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Comment by snowwrestler | Hacker News Reader

I think the degree to which open borders are a reality within the U.S. is under-appreciated. As a reminder, U.S. states are sovereign entities with their own criminal laws, tax regimes, educational systems, property and contract rights, civil rights, economic growth, industries, natural resources, etc. In some cases their laws are pre-empted by U.S. federal law, but there remains quite a bit of diversity.

Despite this, U.S. residents can travel or move anywhere they want within the 50 states, with no prior approval and relatively inconsequential paperwork that largely amounts to notifying local authorities after the fact.

Given this, I think it's surprising, and somewhat illuminating, the degree to which population, cultural, and economic differences persist across generations. The states with the highest (MD) and lowest (WV) median household incomes are directly adjacent to one another, but WV has not been emptied by mass migration into MD. Plenty of Oregon residents complain about income taxes, but don't move next door to Washington, which does not have an income tax. Etc.

I know it's not the same as international borders, but it's also more significant than a single national government with purely administrative regions. Thinking about this has led me to question some of the fears about open international borders.

View on HN

You dramatically overestimate how much of an economic difference there is between MD and WV: https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-vwpy8_glsgc/Vi5llZ9ZILI/AAAAAAAAI.... Adjusting for purchasing power, the difference in median income is just 10%. It’s like the difference between Belgium and Australia.

On the flip side, there is actually quite a difference between states like New York (second poorest in the US) and Virginia. And there is a very large internal migration from states like New York to states like virginia.

> New York (second poorest in the US)

On what basis? It ranks 15th for median household income.

Median income adjusted for cost of living (which is the usual way of comparing income between countries).

Thanks!

I would not characterize it as the "usual" way of comparing incomes. It's useful in some contexts but the adjustment can mask differences in local quality of life that matter to people.

When comparing countries, as I said, the basis of comparison is almost invariably PPP GDP per capita, not nominal GDP per capita.

> > New York (second poorest in the US)

> On what basis?

Probably the same basis by which California is the poorest: statewide cost-of-living adjusted poverty line.

There's a number of ways this measure is potebtially misleading; for instance, both New York and California are diverse states where the local cost of living varies considerably, and the numbers for any CoL adjusted measure would look very different if instead of a statewide CoL you used, say, county CoL based on residence and then aggregated the statewide numbers.

But using this or other statewide CoL-based metrics does get at something that mean or median income or measuring against the even less relevant national poverty line does not.

Interesting and good points. Thanks!

Yeah, when it comes to New York, CoL, income, etc. vary widely; Albany, Buffalo, Binghamton, and NYC are all incredibly different. And as far as I know county level CoL isn't so great either, depending on how big your county is; even in New York, Huntington and Riverhead have vastly different local economies (to the point where there are occasionally calls to split Suffolk County in two), to say nothing of massive counties like King County, WA.

That’s true in Virginia too. But in the flip side, most people live in the expensive metro areas.

The chart I posted uses the BEA’s regional price parity figures: https://www.bea.gov/sites/default/files/methodologies/RPP201...

Having driven all over both MD and WV, both in cities and country. they are _very_ different. I also think that Belgium and Australia are very different in many ways, but they're also on opposite sides of the earth, whereas, as was pointed out, MD and WV share a border. I've also been all over NY and VA and would say they are more similar compared to the WV vs MD comparison. I'm not sure where you saw that NY is the second poorest in the US... would be interested to see a source on that.

Median doesn't tell me much because it doesn't describe the skewness of the distribution of incomes. Without looking, I bet that both: 1) max income is higher in MD than in WV 2) there are more people at higher incomes in MD than in WV

So I looked it up for MD [0] and WV [1] and while they don't really help with my conjectures, MD has a higher per capita income ($24,774 in WV vs $39,070 in MD) and lower poverty rate (19.1% in WV vs 9.3% in MD).

Also interesting to note from those sources that they have basically the same retail sales per capita and rate of persons without health insurance (although MD has about half the disability rate).

[0]: https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/MD [1]: https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/WV

I recently visited WV and I found it an interesting contradiction. A lot of the major infrastructure I saw was in perfectly fine condition, even quite good in many places. But in a lot of the little towns the poverty was palpable. Houses in such an amazing state of disrepair with patches cobbled on top of patches. Then you drive into the hills around the town and sooooo beautiful, big houses on big plots of land, etc. It was gorgeous to drive through and see ... from the inside of our air conditioned van ;-).

I wonder how long until someone builds a high speed commuter line into the heart of WV from DC. There is probably an obvious reason not to, but from my west coast perspective it seems like a good idea.

West Virginia benefited for a long time from being represented by Robert Byrd, a powerful and savvy U.S. senator who was adept at directing federal dollars into his state to pay for nice infrastructure and federal jobs (the FBI, among other agencies, has a major center in WV).

At the same time, much of WV's private economy was centered around extraction and manufacturing, both of which have declined over the decades.

There's a big highway under construction into the center of WV, currently called "Corridor H", that is intended to link up with 66, a major artery in and out of the DC metro area.

I think it's unlikely that high speed rail gets built in that corridor any time soon, simply because high speed rail in general seems unlikely in the U.S. right now.

> I wonder how long until someone builds a high speed commuter line into the heart of WV from DC. There is probably an obvious reason not to, but from my west coast perspective it seems like a good idea.

I grew up in MD and spent a lot of time in WV. It's a beautiful state with a lot of wonderful people. It has a modest crime rate and a murder rate typically 1/3 lower than the US rate. And of course as noted it's quite poor relatively speaking. Sub par economic outcomes is one of the long-term constants of WV. You will often notice the difference in the quality of the roads immediately when you cross into WV from MD or VA.

Here's one big reason why that high-speed line will never happen from DC to eg Morgantown or Charleston WV: the population of West Virginia hasn't increased since the 1930s. 1.8m people in 1935, 1.8m today (and falling). The demand just is never going to be there, given the extreme cost to build infrastructure in the US.

The puzzle piece you are missing is topography. Load up a topo map of the state sometime. Nearly all of it is a twisted, practically fractal landscape of hills/mountains.

And unlike some other regions known for mountains (like New England) there are no (relatively) wide valleys between them.

It's wild, beautiful, and absolutely awful for building even a decent sized town in. It's why the few cities in the states are at the far edges, and even they are hilly. It's also obviously terrible for building transport infrastructure to get anywhere quickly.

That is an excellent point. The topography makes it beautiful, but now that you mention it, I can see how it would make building an expensive hassle.

I've also often driven through both quite a bit when I lived up north.

I'm not sure I could tell you if I was in (non-coastal) rural MD or rural WV (same as I'm not sure I could tell you if I was in Fairmont, Cumberland or Winchester).

The "second poorest" is likely a misquote. The Hasidic community of Kiryas Joel has a notably high official poverty rate due to the lifestyle of the people living there. This is one village in one county. The entire state in aggregate is not anywhere near the poorest even with NYC removed.

New York has the second lowest purchasing-power adjusted median income. On the Census Bureau’s supplemental poverty measure (which accounts for cost of living), New York is the third poorest, with 17.9% of people living in poverty (versus 14.8% for West Virginia): https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publicatio....

CA does very poorly by that measure. Both of these states have large rural populations (which bring down the median income), as well as large urban centers (which bring up the cost of living).

I don't think I estimated the size of difference at all. Are you suggesting that there is a cutoff below which differences in income don't affect where people decide to live? Is the difference between NY to VA above or below that cutoff?

I guess my main point is that we take this freedom for granted in the U.S. and generally folks don't examine it, or consider it to be good, or consider it not bad enough to be worth changing. I can tell you that there is zero public concern in VA about economic migrants from NY state.

An oversight in your observation is failing to account for the fact that equilibriation processes are slower and less dramatic when there are smaller differences between two things. E.g. dropping ice onto a hot pan is quite dramatic. Dropping 60 degree water into 70 degree water not so much.

> Are you suggesting that there is a cutoff below which differences in income don't affect where people decide to live?

Of course there is, for plenty of reasons:

- Moving away from friends and family is not free, is risky financially (what if your new job does not pan out), and is often simply not something people want

- Population-wide differences do not guarantee that you personally will gain anything by moving (correlation vs causation)

- Small differences in average incomes are imperceptible to most people, and the quality of average person's financial analysis is lacking. For example, looking at just median income ignores differences in cost of living, quality of government services, lifestyle, and anything occupation-specific.

- There is often more variation in median income within a state (e.g. urban vs rural areas) than across states. Migration from rural to urban areas is a thing.

- etc.

> And there is a very large internal migration from states like New York to states like Virginia

I don't feel particularly qualified in this area, it's an interesting question though; but, this really needs a citation. I think you're making a very strong claim here, that there is a "very large" migration from New York to Virginia -- although I have a problem with the qualifier "states like" -- what does that mean? Blue/red states? Northeast/South? Does "states like Virginia" include Florida, because that feels like a pretty strong outlier for the rest of the South.

In any case, here's a little information I've found, which I don't have the time right now to seriously analyze to support or refute your statement

* https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2019/04/moves-from-so... * ttps://www.census.gov/data/tables/2018/demo/geographic-mobility/cps-2018.html

Then there's the issue of comparing median income, without including average or standard deviation in the analysis. And while I can see the value of adjusting for Regional Price Parity, I would be curious to see a county-by-county breakdown of New York state -- I would guess the burough of Manhattan ("New York County" apparently) would also be a dramatic outlier, statistically, compared to the rest of the state.

Lies, damn lies, and statistics, I need to see a lot more to feel convinced of either argument.

The people in rural, red areas are usually concerned about urban, blue immigrants- they drive up prices, have an outsized effect in politics, then bitch about how things aren't as great as where they came from. I've seen this with New Yorkers in Virginia, Californians in Colorado, and Washingtonians in Montana.

See: http://thecontextofthings.com/2014/04/23/people-are-leaving-.... Domestic migration is flowing from New York, LA, etc., to southern cities like Charlotte, Houston, etc., where purchasing power is higher. New York lost 1.5 million net residents to domestic migration from 2001 to 2008. (I.e. 1.5 million more people left New York for another state than left another state for New York.)

> It’s like the difference between Belgium and Australia.

Which are almost on opposite sides of the planet, never mind that the one is a very small country and the other is a huge continent.

West Virginia is being emptied, however, with a net loss of population over time. People do leave bad economic areas for good ones over time.

People don’t move to Washington from Oregon because their jobs are in Oregon and they would be subject to income taxes anyways. Really not smart if you work in Vancouver WA to live in Portland, however (income taxes are an or proposition).

However, I totally agree. Contrast this to China’s hukou system, where you can be a foreigner in your own country because you live in a city without hukou, even if you were born there.

The hukou system is fascinating- I literally turned to a Chinese coworker to ask about it. He is dealing with visa issues in the US, and explained if he wanted to go live in the Chinese city of his family, he'd have essentially a new set of "visa" issues there!

Never having heard of the hukou system before (wikipedia[1] for anyone in the same boat) I have a hard time understanding the rationale behind it. The only "benefit" I can see is the government having more control over citizen movement and reduced class mobility. I was surprised that people with rural hukou status who had migrated to urban areas were reluctant to change status. I'm curious how it's perceived by the people?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hukou_system

They aren’t reluctant to change their status, they simply can’t. Hukou upgrades only come with marriage or divine central government intervention. Even if your ancestors moved to that city a few generations ago, it won’t change your (or your descendants) hukou; ie no jus soli.

Reading about the program that was my initial guess as to how it would work as well so I was surprised when I got to this section[1] of the wikipedia article that seems to say people are deliberately choosing not to convert from rural to urban. The entire section is sourced to an article[2] titled "China's Hukou Puzzle: Why Don't Rural Migrants Want Urban Hukou*"

Interestingly, the asterisk in the title indicates the research was funded in part by the Chinese government and the user who included the paragraph/source in the article has been banned by Wikipedia[3].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hukou_system#Hukou_conversion_...

[2] [PDF] https://www.geog.ucla.edu/sites/default/files/users/fan/a133...

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Backendgaming

Farmers do lose the rights to their land when they are given urban hukou, but that is part of the divine central government intervention I was referring to. It isn’t usually the case that they are migrants, but their land is being “liberated” by a nearby city and their hukou is being changed to urban so that they no longer have rights to that land anyways (they’ll also be given a small apartment, good luck with your new career as a non-farmer!).

This is a bit different from people moving from one place to another, and involves another nuance between urban and rural hukou within the same area.

But like, what's a Washingtonian going to say, "These Oregonians are stealing our jobs!"? No way!

So confusing...

We are too busy complaining about Californians stealing our jobs and houses to think much about Oregonians (and I was born in Portland so...).

I did the equivalent for almost 10 years. (Lived in Massachusetts; worked in New Hampshire.) But I owned a house I liked and it didn't make sense to move.

The problem with this argument is that going from most of south America to any part of central America would be a large economic jump. And we know that people who come into the USA illegally tend to go towards major hubs with more economic activity and opportunity. The amount of economic migration would increase for sure. And in a situation where we already turn around over 100,000 a month for attempting to cross illegally, not to mention the number we never catch, it's definitely not going to advantage American citizens to have open borders along the Mexico-USA border.

If anything it would disadvantage citizens.

Where there's economic activity and opportunity that immigrants are drawn to, like you said, then that means there's an unmet demand for labor in the host country. A business that could expand, but isn't able to because it can't find workers.

Immigrants then spend the money they've earned which further stimulates the local economy and increases tax revenue for governments.

This basic reasoning is why economists are pretty united in the idea that immigration is good for citizens of host countries experiencing immigration, and real-world data has shown this over and over again.

The idea that immigration to the United States disadvantages citizens just isn't supported by evidence.

>then that means there's an unmet demand for labor in the host country

Where did you come up with that idea? Maybe you meant there is unmet demand for labor at a lower cost, or lower than minimum cost (under the table, etc). This can come at the expense of people earning moderate wages who are not going to be happy about this. A race to the bottom does have issues.

Same with EU, people seems to take it for granted but every time I think about it I find it amazing that it works as well as it does and how good it is.

It was used as an argument for Brexit in our referendum. I'm not sure that was the real reason for the agitators though.

Which was dumb then and still is - UK was never part of the Schengen agreement and has full control of its borders, it can stop anyone from entering as it pleases.

Not really, no. One of the basic tenets of the EU single market is free movement of goods and people. Schengen agreement just removes border controls. UK has the freedom to stop any non-EU citizen from entering as it pleases but so does every other EU country, including the Schengen ones.

See my reply above - even with free movement, there's plenty of cases where you can deny someone entry. Right to free movement is not absolute, and UK is in a fantastic position because it can inspect every single person coming here, unlike for example Germany.

Indeed, and it doesn't. Non-EU immigrants still outnumber EU immigrants.

To clarify the united states system, states have rights to regulate commerce within their territories. So movement of goods is not in fact free. For example, California has border gates where they will sporadically check for and confiscate certain agricultural products.

Yes, the state that wants to be a sanctuary state has border gates and enforcement.

Schengen is about being able to check at your borders. Indeed the UK can still do that, despite being in Europe.

However, the UK still has to allow free movement of people. Meaning that it can not stop Europeans from living in the UK. This does not cover working though, and I believe that some European nationalities still have to apply for a work permit.

See http://www.europarl.europa.eu/factsheets/en/sheet/147/free-m...

You get it backwards, free movement of people is for workers, you don't have the right to stay if you aren't working (or alternatively studying, or living with someone who works) — though this isn't heavily enforced

You're right. I just looked it up to be sure. When I lived in the UK in 2007, Bulgaria and Romania entered the EU. There was some fuss about that, and initially those nationalities did not automatically obtain a work permit.

These were granted the same rights in 2014.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-25237742

UK can stop anyone who is deemed national security from entering(if the worry is criminals coming here) and free movement applies only if you're employed, a student or can demonstrate that you have enough funds to live here without assistance - without it you can be denied entry. So that should solve the issue of "immigrants coming here for benefits". Really, UK has full power over its borders, it just chose not to exercise if.

The United States has "open borders" arround the states, because it is the _United_ States. For th emost part, most of the EU has "open borders" arround their member countries. (Sometime that flexes since it's not united)

As far as the diversity in culture, I would not agree with that amongst states. Not in a way of comparing say Costa Rica to Panama or the UK to France.

Canada has free movement between provinces, including Quebec, which has a different language and a different legal system. Not arguing the larger point one way or the other, but wanted to add this data point.

It's not quite so clear cut. In WA, I feel far more cultural similarity to British Columbia than I do to California or Colorado. And Central Americans easily feel more cultural similarity to other Central Americans (they were even a united federal country, sans Panama, at one point), whereas Mexico might as well be Norway to them.

Having just finished re-watching Ken Burns' Civil War for the first time in 20 years or so, like a freshman psychology student who now understands the motivations of the entire world, there is a line in the documentary, stated I believe by Shelby Foote, that stuck with me

> Before the war, it was said, "The United States are." Grammatically, it was spoken that way and thought of as a collection of independent states. After the war, it was always "the United States is," as we say today without being self-conscious. That sums up what the war accomplished. It made us an "is." *

I certainly, today, think of the U.S. as a whole, not as a collection of independent states, and consider the issue of states' rights to be a generally pointless debate.

* Ignore the issues for a moment with the documentary itself and with Shelby Foote, who has stated Nathan Bedford Forrest is "one of the most attractive men who ever walked through the pages of history" -- seriously, I don't even know what to do with that. And I don't know if they did their footwork -- a textual analysis of, say, newspapers prior and subsequent to the Civil War saying "the United States are" compared to "the United States is." From what I've seen regarding issues with the documentary, I would question it, but I don't know for certain. Some things they seem to have done good scholarly work on; others, not as much.

re: issues with the Ken Burns documentary: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/why-we-need-new-civil...

There's a huge amount of cross border inter-state migration in the US. Maybe 30% of the population over a lifetime. I would guess less than half of citizens die in the state their parents were born.

I echo your amazement with the sheer size of the open border area. It's possibly the largest in the world.

US states are very culturally homogenous. Likely the highest similarity in the world among large countries. Possibly a result of such a mixed heritage and extremely pervasive cultural influences. Who really knows though.

I've been to many states and the difference between even coasts is the same as maybe 300 miles of travel in Europe or Asia.

Most people don't like migrating (whether that's intercity, interstate, or to a different country). Culture, identity and familiarity have a lot more staying power than HN readers (who tend to be a very transitory demographic) give credit.

Oregon and Washington are an interesting case. Washington has the most regressive tax system in the US. Oregon is one of the least regressive (yeah, all states are regressive). You would think that wealthy folks would really want to move across the river to escape Oregon's income tax. The problem, though, is that there are just two bridges across the river and they are frequently very busy, and 99% of everything is on the Oregon side. The only way I would move from Portland to the other side is if I am moving all the way to the Seattle area. And that is unlikely, I enjoy Portland too much.

I think it comes down to the fact that people don't care as much about taxes as is commonly thought. They care about how much they like a city, or the general culture, or how close they are to mountains or the ocean.

Tax is belabored because it's so ideological, like when the Kansas governor claimed cutting taxes would bring a rush of new industries into Kansas (it didn't).

I know though when I chose to move from Texas to Hawaii to Washington State I never thought too much about taxes at any point.

Retirees care.

That may be somewhat true, but I know a lot of retirees in Portland that could easily relocate. Also I'm not positive in the case of Oregon how much the income tax really applies to retirees.

The issue is washingtonians working in oregon would pay oregon tax. Tax applies if you work in the state not if you live there. Living in portland and working in Washington is the best bet if you can pull it off

Unless something has changed very recently, you pay Oregon income tax if you live here or work here. To avoid it altogether you would have to both live and work in Vancouver.

(until 5 years ago I lived in Portland and worked in Vancouver)

Seems like im wrong. However this puts oregon in a minority of states i believe. Most states do not tax residents on income earned in another state though they certainly could

> U.S. states are sovereign entities with their own criminal laws, tax regimes, educational systems, property and contract rights, civil rights, economic growth, industries, natural resources, etc.

States can hardly be considered sovereign entities anymore. They are subservient to federal laws, educational standards, international trade restrictions, environmental protections, etc. States aren't even allowed to leave the federation.

MD to WV is nothing like the difference between Mexico or Guatemala to the US.

True but public sentiment on this is not a matter of degree; it's not like Americans go around saying "open borders between U.S. states is only a little bit bad, in proportion to relative economic differences."

In my experience it's most often taken for granted, or seen as contributing to American cultural and economic strength--a good thing.

Or compare Los Angeles to Beverly Hills. These two cities share a border. Median incomes are way, way higher in Beverly Hills. And LA's poor millions are free to crowd right into to Beverly Hills and just start grabbing up some of that wealth. But it barely happens at all. The two populations are not merging nearly as much as the shared border would predict.

>And LA's poor millions are free to crowd right into to Beverly Hills and just start grabbing up some of that wealth.

Yeah, not really free. They can't pay rent in Beverly Hills, they can't afford to shop at Beverly Hills shops, they can't even be walking around looking poor without harassment (especially if also black/latino), they don't have access to closed communities, and so on...

Wow, it's almost like the people who live in fancy, rich neighborhoods enforce both laws and social norms to keep their neighborhoods fancy and rich.

Yeah, like redlining.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redlining

> They can't pay rent in Beverly Hills

sure they can: eight or ten people can pool resources and rent a one bedroom apartment. happens all the time in other cities.

> they can't even be walking around looking poor without harassment (especially if also black/latino)

I don't quite know where you're getting that. I mean, it's not like the city has enacted some kind of Jim Crow regime. Beverly Hills residents were among Barack Obama's most generous donors. You think they would stand for that kind of evil in their own city?

Beverly Hills is represented by Democrats at the state and national levels. It sits in the middle of one of California's bluest counties. Are you saying LA County is tolerating that kind of blatant discrimination in one of its cities? This isn't Louisiana or Alabama for goodness sake.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beverly_Hills%2C_California#20...

>I don't quite know where you're getting that. I mean, it's not like the city has enacted some kind of Jim Crow regime.

Such places have done exactly that, in several ways. E.g.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redlining

This a good source of tens of other methods (and it's not even up to day) used in L.A in general to keep the "riffraff" out:

https://www.amazon.com/City-Quartz-Excavating-Future-Angeles...

>Beverly Hills residents were among Barack Obama's most generous donors.

That's not really relevant. They can virtue signal how non-racist they are (as long as it doesn't cost them anything real -- donations help buy favors) and still only live in 99% white areas, with closed gates, and local pops/private police ready to harass black/latino people for your protection.

>You think they would stand for that kind of evil in their own city?

100%

> Such places have done exactly that, in several ways. E.g.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redlining

You're not presenting evidence specific to Beverly Hills here. Saying that "such places have done exactly that" is not evidence of what's happening today specifically in Beverly Hills. And redlining is not a scheme for harassing people who are walking around on the street. Why is that your response in this context?

> They can virtue signal how non-racist they are (as long as it doesn't cost them anything real -- donations help buy favors) and still only live in 99% white areas

You're assuming the very point you should be proving. You haven't offered any evidence about why some BH residents supported Obama. Instead, you assigned them a motive without providing any objective evidence. How are you going to persuade anyone of your viewpoints that way? And Beverly Hills is not 99% white.

Bev Hills has fought tooth and claw to ensure a subway would not go through their city, and it was generally reported that the fear was that poorer people would be more easily able to go there. They (shamefully) got their Democratic congressman, Henry Waxman, to pass a bill forbidding Federal funding for any subway to the area: https://la.curbed.com/2012/4/13/10379720/eighties-subwaystal...

Some of this opposition continues to this day. Here’s the latest dispatch: https://www.lamag.com/driver/beverly-hills-finally-loses-cra...

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/beverly-hills-back-on-the_b_5...

Anecdote: my friend from Trinidad who has an affinity for Caucasian women told me a story of harassment in Beverly Hills. He and a lady friend were in the woman's Mercedes and the police pulled them over and kept asking the woman if she was "under duress".

I feel like you're both supporting the parent's point: fears about open international borders are overblown because things like cost of living, culture or private property naturally limit massive migration.

Cost of living prevents a poor guy from some lesser LA area to rent in Beverly Hills.

While the same "but how I would afford the same lifestyle in US" might be a concern for middle class immigrants from poorer countries considering getting there, it's not really relevant to mass immigration from poverty stricken areas, as people from there can (and do) enter the US and live in dirt poor areas, working whatever minimum wage job they find (in fact they're welcomed from employers for being able to get paid so much less), and taking it up from there if/when they can...

> ... mass immigration from poverty stricken areas, as people from there can (and do) enter the US and live in dirt poor areas

it's also true that many people from poverty stricken areas in other countries live in moderate to expensive areas in LA County, like LA's West Side, Downtown, and Koreatown, as well as neighboring cities including Santa Monica, Burbank, West Hollywood, Torrance, etc. again, to do this, multiple inviduals or families simply pool resources and rent an apartment or house and share that space.

given that about 9% of Beverly Hills's population falls below the poverty line, it's a safe bet that this high density renting strategy is also employed within that city.

i think you're right. and i don't even need to look at the open border situation in West Virginia. i mean, i can look much closer to where i live (LA).

just from examining the nearby BH/LA border, we see that there may be other "invisible borders" (e.g. "Our prices discriminate so we don't have to") that prevent two populations from really fully merging.

it seems likely that any "open border" is actually accompanied by a unique set of additional, invisible borders, and cultural, financial and linguistic "force fields," sometimes powerful, sometimes weak.

But the U.S. is still one country.

Only to outsiders because individual states do not make treaties with foreign countries. However states do sometimes send their own commercial ambassadors and meet with world leaders.

States also retain full sovereignty of their territory except for limited cases and maintain their own armies navies and air forces

> States ... maintain their own armies navies and air forces

Say what?

This is true. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_defense_force

The National Guard are the individual armies of each state. Typically, they aide the army and obey national orders. However their commander in chief is the governor of their state not the president.

As an example, California has pretty strict border controls on its state bordera. Bringing certain agricultural goods into california is illegal and they will fine or jail you depending on the severity.

It is entirely possible and legal, but unlikely, that the governor of California sends it national guard troops to the border if Oregonians for example were attempting to storm the border with ferrets or something.

It's difficult to express how profoundly misapprehended your comparisons are.

Moving into a higher-income area is the last thing poor rural Americans want - and the last thing that would help them. They are already living in high assistance areas - the area assisted by the United State federal government.

People invading the US are not looking to be in a high-income area, because that implies a higher cost of living. They are looking to be in a high-assistance area. They are not looking to make money, and have little prospect of that. They are looking to be given money.

That must be taken from someone else.

Please don't do regional flamewar, or any flamewar, on HN.

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