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Comment by downandout | Hacker News Reader

>Some people think we're getting too many transplants

Those people would be wrong. California lost a net of approximately 1 million residents between 2007 and 2016 [1]. Chalk it up to over-regulation (like the issue we are discussing here), high state income taxes, overcrowded/underfunded public schools, expensive housing, etc., but anyone complaining about too many transplants arriving in CA simply doesn't know the statistics.

[1] http://lao.ca.gov/LAOEconTax/Article/Detail/265

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> California lost a net of approximately 1 million residents between 2007 and 2016

Maybe I'm reading this wrong, but the quoted statement is wrong. The statistic appears to be that: From 2007 to 2016: the number of people moving into CA was 1 million fewer than then number of people moving into CA. However the net population increased by about 3 million [0]. Happy to be enlightened if I'm missing some nuances.

Nonetheless, the immigration vs emigration is a really interesting statistic.

[0] http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=california+population+h...

Parent didn’t say that population dropped. He said that the state is losing more residents to domestic immigration than it’s gaining. Thus the housing issues are not due to domestic immigrants creating too much demand.

I’m pretty certain this doesn’t actually apply to the Bay Area in isolation, though. Population there is climbing much faster than the birth rate, I’d expect.

According to a similar thread I read recently, the disparity is because CA gained in foreign immigration more than it lost in domestic immigration outflows.

No, parent said exactly what I quoted. Based on another comment of theirs, I think they interpreted their citation as a population drop.

I replied initially because on a first read, I read it as a population drop, found it remarkable and then my gut told me that didn't seem right. I hoped to provide clarification to others of the too general statement (the part I quoted) about the cited study.

Good reminder on the Bay Area not being reflective of the state as a whole (aka the broad numbers discussed above). I think it will be worth my time to poke around later and understand the population change components at a finer grain that state-wide.

Maybe you’re right and he was indeed assuming negative domestic migration meant an actual population drop.

I can only tell you what the study I quoted says. There may be factors, such as illegal immigration, that it doesn't take into account. In terms of legal residents, the state has lost 1M people or about 2.5% of its population.

Parent is talking about births. 40 million US people will lead to about 500,000 births a year.

Multiply by the 10 and you have 5 million people that appear in California without migrating (or I guess closer to 4.8 million, whatever).

> California lost a net of approximately 1 million residents between 2007 and 2016 [1].

The study doesn't say that, it says there was 1 million in net outbound domestic migration. It doesn't discuss population change due to international migration (inbound and outbound, legal or otherwise) or natural increase/decrease; in fact, California gained, not lost, 3 million people between 2007 and 2016.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/206097/resident-populati...

You're correct that I should not have used the word residents in my quick interpretation of that study. However the study I linked to is directly relevant to the comment I replied that I replied to, which was about too many transplants arriving. Too many transplants are in fact not arriving, because as this study indicates, 1 million more people left than arrived from other states.

in fact, California gained, not lost, 3 million people between 2007 and 2016.

Most of those gains were through births to existing residents, which says nothing about California being a destination for transplants, which was the point that I was refuting. Children born in California generally don't have a choice as to whether or not to live there. Adults do, and on a net basis, they are choosing to leave.

> Too many transplants are in fact not arriving, because as this study indicates, 1 million more people left than arrived from other states.

“From other states” alone, sure, OTOH, California has had net positive total (domestic and international) migration.

If you include illegal immigration, sure. I'm not sure that's a positive for existing residents though.

Wasn't the concern upthread thst you were trying to argue against that the level of inbound migration was too high?

The full original sentence I replied to was this:

“Some people think we're getting too many transplants and that regulating the development of new housing will somewhat curb that”

The “transplants” he is concerned with are those with both the means and legal standing to purchase and drive up demand for new homes. How many illegal immigrants to California fall into that category? So most of the “transplants” that are relevant to this discussion are coming from other US states.

> How many illegal immigrants to California fall into that category? So most of the “transplants” that are relevant to this discussion are coming from other US states.

Why in this thread do you keep making the mistake of thinking migration consists only of domestic migration and illegal immigration? You know that legal international migration (both immigration directed at permanent residency and more transient legal residency by foreigners) is a thing, right, and actually quite a big one in Californiaz right?

People can immigrate legally from other countries. Most of the people I know in the San Francisco bay area who own a home are Chinese immigrants.

Are you honestly arguing that the majority of international immigration to California consists of wealthy Chinese?

Well, when it comes to demand for property owenrship, you don't actually have to be resident; wealthy Chinese do a lot of that without ever living in the place where they are driving up prices.

But certainly a sizable share of the foreigners migrating into California have substantial means (either pre-migration assets and/or post-pubescent income) and China isn't exactly underrepresented among the sources of such migration.

So now you’re actually arguing that the vast majority of international immigration to California is not poor people from Mexico, but rather wealthy Chinese buying up homes?

Any data to back up this claim or are you just arguing to argue at this point? There are many news outlets that would love to see your data on this, because it is a startling revelation indeed.

Edit: to those downvoting this, please provide data corroborating his claim above. Otherwise there is nothing to downvote, as I am simply calling into question his claim that wealthy, legal Chinese immigrants outnumber poor illegal immigrants from Mexico in California.

> So now you’re actually arguing that the vast majority of international immigration to California is not poor people from Mexico, but rather wealthy Chinese buying up homes?

No, and you can tell they because the only mentioned of the phrase “wealthy Chinese” in my comment refers to people buying up property from abroad, and the phrase.“vadt majority” (or even the word “majority”) doesn't appear in my comment at all.

> Any data to back up this claim

Since I never made the argument you reference, and it's not necessary either to the core issue or the tangent from the main discussion in my comment, why would you ask for that?

> Most of the people I know in the San Francisco bay area who own a home are Chinese immigrants.

He's saying that the majority of immigrants who are buy houses are Chinese. I'm not arguing for or against that by the way. For places where this already took place, Toronto and Victoria Canada.

> He's saying that the majority of immigrants who are buy houses are Chinese

No, I'm not saying anything like that.

Yeah but he keeps jumping around to either side of the issue just to argue. Either way, I’m done with it. He can argue with himself now. There’s a reason he has 50,000 karma points - he has lots of time and patience with which to argue.

They don't need to purchase homes to drive up demand. If they are living in homes then they are driving down supply.

I'm sure that California lost even more than 1 million to diaspora, but the loss was offset by new arrivals. I'm also sure the number of illegal aliens has increased significantly but there doesn't seem to be anyone keeping track of them.

The net loss, including all offsets, has been 1 million.

I don’t think that’s correct. California’s population has grown significantly over the period you’re discussing. http://worldpopulationreview.com/states/california-populatio...

The study I quoted was done by the State of California. It's most likely a reliable source.

The study specifically says “domestic” migration.

This entire thread is about migration. I was refuting someone's statement about too many many transplants arriving, when in fact net transplants are negative. Births have nothing to do with that. Most international migration to California is illegal.

If nothing else, that one doesn't take into account births/deaths and immigration/emigration outside the US.

That's net domestic migration. It doesn't count international migration, one way or the other.

Your source is talking about domestic (within USA) migration, not total.

The number of immigrants to CA during that time far exceeded 1 million net loss domestically.

Illegal immigration is a separate issue. I am not sure that any reliable records can be produced for to account for that, given that they are by definition off the record.

Huh? I'm taking about both legal and illegal immigration

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