents and economists say the primary motives for leaving the Bay Area remain economic. The region is one of the most expensive in the country, and the dearth of new construction has inflated housing costs.
San Jose State political scientist Larry Gerston said the region’s rising taxes have pinched many high-income residents, while low-income residents are burdened by the high cost of living.
Republicans have little voice in Sacramento to stop higher taxes, adding to the frustration, he said. “The Bay Area has been very consistent in voting itself more taxes,” Gerston said. “If you’re Republican, you can’t win.”
Sometimes, the urge to get out crosses party boundaries.
San Francisco Republican Party Chairman Jason Clark said he’s watched several fellow conservatives leave for Texas and Arizona. But he’s also noticed more liberals leaving the Bay Area for Northern California, where previously red congressional districts are turning blue.
“They’ve had enough,” Clark said. “There are people who are middle class who feel like they’re being pushed out of their neighborhoods.”
Real estate agents hear the stories of change from longtime residents. San Jose agent Sandy Jamison asks sellers a simple question: “Why?”
Homeowners eventually warm to the conversation, she said. And they go there — anger at welfare programs and weak immigration enforcement. “Politics is definitely a big one,” Jamison said. “They want to feel a sense of community again.”
In her marketing materials, Jamison spells out the top reasons for leaving the Bay Area: “Liberties — From gun control to rent control to vaccinations and home schooling, sellers are finding fewer restrictions on their way of life among other states.”
In Idaho, Boise agent Kerri O’Hara said “an extreme influx” of Californians has reached the state capital in the past two or three years. “Californians seem to be very politically driven,” she said. The newcomers are more amenable to the libertarian streak in the red state, she said.
O’Hara said her clients regularly share horror stories from the Bay Area, usually about the high rates of homelessness and public defecation in San Francisco. “I’ve heard every story with the feces,” she said.
Many former residents say they felt alienated before they left.
When Jim DeStefano moved to San Jose in 1971, he could hear cows mooing in the fields down the street. Country living appealed to the Brooklyn, New York, native, brought west for a job with GE Nuclear Power.
He voted for his candidates — sometimes Democrats, lately Republicans. DeStefano became upset with Gov. Jerry Brown’s policies, tax hikes and the influx of immigrants.
In late 2017, DeStefano, now 72, and his wife bought a house and moved into a gated retirement community in Fort Myers, Florida. He bicycles 5 miles a day, photographs egrets and alligators, and regularly attends Friday night potlucks with neighbors.
“I have developed more new friends and neighbors in four months here,” he said, “than I developed in 40 years in San Jose.”
DeStefano, like most in his retirement community, embraces President Donald Trump. Military veterans install flagpoles and hand out flags to new residents. One of the most popular classes at the community center was gun safety for seniors.
“California will become the next Venezuela in five years,” DeStefano said. “You’ll have the super rich and the impoverished class.” The rest — middle-class workers, retirees and everyone outside the wealthy tech bubble — will flee like him.
Jeff Heuser, a retired nurse, grew up in Southern California and settled in San Jose. He’s grown more conservative and had a few loud disputes with neighbors and a confrontation at Trader Joe’s over politics.
Heuser visited Panama and Thailand, searching for a new home. Politics was “99 percent” of the reason for a move, he said.
Last year, Heuser sold his condo and bought a five-bedroom house in Colorado Springs, Colorado, a deep-red region home to the Air Force Academy and the conservative group Focus on the Family.
Heuser, 63, quickly embraced the culture. He bought a new handgun, got his concealed carry permit and shoots at a local range three to four times a week. He switched his voter registration from Democratic in California to Republican in Colorado and cast his first vote in November.
He feels more comfortable talking politics in his new community. “I’ve tempered my passion,” Heuser said. “I realize I scare some people.”
In Arizona, Tagg’s new hometown in a gated 55plus community in Green Valley outside Tucson is popular with other Bay Area refugees, he said. They have plenty of hobbies and distractions, and most share a red-state view of the world.
Tagg still visits California, spending vacations in the Sierra Nevada. But the Bay Area, he said, “is really not worth it.”
“California will become the next Venezuela in five years. You’ll have the super rich and the impoverished class.” — Jim DeStefano