My Window Faces the Middle South: Climate Change is Prompting American Retirees to Relocate to the Middle of the Country

My window faces the south

I'm almost halfway to heaven

Snow is falling, but still I can see

Fields of cotton calling to me

Willie Nelson

For more than a century, older Americans have relocated to balmier climes to live out their golden years. Northern retirees often moved to Florida, attracted by better weather, no state income tax, and the reasonable cost of housing. Arizona and California also looked attractive because of their sunny climates.

However, in recent years, migration patterns for retirees have shifted partly due to climate change. Devastating hurricanes have driven up the cost of homeowner insurance in Florida, and California wildfires have made property insurance prohibitively expensive in the Golden State. In Arizona, water scarcity has made the state less attractive to retirees.

Climate change is causing Americans to rethink where they want to live out their last years. Many Americans are finding the Middle South increasingly attractive. West Virginia and North Carolina have benefited from this trend, as have Georgia and Tennessee.

These demographic shifts have political ramifications. Some commentators predicted that an influx of Californians to Texas and Florida would turn these red states blue because Californian immigrants would bring their progressive Democratic political values with them. 

That hasn't happened. Instead, newcomers to the predominantly red states like what they find: lower tax rates, decent weather, and a more benign and less strident political atmosphere.

In the years to come, the migration of older Americans to the Middle South will turn these states even more reliably red. Soon, radical progressive politics will be confined to urban enclaves as the recent presidential election presaged.

And we should not forget that working Americans are also leaving the blue states. In general, this outflow is driven by a rejection of crazed woke politics and urban violence, particularly in California, New York, and urban Illinois.

Dwight Yoakam's "I Sang Dixie" might be the anthem of this recent wave of emigres.

[W]ay down yonder
In the land of cotton
Old times there
Ain't near as rotten
As they are
On this damned old L.A. street

Most Americans don't define themselves in political terms. They only seek modest prosperity and a safe environment for their families.  For these Americans, I endorse Dwight  Yoakam's lyrical advice:

"Listen to me, son, while you still can,"
"Run back home to that Southern land!"
"Don't you see what life here has done to me?"

Image credit Raul Alonzo/Texas Standard